Apparently I have a lot more to say about Ghostbusters than I initially thought.
One of the more controversial moments that came from the
first trailer centered on Leslie Jone’s character, Patty Tolan. When the trailer opens, its shown that she
works in the subway, where presumably she encounters something seriously
paranormal. From there she teams with
the Ghostbusters and they begin their plan of attack on the supernatural. She even provides the team with a vehicle, borrowing
a car from her uncle. Of course she
states that it’s a Cadillac, but fails to disclose that it’s a hearse. (Trivia: The original Ecto 1 was a refitted
ambulance, not a hearse).
The next few lines she has, in the trailer is upon
witnessing a character possessed are “Oh the devil is a liar.” “Get out of my
friend, ghost!” she then slaps the character, followed by “The Power of Pain
compels you!” accompanied by another slap.
Admittedly if this was going to be the character for the
entire movie, that would be extremely annoying, but it was less than a minute
of screen time, hardly enough time to get to know a character.
Yet therein lay the problem, the trailer is designed to give
you a quick hit of each character so you can determine if you like them or not,
and this particular trailer was not flattering to Leslie Jones at all. At best she came across as dim witted. At worst a black stereotype. Unfortunately critics immediately latched
onto the latter, with Akilah Hughes
of Fusion referring to the character as “a
minstrel show”.
Real quick, what
is a minstrel show? The minstrel show, or minstrelsy, was an American form of
entertainment developed in the 19th century. It was a form of entertainment
that required payment to attend. Each show consisted of comic skits, variety
acts, dancing, and music, performed by white people in make-up or blackface for
the purpose of playing the role of black people. Minstrel shows lampooned black people as
dim-witted, lazy, buffoonish, superstitious, happy-go-lucky, and musical.
To say the least
this is an unfavorable comparison for modern black actors, especially since the
stereotype set down by the minstrel shows reached all the way into movies being
made in the mid 1950’s.
That comparison,
of Jones’ performance to a minstrel show, actually is right where the double
standard starts. If you compare Patty
Tolan to, say, almost every black, male side kick character ever made, starting
from Chris Tucker, into Busta Rhymes from the “Shaft” film, to almost every
character played by Kevin Hart and even Anthony Anderson’s character from “Transformers”,
you see that she’s not that far from the standard. You can go so far as to look at Tyler Perry’s
Madea series and the assorted characters that litter the background. The major difference is that she’s female.
It’s highly
likely that if the character had been played by a male actor, it would have
slipped under the radar of scrutiny, but that is the double standard we have
for women and Leslie Jones caught the brunt of it.
Leslie Jones is
an attractive woman, but she’s not “conventionally attractive” so she can’t get
away with portraying what some see as a stereotype. Even if she was “conventionally attractive”
they would have given her scrutiny because society will want her to be a “role
model for young black girls.” If every
actor I just listed doesn’t have to be a role model to young black boys, why
does she have to be one?
Leslie Jones
famously shot back on Twitter by stating "Why can't a regular person be a
ghostbuster?", and I pointed out in a previous blog that a regular person WAS
a ghostbuster in the form of Ernie Hudson’s Winston Zeddemore, but that he
could be a regular person without falling into the stereotypes set down for
black sidekicks of the 1980’s. But what
is “a regular person”?
I won’t speculate
as to what Leslie Jones’ social or familial background is, but it’s reasonable
to assume she knows at least one person with traits similar to Patty
Tolan. I don’t say that to pigeon hole
her into a particular demographic, the fact is that everyone who’s ever stepped
out their front door and worked in the work force knows someone with similar
traits. I do, and she’s a mover and
shaker at a sheriff’s department so if you tell me that a person like Patty
Tolan couldn’t get anywhere in the world, I’d have to call you out on some
serious narrow mindedness.
The point is
that, to an extent, Patty Tolan is a regular person who has a lot of potential
as a character and its 1) unfair of anyone to base judgement on a total of 1
minute of screen time stretched across two trailers and 2) unfair to hold any
one to a standard that we don’t set for everyone across the board.
Going back I
found the character annoying because that kind of person annoys me. I don’t like yelling.
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