Ghostbusters Pt 2: Patty Tolan vs the Double Standard

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.

Ghostbusters 2016 Breakdown

The 1980’s gave us lots of things to be nostalgic about, but one of the crowning achievements of that era was the original “Ghostbusters” film.  It stands out as a “must see” on almost every film fan’s list.  That alone is enough to label any attempt at a reboot of the franchise as a horrifying cash grab.

It doesn’t help that for the last ten years or so we’ve been hip deep in reboots of classic films.  Some of them have been soulless and shameless; some of them have been heartfelt and even improved on the original.  I think that may be the starting point to the controversy of the new “Ghostbusters” film. 

The History

The original film was collaboration between Dan Aykroyd, Harlold Ramis, and Ivan Reitman.  These were the concept creators, the writers, and the polishers of the story.  As the film grew into a reality and changes had to happen, they happened organically because these three guys were involved all the way.  They shaped the world of the Ghostbusters first hand.  That is a very big deal because under normal circumstances you have one person submit a story idea and they either bring in a script or the script idea is farmed out to writers who submit multiple drafts until one is picked, polished and printed.  The studio hires a director, they cast the characters and the final product can feel very manufactured.  Its and assembly line process really and the original film was not this.  It was something that grew and the people who started it were the ones who finished it.  So, “Ghostbusters” as a film feels alive, like it’s a person and for a lot of fans, that person became a friend.

I grew up with the franchise.  I wore out two VHS copies of the original film; I saw the second film eight times while I was laid up from an injury in the 4th grade (my dad rented it for me).  I watched the original cartoon in its entirety and yes, I even watched “Extreme Ghostbusters”.  Right about here is where a lot of fans get divided.  There was very big push for “Ghostbusters III” but that was on the heels of “Extreme Ghostbusters”, and it was with that series that you could see the quality really flake away from the original concept.  With the lack of quality, so went the interest.  Ghostbusters is a franchise that lives off of its fan base.  It needs a strong foundation in order to support quality work.  The final result of “Ghostbusters III” was a result of a lack of interest in studios would have translated into a bad movie and the creators didn’t think the fans that stayed the course deserved a bad move.  So Ghostbusters faded from theatres and television and lived on in comic book format.  But in its legacy it maintained that friendship with its fans.  It still felt very organic very alive.

“Ghostbusters 2016” does not feel that way.  It feels very manufactured.  At least that’s what the first preview would have you believe.

The Warning Shot

When the first trailer for “Ghostbusters” circa 2016 dropped I honestly started off confused.  Text at the beginning referenced the original franchise, and they played the key cords to the original theme, and then seemed to forget that those events ever took place.  The jokes showcased in the trailer on the raunchy side, bordering on inappropriate because I guess that’s funny.  Then came Leslie Jones’ character.  This was the moment that I think made a lot of fans just cut ties from the move all together.  She was loud, she came across as “hood” and the trailer made her look incredibly stupid.  The portrayal of the character in the trailer made her look like every negative black stereotype imaginable.

Leslie Jones took the back lash personally and even commented “Why can’t a regular person be a Ghostbuster?”

Well, a regular person CAN be a Ghostbuster.  A regular person WAS a Ghostbuster.  Winston Zeddemore played by Ernie Hudson was a guy who came in off the street and applied for the job.  He even had the purest of motives, a steady paycheck.  He grew into one of the most respectable, grounded, and conventionally wise characters of the 1980’s.  He was a role model, he was someone kids, no matter your race, but especially if you were black, could look up to and say “I could be like him.”

The way the first trailer portrayed Jones’ character was the exact opposite of Zeddemore which for many fans spelled disaster.  This was just another slapped together studio film.  And the ghosts on screen didn’t help the image.

Ghostbuster’s ghosts have a very specific look.  They are semi solid but translucent with a very faint glow about them.  These ghosts were bright, loud, neon colors with significant glows that hurt your eyes.  On top of that they invoke a very bad memory as many of them look like they escaped a screening of Eddie Murphy’s “Haunted Mansion”.  Anything that triggers a latent memory of that movie is going to garner a negative reaction.

Studios Need to Reevaluate

So remember I keep specifying “the first trailer” and “give the impression”.  That’s because that’s just the way the first trailer was cut.  When the second trailer came out there was a very different tone.  There were more dialogs about what was actually going on, smarter jokes and the balance was shifted.  Leslie Jones actually had more screen time in the second trailer and it made her character look a lot better.  There was more wit about her.  Where the first trailer made her look like a screaming fool, the second one made her more down to earth, more aware of the situation and more reasonable in her responses.  Basically they turned her from a screening of “Soul Plane” into an actual person, someone you could have a conversation with.

Toned down also were the gross out jokes.  Frankly I didn’t need to know where Kristin Wiig need to scrub slime out of on her body, and thankfully the second trailer did not retread that material.  Yes, the ghost vomits slime on her but that’s it.

Kate McKinnon comes across as a character that speaks when it’s actually needed but gives great reactions to events going on around her, even when it’s just two characters accidentally talking over each other.

Melissa McCarthy is a great comedic actress, but a lot of times it feels like she’s just playing herself.   Regardless it’s very clear she’s having a blast.

In short the whole tone of the films was elevated from one trailer to the next.

The Fallout

But was this tonal shift enough to get fans interested again in the film?  Well, for some it was.  For some it just drew some harder criticisms.

Having a gender swapped cast did not sit well with feminist, which some people found ironic until you realize that feminism isn’t about putting girls first but rather evening the playing field between the genders.  Feminists wanted a mixed team, men and women working together on equal playing fields.  Having Chris Hemsworth (Thor) as the hired on eye candy very much hurt the message feminists were trying to get out there.

Ultimately the damage is done because the film, for better or for worse is in the can and slated for release with no time to adjust or reshoot or recast to meet the criticisms.  But ultimately that is fine.  Sony is standing by their product and that’s what they need to do right now.  They need to say “like it or not, here it is.”  The big question is whether or not the film will earn enough to justify a sequel.  As we saw with “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows” a sequel can be an opportunity to fix flaws in the first of the series.  If they decided to make the cast more inclusive they can either expand the number of Ghostbusters or rotate in new characters and out old characters.

When I came to understand that the film was, in fact, a reboot, I felt that was shortsighted on the part of the studio.  I personally think it would have been great to have the “Ghostbusters” as a business lying dormant for two decades, and have these women discover something serious going on and need to revive the spectral fighting service.  They could go to the remaining 3 Ghostbusters, past their prime to be any help or shell-shocked from their last adventure and they sign over the rights and equipment to the new crew and then the new crew build and improve on that technology.  It would be 5 minutes out of a movie that could have satisfied the fans of yesterday and given the movie a stronger foot hold.

But that didn’t happen.  So what you could do in a sequel is expand the cast by at least 2, include two guys to aid the team  and make them just as important, not more important, just as important to the group.

Also wash out the colors of the ghosts because that’s really painful to look at.  The designs are alright, but they are hard to look at.