Ghostbusters Director Calls Out "Assholes in Geek Culture"

[klaynexas3]

Something I find funny is so many people think that "geek" culture is one of the ones filled with the most assholes versus any other kind of culture.

Possibly because you don't see other groups freak out and react like this. And yet, it's (now un)surprisingly common to see here. Especially now that we have a "censorship" nontroversy every week. Just maybe there's a reason people single out "geek" culture.

When was the last time there was a riot because geeks weren't happy about something? I can't think of a news story in which one geek killed another because the other wasn't as excited about an event that just happened. I haven't almost gotten into a fist fight with someone just because I didn't like the thing that they liked. Geek culture might be more likely to take to the internet to ***** and moan, but that doesn't mean that there are more assholes in its culture, they just have the noise and anonymity that the Internet provides. Hell, it might even numerically speaking have more assholes just because of how big geek culture is just because of how encompassing the term geek is, but speaking in percentages, there's no way there are more than in any other sort of popular culture.

Geek culture is brimming with assholes, it's an issue that should be resolved, this is all true, but it really is not worse than any other culture, which is mainly what I'm trying to say.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

What exactly does that have to do with your Ghostbusters remake/reboot looking like right garbage?

It might have to do with the hissyfit that was being thrown before a single actor, a single frame of footage, or the trailer came out. Weirdly enough, the controversy started when the word "female" was uttered.

It might have to do with the systemic way this movie has come under fire, heavier than any other "hated" or "garbage" movie has.

IIRC at least the initial fires that were set weren't focused on it being a full female team but rather the way it was marketed on that merit before any film or images were released. Now more assholes did come out of the woodwork because of the whole female aspect, but I do recall the initial reaction of WTF?!??!? being based around how the marketing played up the whole diversity angle as if it were the best thing that could have happened to this series, which hurt the whole movie right out the gate.

Now, having seen the trailer, my reaction is based solely upon it feeling cheap and relying heavily on comedy I don't find funny, which while it doesn't ruin the original in any way, feels like its not really honoring the spirit (pun possibly intended) of Ghostbusters. I've talked about McCarthy before, and why I'm not a fan, and I've more or less put out very serious reasons why I'm not confident this will be anything near the quality of the first movie.
I'm hoping it won't take a giant shit on the franchise, despite my dislike for McCarthy I'm never one to hope for anyone's work to fail. But that being said, all the hope in the world won't change my perspective on what I've seen so far and Feig's not giving me anything to work with here. Actually he's harming the image more than helping it at this point.

 

[Roboshi]

This is exactly what I feared, they had an opportunity to make a good film with good actresses and work on it's own merit as it's own thing. But now it's clear, they didn't pick these actresses because they were good but because they were great nerd shielding if the trailer or movie turned out bad.

I hope I'm wrong here and I do hope the movie turns it around from the terrible trailer, and I even hope this is just a director getting angry at being judged too early. But I'm not gonna waste that much hope on another dubious reboot of a beloved franchise.

Once again social media is being played by those with money to get instant fans for something because "hey we're doing something for your cause" and that is the true irony there; The all-female ghostbusters may be the most sexist movie all year.

 

[Areloch]

I feel this accurately sums up the entire thing:

I watched the trailer, and was mindbogglingly unimpressed with it and it soured me on the entire movie. There have been PLENTY of movies with leading actresses or, heck, entire leading female cast that have won critical and commercial success. So it's not like the misogyny-mole-people just happened to unearth right when this trailer appeared.

It just looks terrible, and if that wasn't bad enough, its a terrible-looking reboot-non-reboot of something people already loved.

 

[Callate]

Wow, is this not gonna help.

I mean, I think I get it: it probably took a lot of work to get the go-ahead to make a new Ghostbusters movie, and many of the people in your cast are quite talented (at least, when they have good material to work with). You see your hard work getting tanked before it even has a chance to get off the ground and you feel a need to defend it.

But "I think it's funny" is barely a response to "this character is both a cliche and a race caricature", let alone a good one. And while "Geek culture is home to some of the biggest assholes I've ever seen" is, strictly speaking, a clearly subjective statement and one that applies to specific individuals, rather than saying the entire culture is rotten, that's probably not how it's going to be taken- and this movie could really stand to be courting those people rather than alienating them.

I've already said I didn't care much for the trailer: it tells when it should show, it doesn't do much to suggest either camaraderie or comic chemistry between the players, and the black character actually saying that she's street-smart rather than book-smart can't help but inspire eye-rolling. But I don't damn it out of hand; I'd be pleased as punch if the trailer was mis-representing it and it was actually a funny and well-written movie.

But the Internet will do what the Internet does best: ignore anyone who actually wants to talk things through and reduce things to volleys of invective from those who want to see blood. Destroy this excrement movie! Burn geek culture down! Grr! Grr!

 

[Something Amyss]

Rageaholism, a tendency to get ridiculously excited over advertisements of things we like, a collection of tat that the most committed hoarder would consider trash and the important, life saving skill of being able to tell the difference between wars and treks of the various types?

Okay, followup question: what's worth defending about geek culture?

Because that sounds pretty awful.

2nd I hate to admit it but nerd culture needs to tune it down big time. I remember back in 2011-2012 I was getting harassed for... not liking what others liked. Whether it be JRPGs, manga or Nintendo I would get hate mail nearly every day for it. Even my friends growing up were like that. Just trying to play a fighter or a MOBA got me death threats for being new. There are times where I wish the community would die off or get a huge shift because despite it supposed to be "those people who accept the rejects" I have yet to see it or experience it.

Then why is Paul Feig at fault for kicking the proverbial hornet's nest? Everyone was riled up already.

I mean, I don't really get the antipathy anyway. I adore the original Ghostbusters, and really wish Murray hadn't held up the third movie so long that Ramis died. TBH, i'd rather see a Ghostbusters 3, even without Ramis, than this movie. But like I said with the Star wars Prequels and Transformers and Spider-Man and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, it's not a huge deal if they don't appeal to me. These franchises aren't "ruined," and Ghostbusters won't be, either. Hell, I recently started reading the Ghostbusters IDW comics and they're awesome. TMNT on Nick is better than the 80s show. I still have Spectacular Spider-Man and decades of comic books.

I don't get the fanboyism on this scale. There are people I actually like who I don't talk to anymore because you get to a certain topic and they will react to things like you just told them you were going to kill their family in front of them. There's liking something, and there's demanding I talk about Dark Souls. There's enjoying Nintendo, and there's calling me stupid for not liking certain practices. There's preferring PC gaming, and then there's the dick-waving competition.

And there's not liking a movie, and then there's actively campaigning against it or obsessively attacking it.

And then there's double standards.

IIRC at least the initial fires that were set weren't focused on it being a full female team but rather the way it was marketed on that merit before any film or images were released.

Well, except it hadn't been marketed at that point. It had been announced, and immediately there were claims of forced politics and how women are unfunny as a whole (I resent that. I am only partially unfunny). When the first shot of the actresses came out, there was an outcry because they weren't smiling, which is surely a sign they weren't having fun and this movie was going to suck. Which is weird, because you probably don't remember Ramis/Murray/Aykroid/Hudson cracking smiles in the movie, either.

People were already dead set on this being a failure. I mean, you can #notallcritics if you want to, but that's not the point. There is an overwhelmingly disproportionate response to this movie, and I think you intuit that from what you've said just as much as I do.

Put it this way: Pixels' first trailer is sitting at roughly an 86% like rating on YouTube. Even the second trailer had an 80% approval rating. And honestly, the only good thing about that one was the presence of Freddie Mercury. This is a movie so offensively bad a lot of people who hate MovieBob were passing along his review/tirade and praising the vitriol he gave it. Do you seriously think this response is even remotely proportionate? That this trailer was so horrible that the response to it being orders of magnitude greater than that to freaking Pixels, is merited? No, let's go one step further: this trailer was disliked more than every movie I've mentioned in this thread. Combined. The closest we come is BVS, with roughly a combined 30,000 dislikes, when compared to over 750,000 dislikes.

Who do you honestly think are the bulk of the critics? Especially the ones still talking about it?

Yeah, just like those of us who wanted an accurate Human Torch are racists, right?

Trying to argue that you want accuracy in a FF movie but focusing on Human Torch doesn't really make a positive case. Those movies were accurate like Doctor Who is hard science.

 

[Saelune]

Yeah, just like those of us who wanted an accurate Human Torch are racists, right?

Trying to argue that you want accuracy in a FF movie but focusing on Human Torch doesn't really make a positive case. Those movies were accurate like Doctor Who is hard science.

Accuracy in relation to the comics, not reality.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Right. So why didn't Amazing Spider-Man get such a reaction? AMS2? Man of Steel? Batman v Superman? Green Lantern? Fantastic 4?

Most of those trailers are sitting at over 90% approval ratings on YouTube.

Because those trailers aren't as awful as Ghostbusters trailer.

 

[Lunar Templar]

*snickers*

the irony is, bad movie or not.

He's right.

 

[omega 616]

You can either, pay a bit of respect to your source material, update the jokes, add a few other tweeks to bring it up to the modern era and you'll more than likely make a boatload of cash and be praised OR you can put your own artistic spin on it and have it bomb.

What "geeks" want is the thing they love recreated on the silver screen, nothing more and it's not even that hard, talking as a person with ZERO knowledge on how the film industry works. I assume people still story board their films, the comics are your story board! The old film is your story board! Use what is there, see what fans love about the franchise you are about to take on.

If you start being arrogant, thinking you know what's best, you will piss off the very people who's money you are trying to get. Take the apocalypse costume from the movie VS cosplay, the movie one is getting all kinds of hate but as somebody who hates cosplay, the cosplay is fucking baller!

I can't think of a single time artistic licence has ended well, look at deadpool ... I bet in the wolverine film, nobody gave a fuck about deadpool, just saw a chance for a bad guy with cool powers and bent the character to their will, then Ryan comes along who loves the character, fully embraced who the character is and it blew the fuck up! Deadpool 2 is already being made, other films are going to 18+ and it made a boatload of cash.

I also think Melissa Mccarthy has one schtick and she schticks to it! The rude, brash, awkward one ...

 

[Saltyk]

It was a bad trailer, mate. Get over it.

 

[johnnyboy2537]

"I live or die on what things are funny" Well I'd say it was nice knowing you, Paul, but I'd be lying.

 

[Gutsripper]

He claims that the all-female cast is a mere co-incidence: the funniest people he knows just happen to be women, which is why he has cast them in the movie.

Fieg... you need to get out more, meet new people.

 

[Elfgore]

And people still have yet to realize that every fandom is filled with assholes. I just listened to a podcast that averages about a hundred or so listeners an episode get "attacked" by the leader of a fan club of a band they disliked. Who then had all of his fan club members do the same. For a practically unknown podcast. I've seen football fans practically fly into a blind rage during drafting season or when a referee makes a call they dislike. You see the bad side of geeks so much because you interact with them more than any other. It is is no worse than any other fandom or culture in the world. People are assholes, you will never change it.

Bro, you made a shitty trailer for a shitty looking movie. Not only did it fail as a comedy since I didn't even crack a smile, you're using an IP's hard earned success to get people into theatres.

 

[RaikuFA]

Then why is Paul Feig at fault for kicking the proverbial hornet's nest? Everyone was riled up already.

It's not just kicking it, its kicking it when the hornets were already pissed. Pissed for whatever issue they had with the movie.

 

[Something Amyss]

And people still have yet to realize that every fandom is filled with assholes. I just listened to a podcast that averages about a hundred or so listeners an episode get "attacked" by the leader of a fan club of a band they disliked. Who then had all of his fan club members do the same. For a practically unknown podcast. I've seen football fans practically fly into a blind rage during drafting season or when a referee makes a call they dislike. You see the bad side of geeks so much because you interact with them more than any other. It is is no worse than any other fandom or culture in the world. People are assholes, you will never change it.

Disproportionate example aside, Ithink Thunk covered this pretty well.


The fact that spanking is his example is irrelevant, it's a similar methodology.

 

[EndlessSporadic]

Hey comment section, thanks for proving Paul's point. I didn't even have to lift a finger.

 

[DefunctTheory]

A lot of stuff going on in this thread. Amusing, mostly, and nothing I think I can add to.

I would just like to point out how hilarious I find it that the director points out that Melissa McCarthy, and presumably the rest of the cast, are a joy to work with because of how professional they are, just moments after showing how unprofessional he is by calling a huge portion of his potential customers a bunch of fairly bad words. It doesn't really matter how true or not it may be - It's Business 101 - Don't say bad things about your customers to their face. Hell, don't say bad things about anyone.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

And you know what the scary part is?

He's right. Geek culture is terrible and needs to be ended,

It doesn't so much need to end, as it needs to mature and leave the freaking basement. You *can* be a proud geek while still defending women's rights, and it's possible to be as huge a dork over some franchise or another while admitting that what you love so much could be approached differently.

"Four academic misfits tackle the paranormal using quantum physics and lots of moxie" in no way needs a four-man cast. Unfortunately, there's a chunk of folks out there that look at anything Ghostbusters-related and think "Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, Dan Aykroyd and Ernie Hudson or Bust". Seeing as Ramis bit the big one, these same folks are all set to enshrine the original two movies and declare any potential re-imagining as anathema.

I'm pretty sure that any hypothetical Gremlins remake would involve a couple shrill voices demanding that Howie Mandel reprise his role as Gizmo - nevermind how there's a berjillion different actors that could manage cute squeaks and various heart-melting coos of indecision.

Give it a couple weeks post-release. You'll hear previously incensed fans admit that it wasn't that bad. Fast-forward a couple decades, it's someone else's cult classic.

 

[Bat Vader]

There's no right side here. Both sides are equally terrible. Fieg for being an ass and generalizing and the people hating on the movie and judging it before seeing it. Ghostbusters didn't need a reboot but it got one so instead of just hating on it how about we judge it when it comes out.

Everyone thought Affleck was going to be a shit Batman but what happened? He made a great Batman and people who hated the movie said so too. Let's just wait until it comes out and then let's judge it. Can we do that?