Ghostbusters Director Calls Out "Assholes in Geek Culture"

Winnosh

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People need to learn to stop making personl attacks just because they don't like a movie. Hate the movie not the people involved. And yeah I'm not interested at all in the movie but I at least waited until the trailer before I made a decision. He and others were getting bashed when the thing was just announced.
 

Karadalis

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Bedinsis said:
Karadalis said:
Has he? Has he really? Has he really been attacked more then is usual for any other public figure during this time? And here i was thinking trump and hillary received more bile and attacks on a daily basis then this clown since the release of that terrybad trailer...
I do not know, since I am not privy to Mr Feig's e-mail account. My contention was that I think the author of this news article wrote it with the perspective of "Some people have called people upset about this film 'misogynists' and the like, despite there being plenty of good reasons to dislike the film outside of the main characters being gender flipped". This is an understandable perspective that I can get behind. However, I believe that in holding that perspective the author of this news post read the sourced article incorrectly and thus gave an incorrect reporting. As I said, Mr. Feig didn't say anything about people attacking the MOVIE making them a-holes, he was upset about people attacking HIM. From the article it sourced I deem it possible that his perspective is "It is disappointing that people find the movie underwhelming since I've made these choices for [various reasons]; attacking me personally however makes you an a-hole." This reposting of it I believe assumes a fixed narrative and in doing so directly contradicts the direct quotes of the original article.
He actually brought the 700k dislikes into play thought and claimed that there is some sort of conspiracy at work here to downvote the trailer... so he did actually bring the people who really dislike his shitty movie in with the people who personaly attacked him. Despite as you said there are plenty of reasons to dislike that turd of a trailer besides "my soggy knees"

That and his other comments on the like/dislike ratio lead to one conclusion:

That hestill tries to pain everyone who dislikes the trailer as an "a-hole"

By concentrating solely on the handfull (in comparison to the rest) of people who insulted him personaly (for him insulting something that they held dear with his agenda driven, unfunny take on the ghostbusters) he made it intentionally look like EVERYONE who dislikes the new trailer belongs in said category. Thus painting the oposition in as a negative light as possible. Its not simply people disliking what he did to the ghostbuster legacy or that he produced a "scary movie" flick with it... its simply people hating on his all female main cast.

On the other hand its kinda his job to do this, i mean even the actors do not want to promote this movie anymore then is absolutely necesary and required by contract. Heck and even then they dont sound confident and rather opt to not talk about it at all.

I mean that alone is telling when your main actors either dont want to talk about this AAA movie they starred in or tell the public that they where told to "shut up" when they raised concerns about the trailer possibly confusing people.

I mean doesnt that show how hypocritical sony and feig are? Writing feminism on their banner but when actual women that worked on this movie, the main cast no less, point out flaws to tell them to stuff it? Yeah.. a great victory for equality was NOT achieved that day.


TheLaughingMagician said:
"Geek culture is home to some of the biggest assholes I've ever met in my life," Feig told the New York Daily News [http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/ghostbusters-director-paul-feig-responds-attacks-article-1.2621647].
Well yeah this part's kinda true.
Ahem: To quote good ol dracula from symphony of the night:

"Perhaps that could be said about ALL religions"

EVERY "fandom" has its assholes. And i dare say that the Geek community has the most harmless assholes around. You dont see geeks rioting in the streets, beating the shit out of police officers and other communities like for example certain "sports fans" do/used to do when their choosen soccer club lost a game (or won a game.. hooligans arent picky).

Compare that to a mean twitter comments about "your mom" and i know wich are worse.
 

Dragonlayer

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Nergui said:
We didn't like Call of Doody: Halo Warfa, sorry, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare either (610k dislikes so far) -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeF3UTkCoxY
Obviously each and every single person disliking that mistook the bald space Nazi for a woman, and they just couldn't contain their misogynistic venom any longer.
 

Mikeybb

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ivarsa15 said:
Pundit campaign for downvotes? Have they seen the trailer? It sucks! Recut it and people will probably like it! I liked the fan recut featured by the author of this article two months ago.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/166715-Ghostbusters-Fan-Recut-Trailer
That version of the trailer was significantly more likable than the other.
My instinct leaned towards 'bad movie incoming' when I heard there was a remake on the way, but the original trailer served to drive it home.
Bad as it may be though, that's no reason to chase the guy over it.
The box office will judge his work.

Something Amyss said:
*spookily snipped by a ghost or something*
I don't even know what geek culture is supposed to mean. What shared culture do we actually have?
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?
 

circularlogic88

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Steven Bogos said:
Recently, pundits started a campaign to downvote the new movie's trailer [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3ugHP-yZXw] into oblivion. At time of writing, its sitting at 200,000 "likes" and over 700,000 "dislikes.
I don't want to be "that guy" but can we get a citation or names of pundits encouraging this behaviour?
 

Darth Rosenberg

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Phasmal said:
I mean, if you're against this movie, just don't go see it. You don't need to sit around stewing in your hate for it and SJW's ruining your childhood and wah, wah, wah.
That culture's rather insipid, true (geek culture is rather pathetically antagonistic and insecure, and yeah, I absolutely see that as being a largely male issue), but unfortunately this project looks like it's being handled terribly, and I'm not really making any judgments on the film itself going from the trailer.

Was this the best project to just bring back with a completely different cast and characters? Then say it has nowt to do with the originals, before then explicitly referring to the older films/continuity in a trailer? Was a hip, shouty black woman who knows the city better than the better educated white folk a great idea for a character?

This could've been done well, and then the whiny, entitled nerds would have less cause for a feeding frenzy. But it kinda looks like Sony are serving up the perfect storm for all the wrong reasons.

I can't think of a reboot that would personally offend me as much as some people seem to be offended by Ghostbusters. I guess I don't put that much stock in products.
See, you're not a real geek if you don't get personally offended or insulted by something in a film, game, book, advert, etc that you had no part in. ;-)

My own view of Ghostbusters is one of placid ambivalence. I'm sure I had some toys as a kid, maybe even a lunchbox, but it's a fairly culturally insignificant property.
 

Bedinsis

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Karadalis said:
He actually brought the 700k dislikes into play thought and claimed that there is some sort of conspiracy at work here to downvote the trailer...
Looking at the sourced article again there is no direct quote about him bringing up the dislikes of the trailer, that is something the author of the sourced article brought up for context to the reader. The campaign to downvote the trailer is something brought up wholesale by the Escapist article.
 

AstaresPanda

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lol a shitty reboot cash grab is getting alot of dislikes ? The trailer was horrid and did not make me even smile. It feels very forced.
 

TsunamiWombat

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See i'm torn, because he IS right - there's a strong 'asshole' element in geek culture - but at the same time, this has nothing to do with the current situation. Assholes are always assholes, this particular movie is just the special kind of bad that inspires nominally non-asshole individuals to treat it like they're assholes. By, y'know, being bad, and cliche, and trying to be a REBOOT of a cult classic. The women themselves are all kinds of talented and funny and I was/am 100% down with an all female team, the issue is the film you've put them in looks like garbage.
 

TheRightToArmBears

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It'll be fun to see how he tries to explain away the reviews from non-geek media when that inevitably happens.

Also, anyone who genuinely thinks that Melissa McCarthy is funny has no business breathing directing comedy. This isn't sexism, she's just that awful. Weren't Tina Fey/Amy Poehler (sp?) originally rumoured for this? Oh, what could have been...
 

anthony87

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circularlogic88 said:
Steven Bogos said:
Recently, pundits started a campaign to downvote the new movie's trailer [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3ugHP-yZXw] into oblivion. At time of writing, its sitting at 200,000 "likes" and over 700,000 "dislikes.
I don't want to be "that guy" but can we get a citation or names of pundits encouraging this behaviour?


I mean god forbid that many people just dislike the trailer because it looks shit. No, it's a deliberate "campaign" of hate and misogyny.
 

Davroth

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Conveniently, judging by his twitter feed, Feig is kind of an asshole as well.

That trailer is just not funny. I didn't laugh once myself at it, and I have sat in theaters packed with people and the only thing that got any reaction was the scene of the african american woman slapping her possessed friend back to sense (?) while saying vaguely religious things. I didn't, it felt inappropriate to laugh at those wacky, bible-thumping black people, which is what I attribute those uneasy giggles I heard to.

I can't wait for the movie to finally come out, so we can all finally see it in all its "greatness".
 

StatusNil

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FirstNameLastName said:
Edit: Just in case I haven't prodded this hornets' nest hard enough, I genuinely hope this movie is a massive success and smashes all box office records. Will that set a terrible precedent that sets us up for more shitty reboots like it? Sure, but at this point the hatedom surrounding the film has become so obnoxious that the petulant rage and tears would be worth it.
Hey, I never said I'm not petty in my own way.
Well, that's half the business plan of the New Ghostbusters stated eloquently right there, "YOUR Opportunity To Buy Into The Most Epic Malicious Appropriation This Season! Come Pay The 'Fuck You' Tithe And Earn Your Gloating Rights!" What we see here is a positive result: you've been successfully Wedge Marketed.

Of course there is some truth to the backlash being about the way the producers took a classic piece of entertainment and turned it into the kind of girls-vs-boys taunt that many of us hoped to have left behind in the elementary school yard. That's the overwhelmingly dominant context that we've been presented with for this particular work of cinematic art, and Feig has played along with it every step of the way. Becoming part of the "fandom" of this movie has nothing whatsoever to do with the kind of delight the original movie dealt in, but it is rather a politicized obligation to join in a petty (your word) demonstration of trendy virtue signaling. Many people resent such manipulative sales tactics, and in my view are absolutely right to. Conflating that resentment with "misogynists wanting to keep the womxn down!" is merely the mercenary fist in the Diversity glove, employed by hacks incapable of conceiving something that stands on its own as a work of merit.

You could perhaps make the claim that it's just various media weasels who are reducing cultural products into mere cudgels in juvenile identity team games and thus making it much, much harder for female performers and creators to be recognized for the quality of their work without the depressingly inescapable grudge dynamics. But as I argued earlier in this thread, it appears that major producers in the culture industries are now quite consciously seeking a symbiotic relationship with the "geek culture" arbitrators of "fandom".
 

Li Mu

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Davroth said:
Conveniently, judging by his twitter feed, Feig is kind of an asshole as well.

That trailer is just not funny. I didn't laugh once myself at it, and I have sat in theaters packed with people and the only thing that got any reaction was the scene of the african american woman slapping her possessed friend back to sense (?) while saying vaguely religious things. I didn't, it felt inappropriate to laugh at those wacky, bible-thumping black people, which is what I attribute those uneasy giggles I heard to.

I can't wait for the movie to finally come out, so we can all finally see it in all its "greatness".
And here is the crux of the problem, the trailer wasn't funny. After reading this article I sat and thought, "If I didn't know about the original GB movie and love it, would I have had a different reaction to the trailer."
The answer is "yes", but not in a remotely positive way.
Rather than thinking, "Jesus, this trailer sucks, why are they pissing on the Ghostbusters?" I would have thought, "This film looks unfunny and dull, I wont be watching this."

So, even if the previous films didn't exist, this version of Ghostbusters STILL wouldn't look good.
 

RaikuFA

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Something Amyss said:
Lufia Erim said:
I like milissa mccarthy probably a little bit too much compared to the next guy, but when the hell did she become so popular? I mean before the string of McCarthy comedies, all i knew her from was gilmore girls.
Gilmore Girls was also the last time I found her funny. My question is how she became so popular. Nobody seems to really like these movies she's done.

RaikuFA said:
"Look at that nest of angry hornets, what would happen if I started bugging the hornets?
The way you framed this, it sounds less like the problem is assholes and more than nerd culture is, by default, angry. If nerd culture is such that it can be provoked like a bunch of angry animals, then there's a problem. Especially since all the hornets needed to be angered was to announce a movie starring women.
1st off The Heat is actually good. And Spy had its moments but it made me realize MM needs a foil cause she sucks by herself. Those scenes where she's with Jason Statham were hilarious.

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.
 

FirstNameLastName

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StatusNil said:
FirstNameLastName said:
Edit: Just in case I haven't prodded this hornets' nest hard enough, I genuinely hope this movie is a massive success and smashes all box office records. Will that set a terrible precedent that sets us up for more shitty reboots like it? Sure, but at this point the hatedom surrounding the film has become so obnoxious that the petulant rage and tears would be worth it.
Hey, I never said I'm not petty in my own way.
Well, that's half the business plan of the New Ghostbusters stated eloquently right there, "YOUR Opportunity To Buy Into The Most Epic Malicious Appropriation This Season! Come Pay The 'Fuck You' Tithe And Earn Your Gloating Rights!" What we see here is a positive result: you've been successfully Wedge Marketed.

...
No such thing has happened. Despite what I said, I'm not going to pay to see it, nor am I going to waste my time even pirating it. I described the movies as a "dumpster fire of cringe", and I stand by that, I simply think it would be amusing to see this film succeed because the absurd, over the top hatred for it has reached the point that despite finding the movie a complete pile of shit banking on nostalgia and gender politics, I somehow dislike the creators less than the people who have an almost religious devotion to being upset over it.
I was actually on board with rolling my eyes at this movie right from the gimmicky sounding concept, but over time I've grown to resent the hatedom around this movie for their over the top reaction.

I can assure you my schadenfreude over this situation has nothing to do with the politics involved, and is simply about being absolutely sick of people within "geek culture" taking this type of thing so fucking seriously. It's not as if most of these people were just waiting for a new Ghostbusters movie and are disappointed over the results; most of the people who are mad about this seem to think the franchise should stay dead.
I get it, we're all part of geek culture whether we like that label or not, and we probably all take videogames/movies/comics/whatever too seriously sometimes, but this entire thing is giving me flashbacks of the whole ME3 ending; yet another example of people taking things way too far.
 

Burnouts3s3

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As neither a Ghostbusters fan nor a Paul Feig fan, I choose to wait until the final product is released and shown before I pass any sort of judgement on the film. I have been mislead before on films; I've seen good trailers for bad movies and bad trailers for good movies and everything within the possibility spectrum. It could be entirely possible, if unlikely, that the finished product is much superior to what the trailer showed us.

If the film were to fail on a narrative level, let us cast blame on the factors that truly matter: character, plot, themes, structure, things that should be the focus of attention.

But, just as there is warranted criticism of the film, we must also call out and criticize the sexism the film has received for purely casting female leads in its roles and push back against it.
 

Gorrath

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Ahh yes, the old "Geek culture is full of ASSHOLES" shtick. Is he wrong? Nope, sure isn't, geek culture is full of assholes. You know what else is full of assholes? Music culture, sports culture, car culture, hip-hop culture, fashion culture, furry culture, goth culture, anime culture, ect. ect. ad nauseum. I roll my eyes endlessly at the parade of "geek culture is assholes" quotes. People make up every culture, people are assholes, every culture has assholes.

I get that geek culture needs some self restraint but it's not as if this is some special problem unique to geek culture. I mean hell, with the meteoric rise of geek hobbies into the mainstream the only cultural force that has been greater in the past 30 years is Hip-Hop. So until an East Coast development studio has a West Coast development studio gunned down in the street lets keep a little perspective here.