Who would have thought a movie about women running around cleaning up after some extremely pale old men would cause so much controversy? It might seem like a benign plot, merely mirroring all of human history, but the lady-centric reboot of Ghostbusters has caused a certain group of 30-something men to launch into full evil villain mode. First, they simply co-ordinated attacks on the film itself, making the trailer the most disliked YouTube video of all time, and trying to systematically discourage people from seeing the movie. Then, led by uber-douchebag Milo Yiannopoulos, they began sending racist, misogynist abuse to one of the film’s lead actors: Leslie Jones. (Thankfully, Yiannopoulos has since had his account removed from Twitter).
Funnily enough, this kind of sexist male entitlement is brilliantly parodied in the film itself. The four Ghostbusters break a number of male spirits, be they technically ghosts or not: (spoilers!) hurling a mansplaining paranormal sceptic (Bill Murray) from a third-story window, zapping a ghost-cum-flasher (Steve Bannos), disproving “crazy people online” (who say things like, “Ain’t no bitches gonna fight no ghosts!”) and finally dispensing with Reddit-dwelling manbaby Rowan North (Neil Casey) by hurling him into an angry vortex of his own making. The only man they preserve is their receptionist Kevin (Chris Hemsworth) – because “we’ll never find another one that pretty!”
But as the sexist whines of men the world over continue to echo creepily in the distance, here is a list of some other male spirits I, personally, wish the Ghostbusters would break:
- The ghosts of exes past
- That guy who comes up to you at the end of the night and asks, “Where’s my hug?”
- That guy who calls your number the minute you give him your number to check that it’s real thus undoing your highly choreographed dance of lies
- Jonathan Safran Foer
- That guy who “prefers the natural look”
- The man who kindly explains that he wasn’t mansplaining as he was never explaining anything in the first place – just discussing
- That guy who isn’t racist, just wants to take his country back
- Mark Steel
- “The most oppressed group in today’s society is actually the working class white man”
- That guy who ghosted you when he should literally praise heaven for every waking second in which he was generously allowed to speak to you
- Benedict Cumberbatch
- The stay-at-home-dad columnist
- The guy who high-fives you on a date
- The man in your office who never lets you hold the door open for him and always waits for you to walk through the door first even when the door opens in your direction so it would bend the laws of physics for him to hold open it for you
- Jonathan Franzen
- That guy who pretends he’s never heard of Kim Kardashian
- Any man who has ever used the phrase “woman doctor” or “woman driver”
- Brocialists
- Bronies
- Bromads
- That guy who explains that Woody Allen is actually subverting the older-man/younger-woman trope and that you just didn’t get it
- Any man who has ever joked about your appetite
- Every frontman who has ever disappointed me (all of them)
- Ross
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