Deborah Ross

Girls v. ghosts

It could have reinvented had it been reinventive enough

issue 16 July 2016

From the moment this all-female reboot of Ghostbusters was announced, the fan-boy panic set in: where will it end? An all-female Top Gun? Will it make me pregnant? Who are these ‘women’? Where do they come from? Are they a recent thing? Do we know any? If it’s proved they can carry big Hollywood comedies, how will they ever be stopped?

Such vitriol had to be coming from a sexist place as films are rebooted all the time and superheroes are endlessly — Batman can’t bend down to pull up his socks without being rebooted — yet they don’t provoke hate. Plus, it’s not as if remaking a film erases the earlier one. You can purchase the 1984 original on DVD for £3.99 and watch Bill Murray salivating over Sigourney Weaver all you like, and also cuddle it as you go to sleep, if you’ve a mind.

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