Busting more than ghosts…
Now look, I know this is supposed to be a blog about music and research and education, but today I’m going to write about Ghostbusters. And also research and education, as it happens. Still, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
On Friday night, I went off to the cinema to see the new Ghostbusters film. I remember loving the originals when I was growing up, and I also remember how many sniffy comments I saw online when the trailer for this reboot was first released. Having watched the trailer myself and deciding that it looked pretty great to me, I donned my 3D specs, bought the obligatory blue slushie, sat back and waited to be entertained.
Oh, it was so, so much more than entertainment. Don’t worry, I’m going to try very hard to avoid spoilers here, but this film is a superb effort which puts a whole lot of tedious Hollywood stereotypes front and centre, and then proceeds to blow them all up one by one.
The most obvious of these is, of course, the fact that the Ghostbusters are all women. Also that their receptionist is a (very stupid but extremely pretty) man, and the victims of most of the hauntings are also men. As is the bad guy. Women are the heroines, the central characters, the ones who get to save the world, build amazing things, save others, tell fart jokes, have a really messy apartment, be awkward about emotional stuff, and all the other things that are usually the domain of the male superhero.
But that’s just the beginning. There is the most superb mockery of higher education – private and public. There is a wonderful blurring of standard skill-sets within the group. And then, there is language.
This film is absolutely not afraid of complicated scientific lingo. Three of the four Ghostbusters are extremely highly qualified scientists, with Jillian Holtzman the most brilliant at constructing new ghost-catching devices. And over the course of the film, all three scientists are allowed to just speak in complex language. More than that. They are ridiculously happy about it, what they’ve seen or built, bouncing around excitedly talking about apparition classes and Faraday cages. And at no point does anyone say, ‘Wait, what are you nerds talking about? Can you put that into English?’. No one rolls their eyes and waits for the translation. No one, including the non-scientist (who is a brilliant self-taught cultural historian of New York, by the way), belittles the intellect on display. Instead, new inventions are greeted with compliments, enthusiasm and the desperate desire to try them out. Patty Tolan – the historian – jumps into the conversation to explain details about buildings and certain areas of town that are relevant to their latest case. And then they all eat pizza and boogie around the apartment.
At a time when so many politicians seem, one way or another, to be promoting rhetoric-fuelled ignorance over research, expert opinion and fact-checking, this is the most superb breath of fresh air. It doesn’t matter for a second whether you know what a Faraday cage is or not – you can still share in the absolute joy and pride Holtzman clearly feels at having added one to her design. The characters are not patronised, and the audience is not patronised. These are women who are allowed to be brilliant, intellectual and silly all at the same time. Like, you know, actual people. As a devotee to Shit Academics Say, PhD Comics, Hark! A vagrant and various other sites which combine academic or historical concerns with dry and/or nutty humour, I am beyond delighted by this. Just because we spend some of our time reading big leather-bound tomes from the 1850s doesn’t actually mean that we are all devoid of humour, social skills, a personality, or clothes that fit us and are cool/alternative/funky. We are people who know stuff, us academics, but we are also still people. And since the Ghostbusters are not just people who know stuff, who are unashamedly able to use and discuss their expertise, but are also women who – let’s be honest – kick some serious ass of the course of this film, I can only commend it to you in the highest terms. Take everyone you know. Right now. Not just the girls, who will see how amazing and cool it can be to engage with science and history. Take the boys too. Let them see the same, and respect the heroines as well as the heroes. I guarantee you a great night out, and some excellent food for thought.
