There is a scene close to the beginning of director Ivan Reitman’s 1984 hit Ghostbusters that takes place between sleazy faux scientist Dr Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) and two young subjects, a man and a woman connected to an electric shock machine.
The experiment is supposedly about ascertaining levels of supernatural cognisance; it’s really an elaborate way for Venkman to trick women into spending time alone with him. He holds up large cards with their backs facing the participants and asks them to name the symbol on the other side. If they get it wrong, they get a jolt.
Venkman takes pleasure in shocking the young man, but every time the pretty woman responds (with similarly wrong answers) he lies, feigns surprise and says her predictions are correct. The rest of the scene continues this way: the boy is punished while the pretty girl is flattered — “incredible, that’s five for five,” Venkman gushes — by a researcher with clearly dubious motives.
When the boy eventually storms off, Venkman places himself next to the young lady, rubs her arms and suggests a private follow-up session. “I’d like to work with you some more, perhaps you could come back this evening at…” “8 o clock?” She interrupts, wholly taken in by the ruse.
There is something — actually, numerous things — unsettling about the way this scene plays out. If audiences back in the ’80s didn’t pick up on its sexist undertones (a gullible young woman is tricked by a man in a position of authority, inside an office adorned by a drawing of a scantly dressed French maid) they sure would these days. It has all the subtlety and charm of a wolf whistle.
It’s unlikely the next Ghostbusters movie, which is expected to begin filming in 2015, will depict a libidinous woman hoodwinking an impressionable young man. It will, however, feature an all-female principal cast. Official confirmation arrived last week, in time for the franchise’s 30th anniversary.
The news was greeted enthusiastically online, particularly on social media. But the tens of thousands of fans who banged out excited tweets and lunged to their Facebook like buttons may not have paused to contemplate the sobering inferences the Ghostbusters announcement signifies, and the part it plays in a broader debate about gender representations in the entertainment industry.
The fact that such a simple decision on behalf of the distributor and filmmakers could appear to be so left-of-field (an all woman lead cast, how wonderful!) highlights the sad state of play for representations of female characters in Hollywood, not to mention the slim pickings for actors who play them.
Sadly, and preposterously, the idea a group of women can be the heroines of a goofy mainstream family movie seems like a novelty, a gimmick, something whipped up by the PR team to score easy wins.
Recent blockbusters featuring strong female leads such as Frozen, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and Gravity seem to suggest times are a-changing. But that impression is little more than the equivalent of a special effect, momentarily attention-grabbing but meaningless in the scheme of things.
Here’s a case in point. The aforementioned movies were released last year. This was a year in which — according to a study from San Diego State University — just 30% of all speaking roles belonged to women. Another study, published in 2013, is even more alarming, claiming women accounted for just 16.7% of the 1228 directors, writers and producers across the top 100 grossing films of 2012.
Given the turnaround time involved in the moviemaking process (it is not uncommon for six or seven years to transpire between first draft and opening weekend) the argument that any recent production indicates a meaningful change in status quo, when these statistics are taken into account, can be quickly ghost-busted.
But for the purpose of a hypothetical, let’s imagine Ghostbusters 3 (which, by the way, will be directed by a man — Paul Feig) will somehow buck the trend and bring gender equality to Hollywood. If this occurred via some inconceivable stroke of magic, it would not just represent a watershed moment but also serve up a tasty dish of irony. Its cinematic origin, after all, is a movie practically bursting at the seams with sexism. Much of it casual, some of it downright weird.
Ghostbusters‘ first scene focuses on a woman who gets terrified by a spirit after books literally fly above her head. Later, when that same character (an elderly woman) is examined by the Ghostbusters, Venkmen asks a couple of so-called standard questions. First, whether herself or anybody in her family has been deemed schizophrenic or mentally incompetent. Then: “Are you menstruating right now?”
There is a moment when, alone in her apartment, Sigourney Weaver’s character is grabbed by three ghoulish arms that emerge from her arm chair. One comes out from in front of her groin; another covers her mouth. Later, possessed, she implores Bill Murray to “take me now.” He replies: “I can’t. Sounds like you’ve got two people inside you already. Might be a little crowded.”
When the Ghostbusters’ secretary complains about working two weeks straight with little assistance, she is given a sharp rebuttal. “Someone with your qualifications would have no problem finding a top flight job,” she is told, “with either the food service or housekeeping industries.”
Perhaps Ghostbusters is a soft target. The above moments involve characterisation and comedy, albeit comedy of a particularly mean-spirited and chauvinistic kind. It is a silly movie that could easily be construed as a metaphor for childish men with overactive fantasies; the famous final showdown with Stay Puft Marshmallow Man even takes place because Dan Ackroyd’s character simply imagines confronting the mascot of a fictionalised confectionary company.
Could an all-female version of this weird sleazy hit somehow become touted as a breakthrough for gender equality in Hollywood? Almost certainly not. If so, there is indeed definitely something strange in the neighbourhood.