Ghostbusters: Sheroes

This piece is relatively spoiler free...mild spoilers in point B below, which you can skip if you want.

Unless you've been under a rock, you're quite aware that a new Ghostbusters reboot has debuted and it stars an all female cast..

Unless you've been under a rock for a REALLY long time, you're also aware that since it's first announcement, this movie has been picked to death by what I will refer to throughout this piece as "salty fanboys." Here's the kind of person I mean by saying that:

1. Cis men, typically white, who can't imagine anyone other than someone just like them being the lead in an action movie. 
2. Said men who cry about their "childhoods being ruined" by a reboot with an all female cast. 
3. Said men who are the kind of people who probably harass ("troll") women online and use the term "friendzone" and "nice guy" unironically.
4. Said men who would down vote the YouTube trailer and claim that the movie is total garbage months before ever seeing it. 

So anyway, because salty fanboys got their salty fanboy panties in a bunch, this movie, starring Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Leslie Jones, and Kate McKinnon, got way more attention than it would have otherwise. And because salty fanboys indulged in so much fucking misogyny with their salty fanboy tears, I really, really needed this movie to be actually good. 

GUESS WHAT?! IT IS!!!

I saw it last night and, while it's far from perfect, it was highly enjoyable. I was laughing the whole time, particularly at Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon who were my faves by far, and I now super ship their characters. 

It was a damn delight. 

But beyond that the move did something super amazing and super important--it wove in its own strong response to these salty fanboys in the best fucking possible ways. 

A) JOKES: It had a few jokes that called out the salty fanboys specifically. More than once the characters post their videos of ghost busting online and they react indignantly to misogynistic comments they receive...serving as an all too familiar reminder to those of us in the "real world" that the movie itself received it share of similar comments; comments which seem absurd but are quite based in reality.

B) STORY: The main villain is basically a salty fanboy!!!! Reminder, this is where it gets mildly spoilery. We learn that the guy releasing all the ghosts in NY is someone who has felt really bullied and marginalized. He's clearly a "nerd" guy who was picked on and resents the world. At one point he's in a self indulgent cry baby rant about how the Ghostbusters must have always been treated as humans if they don't understand why he would be trying to get revenge. And Melissa McCarthy's character is like (paraphrasing) "Are you kidding me? People are always shitting on us." YES!!!! It's such a great call out of "geek boys" who have felt really excluded and harassed their whole lives but then turn to perpetuating the hate against women. 

I loved it. I loved it. I loved it. 

I had no idea that the creators would be so skillfully weaving in real time response to the shit they took for making this film. It was delicious. 

As delicious as salty fanboy tears when I think about how all of my friends have liked the movie so far and it has a 75% on Rotten Tomatoes as the point of me writing this. 

Delicious indeed. 

Please see the commenting policy before replying to this post.