Diversity. This word is one that is all-too-often being used to justify the overabundance of socially/politically correct representation that has been flooding the small and the big screen in recent years. In principle, diversity allows for all genders, creeds, beliefs and sexual orientations to have a voice among what is arguably a primarily white-male led industry. A relevant example of a positive representation of diversity would be that seen in the 1997 animated series The Extreme Ghostbusters, AKA Ghostbusters Dark. Although The Extreme Ghostbusters only ran for one season, consisting of forty episodes the animated serial is recognized for the representation seen in the new team of teenage Ghostbusters which was composed of a team of mixed gender, ethnicity and ability - Kylie Griffin was the first female Ghostbuster (unless one counts Janine Melnitz in The Real Ghostbusters cartoon/comics), Eduardo Riveria was the first Hispanic Ghostbuster, Roland Jackson was the second ever African American Ghostbuster, and Garrett Miller, who although being white caucasian was the first Ghostbuster bound to a wheelchair. In addition to the classic movies, and the widely successful cartoon and comic book series The Real Ghostbusters, The Extreme Ghostbusters helped the Ghostbusters attract a diverse fanbase almost equally split between men and women, and boys and girls, and is recognized alongside Star Wars and Star Trek for the diversity within its fanbase.
An example of when diversity has been used negatively would be Paul Feig's 2016 Ghostbusters reboot. Shortly after the reboot was announced in August 2014 with an entirely female leading cast, the director and his cast started a campaign of attacks against the Ghostbusters fanbase, claiming them to be misogynistic, sexist and racist, despite that ironically (approximately) half of that fandom they were attacking was female; the reboots intended audience.
Unsurprisingly Ghostbusters: Answer The Call proved to be, putting it bluntly, little more a misandric bastardization of the Ghostbusters property, and a needlessly forceful and empty example of faux-feminist platforming at the cost of male/female fandom and male audiences in general. The reboots derogatory representation of men and overabundance of demasculinizing humor proved too much of a bitter anti-male pill for audiences to swallow, which was reflected in the movies below-average box office takings of $229.1 million, against a reported $144 million production budget.
Ultimately the man-hating Ghostbusters reboot should have never have been made. Feig, who was originally approached to direct Ghostbusters 3, which had been in development for over a decade, created a needlessly toxic movie that ignored the mythology and legacy of the property, and pointlessly attacked the fanbase. So when the announcement trailer was released recently revealing that Jason Reitman, son of Ivan Reitman, the director of Ghostbusters I & II, is to release the long-awaited Ghostbusters 3 in the summer of 2020 the fanbase was understandably overjoyed. Unfortunately, it was only a matter of time before Feig or one of the leading cast of his ill-conceived reboot used the announcement as another platform for their needless misandry.
Surprisingly the voice speaking out against what Ghostbusters fans wanted all along is SNL regular Leslie Jones, who of the four leading ladies in the reboot arguably drew the shortest straw - Kristen Wiig was cast in return for having written Feig's breakaway hit Bridesmaids, Melissa McCarthy was cast because Feig intends on making her a star, and Kate McKinnon was cast to represent the LGBTQ community, whereas Jones' character was little more than a genderswapped rendition of Ernie Hudson's character in the original movie. Jones' notorious tweets have attacked the in-development sequel as being an all-male rebuttal against the reboot, despite reports that Ghostbusters 3, much like The Extreme Ghostbusters before it will likely feature a new team of Ghostbusters with a truly diverse gender representation, more so than what the all-female reboot offered.
Understandably, the Ghostbusters reboot was, with the exception of Saturday Night Live, the most exposure Leslie Jones has received to-date, but her purely reactionary tweets highlight her ignorance of how said reboot came about at the cost of the long-awaited Ghostbusters 3, the true fandom of the property and the fact that Erin, Abby, Gillian, and Patty still have an audience in IDW's Ghostbusters: Answer The Call. Paul Feig's recent tweet supporting Jones only compounds this ignorance, showcasing that the reboot of which they made had little more to do with the classic 1984 movie than the title. It is because of this ignorance that they are blissfully unaware of the truth that fans wanted Ghostbusters 3 all along, not their movie, and that now that the fans are getting what they have waited for so long for is why they are overjoyed.
Ghostbusters 2016 had its chance to be something special and failed, due to its needless anti-male platforming. It is time Feig and his cast accepted that and left the Ghostbusters fans alone, but we all know that ain't going to happen with today'says socially/politically correctness saturated media.
