Is an All-Female Reboot of Ghostbusters Really a Gimmick?

As you may have heard from the massive buzz it has received online, there is a Ghostbusters reboot in the works. And that reboot is from Bridesmaids director Paul Feig. That’s the ho-hum part. Here’s the juicy part of the story:

In Feig’s Ghostbusters, all the characters strapping on proton packs will be women.

GhostbustersNaturally, the announcement of a new lady Ghostbusters team has led to a massive online outcry- not against the idea of female Ghostbusters, but against anyone saying anything negative at all against the idea of female Ghostbusters.

It started with this tweet, from Feig:

“Interesting how making a movie with men in the lead roles is normal but making a movie with women in the lead roles is a “gimmick.” #its2014″

Which has since spurned on a gargantuan (seriously, so freakin’ huge you wouldn’t believe) outpour of reaction pieces, all of which are supporting the idea of an all-female Ghostbusters.

This begs a question:

Who, exactly, called Ghostbustresses a gimmick? Because in the great online hubbub, most people seem to be citing Feig as the one who brought the word “gimmick” into the conversation. There was no single article or opinion that brought this to the forefront

But now that’s in the conversation, it must be discussed- here, and on every single other site that has ever covered anything film-related in the past decade.

So here’s what we’re gonna go with. No, the idea of an all-female Ghostbusters is not, in itself, a gimmick. An all-female cast for anything just isn’t a gimmick; that’s not how gimmicks work. The Descent wasn’t a gimmick. Bridesmaids wasn’t a gimmick.

But if Melissa McCarthy, at any point, comes near this project, than yes.

Yes, it is a gimmick.

Because at this point we’re not doing a female Ghostbusters. We’re trying to revive Ghostbusters, a franchise that’s been dead for years, by exhuming its body and haphazardly strapping it to Bridesmaids; hiring its director and its breakout star (not coincidentally, the two people most remembered for Bridesmaids) and making Ghostbusters exactly in its image.

And “It’s Ghostbusters, only now it’s exactly like Bridesmaids!” is totally a gimmick.

So continue, Internet, to debate this thing until every last facet of conversation has been repeated twenty times over. But a word of warning to all those defending a lady Ghostbusters: if you see Melissa McCarthy coming, prepare to feel very foolish.

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