Review of Ghostbusters (2016) by Daria P — 05 Feb 2017

It is interesting to note the discrepancy between user reviews and critical reviews for this film. While I agree that as a comedy the film lacked a certain excitement, I wonder just how many of the negative reviews (both user and critical) were informed by the film's gender-switch.

It seems that when this shift is made in a comedy in particular, the film just can't seem to live up to other films of the same style that are cast with men. Is it the jokes themselves that aren't funny, or the fact that women are delivering them? Are the standards for female comedy just that much higher? I would argue yes, in this case in particular.

While Ghostbuster's wasn't the funniest movie I've seen in recent years, I do think it is deserving of more than a 53% user rating, even if many argue that it its low rating comes mostly from its failure to compare to its original.

To that, I might say that the original carries with it a legacy of male-dominated comedy and expectation that cannot be ignored. Nevertheless, I do think it will take more than this one reboot to entirely shift this gendered genre system-perhaps in the future, female-led films with original storylines and characters not interested in existing male roles will fare much better; perhaps, as the New York Times' Mahnola Dargis has suggested in her critical review of the film, women and men will have a chance to be funny together without much controversy, in which case we may actually witness something revolutionary.