Are you a Ghostbusters fan who is dreading or eagerly anticipating the release of the newest addition to the franchise? Whichever side you are on, it's no news that the new Ghostbusters reboot that is releasing later this year has been met with an insane amount of controversy and has been both the beacon of hope as well as the atom bomb for female actors. What I mean by this is that this film is one of the first films to take a progressive standpoint concerning female actors having all of the lead roles in a film, and was definitely attempting to serve as a stepping stone in terms of progression towards this trend. However, due to opposing viewpoints concerning this change, the movie's appearance, or diehard fans of the original franchise being angry that the franchise is being re-invented, the fact that this film features all female leads has been met with extremely negative reviews.

The expectations and stigma behind this film are so strong, that the first trailer of the film that was released on Youtube is the most disliked movie trailer in Youtube history, staggering at 829,094 dislikes at the time this article is being written, and it is still on the rise. Despite the movie not having hit theaters yet, there is an insane amount of negativity toward it...but why? I'm here to put my film knowledge to the test as a film major and dissect why there is such a strong negative reaction toward the film and what it means for the future of women in Hollywood.

So first off we have to look at the medium and context that the movie itself is. It is a reboot of a beloved film franchise that was first released in 1984 and finalized in 1989. So in conjunction with this data, we are talking about people who were around in that time period who were probably young adults at that time, making them between the ages of 40 and 60 for this movie's release. It is at these ages in which a person's ideals and strong beliefs have already been solidified, and they are less likely to be influenced by outside data and opposing ideas. It is also worth mentioning that these people were most likely alive when the norm of the world was that women had overall fewer rights than men, and that this ideal was to be ingrained in society. This ideal was in tandem ingrained in the minds of these people, allowing them to apply it to situations in which they see fit, case and point, the new Ghostbusters film. The fans of the old Ghostbusters are upset because they saw the films as they were 30-35 years ago and in their minds, the films were perfect as they were. Re-inventing the franchise was one thing, but replacing the main characters with a gender in which the fans were taught couldn't act in films as well as men were taken as a slap in the face to them.

To the fans of the original Ghostbusters, this film cannot come anywhere close to the original, strictly because they don't want it to. They don't want to give the women in the leading roles a chance due to the fact that they were trained and told not to give them a chance by their societal beliefs and ideals. Despite the overwhelming pool of talent that has been acquired for this movie, it will all be wasted because it was applied to an already established franchise that people don't want to see change. People don't want to see progression. Back up almost a hundred years ago and we see women and black people fighting incredibly hard in order to acquire basic rights. There were some people who opposed them simply because it was the way it had always been. There was really no reason for women and black people not to have basic rights other than the fact that it meant that things had to change. The same principal applies here. It is a basic instinct of the human race to be afraid of change and to react negatively to it. By having a revolutionary film practice be executed in an already established and beloved film franchise, it was pretty much a double whammy to the film.

So what can be done? Honestly...there's not much we can do about it. No matter how much people fight for female actors to take the helm in films like this, people will always be hesitant to change. No matter how good this film is going to be, it will be met with mixed reviews at best because of all the people that are opposed to this 'double whammy' scenario. It was undeniably a mistake on the part of the studio to experiment with this sort of thing in this particular reboot, because it will be the backlash of this film that will stagger the female actor movement even further. When directors go to studios and request that their film be led by female actors, the studio will point to Ghostbusters and blame the leading female actors for the films' mediocrity, when the mediocrity should be blamed for the people who are hating the film before its release due to changes that they do not like. In my mind, it is definitely important for female actors to have leading roles in films, and it is also important for them to have the magnitude that Ghostbusters has, but this entire project will end up backfiring on nearly everyone involved strictly because of the naysayers that have it ingrained in their minds that the original is always the best and that the men can always get things done. To me, that is a pity.

Personally, I believe that female actors should be represented 10 times more than they are now. Some of the best actors that I have ever worked with have been female, and I hate the fact that just because I am a man I will automatically have more opportunity than them. There is a female actor that I have worked closely with for 2 years, she can act circles around me, and I will still receive more opportunities than her because I am a man. That, for lack of a better term, utterly sucks and needs to change at some point soon. It is a true shame that the world just can't seem to let that happen, especially with the release of this new film. Someday though, hopefully we can live in a world where all actors can receive the credit that they deserve and have their earned place in Hollywood.