As I explained back in August, the real problem with the Ghostbusters reboot was not that it was too feminist for audience sensibilities. The real problem was that the women in ghostbusters didn’t look hot while they were playing the roles of men. Four women in dumpy jumpsuits and combat boots isn’t something most women or men want to watch, even in our thoroughly feminist age.
On the other hand, Suicide Squad was a hit partly because the feminist heroine was hot. I offered a practical test for understanding what kinds of female characters women want to identify with:
A good rule of thumb for women is would they want to dress up like the character for Halloween?
At the time I predicted that Harley Quinn costumes would be far more popular than women’s Ghostbusters costumes this Halloween*. Now that Halloween is upon us, I decided to check Google Frightgeist. Harley Quinn is the number one Halloween costume in the US this year, while Ghostbusters is number 21. This list is not just for women, so any men interested in dressing up as old school Ghostbusters would also contribute to making Ghostbusters number 21.
*More specifically, I predicted that Ghostbusters costumes would remain available while Harley Quinn costumes would sell out. While I was right on the general point, it appears that costume marketers predicted demand well enough to stock up on what would be popular and greatly restrict stock on the niche costume. It turns out that the Ghostbusters costumes are sold out, while nearly all of the Harley Quinn ones are still in stock as I write this.
Ugh. “Sexy” Halloween costumes are always a two-edged sword. You have those women who can actually wear them and look good, and then those who would only look good wearing potato sacks, yet they feel that if they can squeeze into a Harley Quinn outfit (or Jessica Rabbit or any other thin and sexy character) then they call it good and are now “sexy”. Sorry, honey, you bought that costume from the discount Halloween Town, it doesn’t make magic like Hollywood does, we can still see your extra folds and bulges, though we wish we could not.
Scary Halloween? Check.
It turns out that the Ghostbusters costumes are sold out, while nearly all of the Harley Quinn ones are still in stock as I write this.
Its a lot easier to stuff your fat, gross, SJW body in a jumpsuit than a revealing outift. Sadly as SnapperTrx said, you have that whale that wears a corset and “mini” skirt.
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Sorry, Snapper, The Rock didn’t say fat ugly women wouldn’t reside WITHIN the Harley costume! Ha! Sorry..
“But is she hot?” is the dominant question in nearly all discussions of modern Women.
Now ratchet up the horror by a few notches by imagining each nurse weighing 2-30o lbs (much like many real nurses).
I was at a costume convention the other month and men are still wearing Ghostbusters outfits. “Mr. Fixit” with a backpack-sized phallic symbol is a timeless act. Didn’t see any women wearing GB but Harley Quinn was a thing. Unless it was something Japanime… sometimes it’s hard to tell and you don’t want to ask.
…
SnapperTrx @ 12:23 pm:
“Now ratchet up the horror by a few notches by imagining each nurse weighing 2-30o lbs (much like many real nurses).”
Hmm… you mean Dead Space? Eww, NOW that game is scary.
Harley Quinn also has the added appeal of ‘It’s not my fault, because crazy’. She’s also the Joker’s girlfriend, and the Joker is the ultimate scary sexy boyfriend.
@ SnapperTrx says:
October 31, 2016 at 11:03 am
“Sorry, honey, you bought that costume from the discount Halloween Town, it doesn’t make magic like Hollywood does”
Not even Hollywood makes that kind of magic. After all, they hired Margot Robbie to play Harley Quinn, not Lena Dunham.
@ Looking Glass:
““But is she hot?” is the dominant question in nearly all discussions of modern Women.”
Because men are attracted to physically attractive women. Despite feminism’s best efforts, this has not changed and will not ever change.
Just as women are attracted to fit, good looking, socially adept, confident, dominant, badass men who don’t put up with crap from people. Despite feminism’s best efforts to tell us “looks don’t matter” and “be nice” and “Sensitive New Age Guy”, this has not changed and will not ever change. Even feminists sleep with these men, despite SAYING they aren’t attracted to these men.
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Halloween (All Hallows Eve) is a much bigger event in America than in England and our excuse is that on the Fifth proximo we set off fireworks, and burn effigies on large bonfires of Papists and any one else who is disliked. Even so I don’t think there has ever been a Guy Fawkes movie and so Trolls is presently the biggest movie in the U.K.; thus scary movies should do well everywhere but with its large budget Ghostbusters has not lived up to its makers expectations (and by the way I see Sony also made the new Tom Hanks thriller which is also struggling so not a good year for them). Another movie which has not done well in America is the third Bridget Jones, and I mention her as I was just reading on IMDb from one female American who observes that it was unlikely to do well in America because Americans are not interested in seeing movies about middle aged women. The same of course applies to Ghostbusters where out of the four female leads three are clearly of middle age – and those costumes do them no favours. I cannot really imagine what the appeal of Bridget Jones might be to Americans but England loves it and it has taken nearly $60 million at the British box-office as compared to about $25 Million in America with its five times larger population. I saw the first: no praise is too high for Zellweger who gets the required accent just right and by putting on the pounds made her self fairly unattractive only to be set off by the pretty-boy looks of Hugh Grant and hunky Colin Firth. A Dinner Jacket – or Tuxedo as you call it – is never out of fashion.
This is the same reason that girl pop stars are most popular when they are good looking. Or at least slim. When the big question was can Britney Spears can make a come back, all she needed to do was get her body back.
No matter what women and girls protest, they want to be considered pretty and desirable. Not only for the attention it garners, but even to other girls having attractive girls as back up dancers, umbrella girls at the grand prix, or the lead character in a movie, it alludes to quality.
I was about to ask whether the Ghostbusters costumes being sold out (because costume makers anticipated low demand) might have capped its popularity at #21, and whether it might have gone as high as, say, #17 if there had been more costumes available. But I just double-checked, and Frightgeist appears to be basing its rankings on Google searches, not on costume sales. Which means that costume availability would have little effect on the rankings: if there had been a million unused Ghostbuster costumes lying around to buy for a song, that wouldn’t have changed the number of times it was searched for, only the number of times those searches were successful.
Um, no.
Sorry, but , surprisingly one, and sometimes even two of the 4 women are described as hot by more online commenters than you’d care to believe.
What really killed the new “Ghost Busters” reboot was a combination of a few other things:
A. Women don’t tend to like action adventure, yet the film was being mostly marketed to them, or at least the ‘progressive’ subset.
B. Many millennials have no attachment to the franchise.
C. The people who WERE attached to the franchise not only wanted a sequel (even a ‘passing of the torch’ could have been acceptable) and not a reboot, but were also largely men and were the ones the director and so much of the legacy and progressive leaning press were busy INSULTING.
Feminist or not, how many people want to be INSULTED into seeing a movie? Maybe a hardcore masochist.
D. Just like men will sometimes watch romcons with their wives, women will sometimes watch action adventure (leaving aside the exceptions that like some action adventure)with their hubby, son or boyfriend. Son is a millennial? He doesn’t care. Boyfriend or hubby was a fan of the original two movies? He ain’t going why should she go?
E. The style of humor is different, as even the trialers made clear. And the trialers, esp the first, were widely panned.
F. The references to the previous Ghostbusters franchise in the movie are all insulting. From a character(played by one of the original GB actors) who dies due to not believing in ghosts and doing something stupid, to the large symbol that gets shot in the nads near the end, to the crappy remade soundtrack, just about nothing of the original GB remains, and what is in there is insulting. And the ladies aren’t even wearing stylish uniforms.
G. Do I think they would have had a larger audience if they totally tarted it up but OTHERWISE kept everything the exact same? Yes. But still not a big audience. There’s just too much bitchiness and hate in this movie to ever attract most straight guys and plus the movie’s plot and execution feel NOTHING like the original GB or even the second one of the original series.
In short, Dalrock, I think you overestimate the power of attractive women.
Here’s two examples:
Warning to all you Christians both of these vids are somewhat explicit. No nudity, but language and sexual situations. I will specify that I could see alot of man paying to watch the women in the second linked video in their “Ghostbusters” movie. The first one…well…lets just say that even though I think those gals are reasonably physically attractive (and better than the ones in the GB movie) they will turn 99 percent of all men totally off…
We don’t want to be treated like sex objects!” – the rallying cry of feminists everywhere.
Why then, when given the chance at Halloween, do they dress up like sluts?
Clarence in Baltimore @ 12:24 am:
“Sorry, but , surprisingly one, and sometimes even two of the 4 women are described as hot by more online commenters than you’d care to believe.”
You need to differentiate between actual opinions and virtue-signaling ego smoothies. I have no doubt that Hillary Clinton is described as hot by more online commentators than I’d care to believe.
Stay away from the rabbit warrens.
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