There’s been a huge hoo-ha about the new Ghostbusters film – changing the lead characters to female. I must admit I’d be a bit miffed if they suddenly changed Little Women to Little Men, but Ghostbusters? Is it such a classic that you can’t mess with it?
I did love the film at the time – Sigourney Weaver was rather marvellous as the possessed Manhattanite and Bill Murray and Dan Ackroyd I do remember as really funny. Strangely, I watched it again only a few years ago with my girls and a friend and her own little brood of girls – we had a Friday night pizza club going, which gave all the girls a bit of an after school treat (and meant we mothers could down a glass or two of medicinal vino after a long week) and I nominated it as our film one evening. It didn’t go down well. For a start, it all seemed terribly dated. Maybe it was Signourney’s bubbly perm, huge ear rings or sky scraping shoulder pads. Maybe it was the special effects. Maybe it was the not-so-funny-any-more gags – I remember one elaborate set-up about Signourney Weaver being compared to a dog. Ha ha. Then there was suddenly a random swear word – my friend gave me a death ray stare because her own carefully nurtured children were not accustomed to such outrages. I felt bad.
So I feel the film could well be ripe for a revamp – although a lot of me feels it might have been better to plough all that time, money and energy into making a completely new film. But if they had to – then all girls? All good as far as I’m concerned.
But the main reason I’m keen to see it is that it could represent, potentially, a film that all of us might enjoy. That’s no mean feat with ages from 9 to 20 among the children – plus adults who don’t agree on much either. Who you gonna call?
