Kristen Wiig was as confused as the rest of us by the ‘Ghostbusters’ backlash
The new Ghostbusters movie is coming, but not soon enough. Paul Feig’s lady-powered reboot shot this summer and stars four of our favorite funny people on the planet: Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones. We’re super pumped and stoked to see it with our own eyes, but surprisingly, there are some that actually aren’t excited about it. Like… huh? During its shoot, there was a ton of backlash about the decision to reboot the movie with females instead of males. We’re bummed about by all the negativity, as is one Ghostbuster herself, Wiig.
Talking to the Los Angeles Times, Wiig explained that she didn’t really get — and still doesn’t really get — the controversy around the movie. Like, when you think of a “controversial movie” the first thing that comes to mind is not, “Ghostbusters!” But still. It happened.
“The fact there was so much controversy because we were women was surprising to me,” Wiig explained. “Some people said some really not nice things about the fact that there were women. It didn’t make me mad, it just really bummed me out. We’re really honoring those movies.”
It’s still confusing as to why there was so much disapproval of the movies (because when is girl power a BAD thing?), but the whole cast and crew of Ghostbusters did an amazing job handling it. McCarthy even Tweeted out a picture of the female cast and crew of the movie, and they had a huge GIRL POWER sign, because represent! The fact that something as awesome as a huge group of women working on what’s sure to be a blockbuster movie is frowned upon, that’s confusing.
On top of that, Wiig also doesn’t understand why “women in comedy” is an ongoing issue as well, commenting, “I think the fact that people keep asking it implies that it’s something we need to explain or defend.”
“If [people] would watch movies or look at comedy and see how many talented, funny women are out there and have been since the beginning of time, people would stop asking that.”
But, it still happens. People are still going to be upset about the Lady Ghostbusters, and hesitate when funny women try to make us laugh. Thankfully, the pockets of negativity surrounding the movie are small, and hopefully the naysayers will be proved wrong when the movie opens next year. And for those who decided against seeing the movie all together, that just means so many more theater seats for us!
(Image via Sony.)
