How To Do a Positive Write-Up of Ghostbusters
Despite the impassioned shrieking of the internet for the past year, you have gone to see the new Ghostbusters. And while you were told that the movie would suck because women (“Vaginas? In my franchise?”), reboots being terrible (“I’m no misogynist, but…”), or that its very existence ruined countless childhoods (which, I’m fairly sure, is not against the law or, in fact, is a thing that actually happens), it turned out that the movie was good. Perhaps so good that you decide to go on the internet and let the world know that, indeed, the new Gahstbusters is fun and entertaining.
That is your first mistake.
But! I have figured out a way to write a positive opinion about Ghostbursters, on the internet, in 2016, without being targeted by a hate mob! Consider the following steps to keep your various timelines free of wastes of oxygen!*
* This is in no way a guarantee, as people routinely are the worst. Further, any protection these guidelines do provide is substantially reduced if you are not a white, cisgender, straight dude.
Have You Considered Not Having an Opinion?
Like many people, you have made the tragic error of viewing a film and forming an idea about it based upon your lived experience and collected knowledge. This is known as bias, and automatically disqualifies you from voicing anything but frothing rage, which is somehow not considered bias. As such, you should consider sticking to objective metrics only, which is exactly how all entertainment should be judged.
Instead of pointing out how the chemistry of the ensemble cast is amazing, focus instead on the fact that the film is a series of still images played in an order and speed that gives the illusion of movement. Maybe instead of iterating the idea that Kate McKinnon is literally a magical elf too good for this world, mention that there is sound in the film, including identifiable human language that is molded into a sequence of noises that convey information. Don’t discuss that the dynamics of teamwork on display ring true because of the friendships that evolved between characters over the time we’ve spent with them when you can just say that someone clearly edited footage together in order to create a coherent sequence of events.
You may mention that it is a comedy, but only if you bend over backwards to remind your readers that jokes are subjective and may not be considered funny. Further, it is best not to mention that Chris Hemsworth’s Kevin is a beautiful wad of charming, well-sculpted deli meat. Instead, you may mention that he is in the movie and says words.
It is in this way that you can avoid the charge of liking the film because it has ladies and their development arcs are but one of the film’s central focus,* which is a crime on par with selling heroin.
* Once again, this will likely do nothing of the sort.
PROTIP: Attach a number to the end of your review, because numbers are never arbitrary when attached to reviews. Never give Gustblusters a 10, because that is for objectively perfect media that either voices the curmudgeonly opinions of middle aged grumps, like Grand Theft Auto or South Park, or was made by a dead curmudgeonly white guy, like Citizen Kane. A score between 7 and 8 is acceptable for showing you are above bias.
PROTIP THE SECOND: Instead of using an easily divisible number, try a 7.333 as a score, which will help show that you used MATHS™ and, therefore, have never had an opinion that wasn’t achieved without a logistical nightmare.
Frontload Your Defense
If you ignore the first rule in articulating your opinion and absolutely insist on sharing it, then you need to make sure that you spend part of your review apologizing and explaining that your review in no way is a reflection of your bias. Since a cauldron of seething internet hatred has already thoroughly poisoned the well of critique, any and all positivity is apparently going to be seen as a knee-jerk need to praise something that dipshits have long since maligned as “PC Culture Run Amok”. Even though it makes far more sense to have people who don’t like the movie backpedal and fall all over themselves to separate their criticism from the “Cooties are Gross” crowd, you’ll have to do it to for… um… solidarity?
This will inoculate you against any unfair accusations that you like something simply because it had slightly more women in nontraditional roles than the usual Hollywood fare*, and will certainly not serve to make it seem like your opinions are something to be apologized for. It certainly does not undermine the quality of your opinion, nor make you essentially apologize for having thoughts about pop culture.
Don’t spend too long on it. About three to six single-spaced pages will suffice.
* No.
Find Something—Anything, Really—You Didn’t Like
No matter how much you loved the film, you can’t love it too much. It can’t possibly be enough that Leslie Jones played a history buff with a heart of gold that made you feel represented on screen in a way that would have been typically relegated to Gruff White Action Hero 34-A, Subset Hemmingway. It can’t just be that Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig playing former friends reuniting after a fall out hits you square in the heart that qualifies it for being perfect in that single moment you saw the damn thing. It can’t even be that the film was confidently funny as opposed to desperately mewling for your approval like most live-action comedies. Nope!
The law dictates that you must mention something you did not like in any piece of media you review, lest you be BIASED and RUIN PEOPLE’S CHILDHOOD or something. Garstfusters is no different. The more you like it, the closer you have to look in order to peel something, raw and screaming, from its warm and squishy home. This way, you will be protected from hordes of internet idiots for having an opinion.*
For instance, the editing could have been better and there was clearly a missing scene where Kevin, the charismatic son of a Calvin Klein ad and a brisket, is shut down from joining the Grubboosters. One of those things is something the average moviegoer will literally fall asleep in the middle of you explaining, and the other is a scene that could be reasonably inferred anyway from characters’ interaction and behavior. But, hey, I noticed and that is a bad!
* Efficacy of this defense has proven to be less than optimal.
Become Paralyzed With How Jerks Won’t Let You Love Anything
Instead of actually voicing your opinion, you could simply just sit at your computer, frozen in terror at potentially unleashing the waiting horrorshow to swarm you in unfathomable hate. In this way, it’s kind of like not having an opinion, with the added pressure of feeling like you’re letting abominable people win and you’re letting others down. So crawl under your desk and be harrowed by a gut-wrenching fear that this is our world now.
It’s not like the burrowers of the rotten underbelly of the internet will ever have reason to harass you for that!*
* That, in itself, is apparently cause for a harassment campaign.
Do Not Ever Imply You Like This One More Than the Original
Enjoying a reboot is one thing, but thinking that it is better than the original is, if anonymous commenters are to be believed, arguably the worst crime a human being can commit in the history of forever. Sure, the camaraderie and chemistry in the new one feels more authentic and none of the characters come off like sexual predators. It’s even possible to admit that, subjectively, you like this one more because, subjectively, it speaks more to your present situation than the original Guffnustas ever did.
Subjectively, of course.
But since actually liking a reboot more than its progenitor is scientifically unpossible, make sure to spend time assuaging your readers doubt about how this new film doesn’t hold a candle to the original, and how the original will always love them, and how the big scary world will always be kept at bay in the doughy insides of the original, and the original has noticed you’ve been working out lately. Even though the existence of a reboot doesn’t actually erase the original or denigrate or invalidate it in any way, soothe the somehow-maligned feelings of the dwellers of the stygian internet. They are fickle beasts with a poor concept of object permanence.
As long as you remind them that no one is taking away their Egon or their official Grabblammer lunchbox from 1984, you can gush about the rest of the 2016 film without fear of a hate mob.*
* False.
Which makes me look more like a doctor? Playing the guitar, or listening to the guitar?
< PREVIOUS ENTRY • NEXT ENTRY >
Advice • Fiction • Gaming • General Musings • Reviews