Ghostbusters – Bitch Flicks

“What’s Next for Horror” Panel and More at C2E2

One message reinforced in panels throughout the day — including the “Gender Identity: Understanding Through Art” panel earlier that morning — was best articulated by filmmaker Kellee Terrell: the need for diversity in film. The revelation of ‘Get Out’ sparked a conversation on representation, universal experiences, and relating to what’s on-screen.

This guest post is written by Josephine Maria Yanasak-Leszczynski.

Saturday, April 22nd at Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2) was the most crowded day yet. Crown Champions of Cosplay hopefuls showed up in their most creative and best, and those hoping to attend panels and shop the floor arrived early.

In recent years, both the “big two” comic book publishers (DC and Marvel) have removed all floor presence, meaning that while they host panels, they have no representation on the floors beyond third-party vendors — a noticeable shift from big market branding to more independent vendors.

There was little floor presence for film and television, besides celebrity autographing sessions and merchandise by third parties. Weta Workshop did host a booth and held a special effects demo on Sunday of the convention. The effects company is famous for a number of films, including the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Like any good vendor, they have merchandise for sale, including impressively rendered models of some of their most famous creations. Their presence at the convention is more than just filling floor space, however. Staff is available to chat about their creations, and even about special effect techniques in film. It’s an unexpected resource for filmmakers at a convention that is traditionally centered on comic books.

At the Crown Champions of Cosplay, cosplayers compete with each other for the crown. Judged by special effects professionals and cosplay celebrities, their entries were judged for craftsmanship and then their performance on-stage. While timing makes it impossible for some people to attend the competition, the celebration lasts all day with entrants and others joining in with their best costumes on the floor and in panels.

“Reinventing Horror: What’s Next for Horror in Comics & Film?” Panel

The “Reinventing Horror: What’s Next for Horror in Comics & Film?” panel, moderated by Ain’t It Cool News’ M.L. Miller provided the highlight of the day. Filmmaker Kellee Terrell, cover artist Jenny Frison, writer Brian Level, and director Dorian Weinzimmer shared their thoughts on recent horror, where they want to see the genre go next, and how to get there.

One message reinforced in panels throughout the day — including the “Gender Identity: Understanding Through Art” panel earlier that morning — was best articulated by Kellee Terrell: the need for diversity in film. The revelation of Get Out sparked a conversation on representation, universal experiences, and relating to what’s on-screen.

“When we talk about what’s universal, as a Black woman, Hollywood is not geared toward me,” Terrell explained. “Besides Get Out, I cannot name that many movies with people like me… I want to create movies that have people that look like me, but you can still relate to them.”

The panelists agreed that having films with diverse casting or character elements does not exclude audiences. In fact, Terrell expanded, “The more you see people that don’t look like you, it enhances who you are.” Frison shared her own experience with seeing herself in movies, explaining that she never had a problem seeing herself in action films. Or so she thought:

“I didn’t know what I was missing until I saw [Mad Max:] Fury Road… Now I can really be a badass.”

Level agreed that more diversity is needed in the industry, both indie and Hollywood, citing that some of his favorite films that have come out recently were written and directed by women. “And I want to see more of that,” he said to many head nods in the audience. Later he elaborated, “I get so excited to see things I have never seen before from viewpoints I cannot have.”

Weinzimmer also added that it’s important to get to a point in narrative filmmaking where we can have diverse characters that are not defined by the fact that they’re different from the status quo: “And have the focus not be on them, but on who they are as characters.” “I want us to be really careful when we talk about that,” Terrell cautioned. She reiterated that when depicting personal experience to draw on a universal one, we cannot erase what makes those experiences personal. Weinzimmer agreed.

The panelists also explored what drew them to the horror genre in the first place. Some cited their beginnings in horror to the video store. Some were attracted to the cover art, others to the thrill of picking out an R-rated movie as a minor. Like so many, their introduction to their current favorite genre seems to be tied to format. There is nothing like picking out a movie in a video store, an experience that is largely missing with the rise of Netflix.

While not discussed in depth at the panel, this was a fitting parallel to the generations of experiences attending C2E2. A convention mostly about comics, the attendees have vastly different experiences with comics themselves. While there are still plenty of independent shops on the floor, few are local. Mostly gone are the collectors selling off their dusty boxes of garage kept trades. The experience at conventions like these have changed significantly, even in just the last few years. The move to digital undoubtedly has something to do with it. This doesn’t necessarily mean that there is a decrease in quality of content, but it is a shift, and the truth is that people getting into film and television now are building a very different nostalgic base for genre. That being said, some forms of media delivery are not dead.

While fans pressed actress Danielle Panabaker at a celebrity spotlight session for clues as to what might happen in the next five episodes of the CW’s The Flash, where she is poised to become the villain Killer Frost, she gave nothing away. It was clear that while audiences are now used to binge watching entire seasons of shows on online streaming services, they are also willing to wait for what comes next in something they truly enjoy.

The best moment of the con so far was incited when the “What’s Next for Horror” panel ran over time to answer one last fan question. While it had been a friendly experience up to that point with some honest discussion, this fan was ready to take on the big problems in film. It’s hard to remember his actual question, but his statements implied that diversity creates a lack of reality in film. Citing the recent Ghostbusters film as an example, he said that the female protagonists’ reactions to the ghosts in the films were inaccurate and displayed a “false level of badassery.”

The panelists disagreed, explaining that the film was about ectoplasm and absurd spirits with a heavy comedic element. They collectively pointed out that the same conversation would not be had if the rebooted Ghostbusters starred men, which Weinzimmer expanded on. “When they go into the library… I would have been running out of there!” he said of the realism of badass Ghostbusters.

As the Ghostbusters attempted to draw out the conversation, Terrell finally put an end to the discussion saying firmly, “No, I don’t agree with you.”

The panelists all lined up, there was applause, and now I have a phrase for a T-shirt for next year’s C2E2.

All C2E2 2017 photos taken by Josephine Maria Yanasak-Leszczynski.

Links:

Kellee Terrell’s Vimeo

Revival comic book series (cover art done by Jenny Frison)

Josephine Maria Yanasak-Leszczynski is a museum educator by day (and often night), and a freelance writer every other time she manages to make a deadline. She can be found on Twitter @JMYaLes.

‘Ghostbusters’: Yes, the Equations are Correct

As a woman in physics I have found that this experience encapsulates many of the issues of being a woman in a field dominated by men. I was very happy to see strong women on the screen and wanted to be a part of the effort… Ten years from now I hope to have an introductory physics course where I can’t count the women on one hand. I want the students to look at my framed thank you note from set dressing, ooh and ahh, and I will get to tell them that yes, those equations are right.

This guest post written by Dr. Lindley Winslow originally appeared at Science & Film. It is cross-posted with permission.

It all started with an email I almost deleted: “Feature Film FLAPJACK.” Before moving to MIT, I was a professor at UCLA for a few years and for fun had talked to a couple of screenwriters when they had emailed me. This time it was April and I had been at MIT for 4 months: I had two labs to setup, my first MIT course to finish, and to top it all off I was beginning to go from some-what pregnant to very pregnant with my second child. Thankfully, I kept reading the most recent email and learned that Flapjack was the codename for the Ghostbusters reboot. The movie was featuring women, specifically particle physicists, in the lead roles. The director Paul Feig wanted everything to be realistic, up until the ghosts showed up, and they needed some expert help.

The 1984 Ghostbusters is one of those movies that brought a generation to science and taught kids that you could dream of something, invent equipment to test it, and then may be even commercialize it. Therefore, it is not surprising that so many of us loved the original movie. I jumped on the opportunity to help them.

My email for help was from Carolyn Lassek from Props and Claudia Bonfe from Set Dressing. They were on a mission to discover what a real particle physics lab looks like. They had several more specific goals too: they needed to find an experiment to be the centerpiece of the lab, decorate an office, and fill a whiteboard with a physics lecture. They came for a visit at MIT and I showed them all of the smaller experiments that would be found at a university lab. They loved the polarized helium-3 source with its copper Helmholz coils and glass tube for the helium — it was postdoc James Maxwell’s project. He really ran with their interest, including the construction of a mock-up experiment and later a thesis on how the proton pack worked. They also loved my colleague Janet Conrad’s office. It is filled with physics toys, 19th century physics equipment, and some science-themed art including a large iron Richard Feynman diagram. That was to become the inspiration for the office in Ghostbusters; several things were borrowed directly from her office and put into the film.

As for me, they loved my junk. As mentioned above, I was setting up my labs and both were filled with junk or treasures depending on your point of view. I had two big wooden crates where we had sorted things we were fairly sure were junk — some of the things were quite large. Claudia, the set dresser, sent a truck to pick it all up so, instead of going in the dumpster, it went to the Ghostbusters set.

The level of detail needed for a movie is amazing. They needed material for lab notebooks and the black boards around the lab. They even wanted the awards on the scientists’ office wall to be authentic down to the citation for the award. I provided the text for all of this and then the most prominent work, an entire large lecture hall white board filled with equations. It would be the backdrop for one of the early scenes, which introduces Kristen Wig’s character as a theoretical physicist. I was only told that the relevant line was “unifying quantum mechanics and gravity.” The logical subject from the board then became grand unified theories or GUTs.

In particle physics, we believe that there must be a theory of everything. We have already observed that at high energies we see two of the four fundamental forces unifying. The Holy Grail is the unification of gravity, famously described by Einstein as the curvature of space-time, into a quantum field theory or particle description. The first step is the unification of the three better-understood forces: the electromagnetic, the weak (which describes nuclear decay), and the strong (which describes the binding of quarks). This first step is a grand unified theory or GUT. The simplest is described by the algebraic group SU(5): special unitary group of degree 5.

The derivation of the life-time of the proton in SU(5) and the measurements by the experiment Super Kamiokande which ruled out SU(5) are what are on the board. The main background to the proton decay measurements were neutrinos, my area of specialty. This is one of my favorite measurements because it is one of those times where we were able to make a definitive measurement by measuring nothing while also making a fundamental discovery about neutrino mass, which went on to win the Nobel Prize in 2016. At the right of the board are mentions of some theories that try to move on from GUTs to these theories of everything: namely a theory called SUGRA or super gravity. I have to admit I stopped the board there due to my lack in expertise and a general bias against string-type theories that are proving very hard to either prove or disprove experimentally.

I love the fact that this physics will make it to the big screen and I am in awe of the process that brings these stories to life. The many individuals, from the director Paul Feig and actresses (Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones, and Kate McKinnon) down to the people like Carolyn and Claudia who are making sure that there is a coat rack in the corner with cables on it, because that is how they are stored in Building 44 at MIT.

On another level, as a woman in physics I have found that this experience encapsulates many of the issues of being a woman in a field dominated by men. I was very happy to see strong women on the screen and wanted to be a part of the effort, but fundamentally it was a distraction from my main job, which is doing research. The day I was able to spend on set, I tried to wait around to meet the actresses and director, but I had to leave at 3:00pm to pick up my son. I was able to come another day for a few hours to see that big lecture hall and meet the director, but this grand achievement has been soured a bit since a written hyperlink was added in with the equations on the blackboard to a video of James Maxwell explaining the proton pack. This meant many of the first stories about the science in the movie only credited one less senior male MIT physicist.

In the bigger world, the Ghostbusters trailer has more dislikes on YouTube than any trailer in history. I find this incredible with the many awful sequels that have been made. There are real complaints to be made about the trailer, namely that all of the physicists are white women. I would really love it if the next Ghostbusters has Leslie Jones’ character getting a PhD and leading the team. Fundamentally though, the criticisms of the trailer show the many biases both conscious and unconscious that women face when pushing against boundaries in physics and in Hollywood.

I am looking forward to the film’s release. Ten years from now I hope to have an introductory physics course where I can’t count the women on one hand. I want the students to look at my framed thank you note from set dressing, ooh and ahh, and I will get to tell them that yes, those equations are right.

Dr. Lindley Winslow is an assistant professor of physics at MIT. She is an experimental nuclear physicist whose primary focus is on neutrinoless double-beta decay. Winslow takes part in two projects that search for double-beta decay at CUORE (Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events) and KamLAND-Zen, and works to develop new, more sensitive double-beta decay detectors. Winslow received her BA in physics and astronomy in 2001 and her PhD in physics in 2008, both from the University of California at Berkeley. After a postdoctoral fellowship at MIT, she was appointed as an assistant professor at the University of California at Los Angeles. Winslow has also been awarded a 2010 L’Oréal for Women in Science Fellowship. Winslow was appointed as an assistant professor at MIT in 2015.

How Pop Culture Nostalgia Privileges Some and Excludes Others

Nostalgia is not the problem, at least not the main one. … The central issue is that the feeling of nostalgia is often a privilege, and a form of exclusion.

This guest post is written by Manish Mathur.

Hollywood is deeply rooted in franchise culture, where properties from 20 years ago are being resurrected from the dead in order for studios to mine profits from brand recognition. The rise of streaming platforms, digital rentals, and services like Redbox has made movie studios anxious to find ways to bring audiences into the movie theater. Reboots, remakes, and long-awaited sequels are par for the course. Nostalgia is ruling the mainstream pop culture.

Nostalgia is not the problem, at least not the main one. Pop culture, and film specifically, always looks to the past for new ideas even among “original films.” The central issue is that the feeling of nostalgia is often a privilege, and a form of exclusion. The controversy surrounding the woman-led Ghostbusters has been well-documented. Fans of the original Ghostbusters claimed that a reboot of the franchise, and one that stars four women especially, is ruining their childhoods, and a disgrace to the memory of the original film. The backlash was so immense, so loud and hateful, that many pop culture enthusiasts, writers, and critics deduced that the reason behind it was outright misogyny and racism. Their hatred of the movie, fueled by an admittedly lackluster marketing campaign, signaled to me that they were used to pop culture catering to their tastes and childhood memories.

That is a privilege that is slowly being taken away. I can imagine that it’s really frustrating to see stuff these white men love being transformed into something different. Melissa McCarthy, an icon of women who dare to be successful without sexual objectification, replaces Bill Murray, an icon of male eccentricities and aloofness. McCarthy is not only a fabulous comedian and powerful dramatic actress, she’s sexual and desirable without being reduced to a typical masturbation fantasy. The same goes for Leslie Jones, a dark-skinned Black woman who confronts the Angry Black Woman stereotype through her sketches on SNL. Jones has also been facing a perpetual barrage of racist, misogynist harassment. These are two women who dare to be present, without the aid of white male fantasy; they are a definite “fuck you” to the stereotypical male gaze.

Privilege has many definitions, but the one that is most powerful to me is it’s the feeling of despair when something is taken away from someone who assumed it was owed to him. The Ghostbusters fan-boys thought a Ghostbusters 3 or all-male reboot was owed to them; they lashed out when they didn’t get it. Star Wars fans lost their cool when Star Wars: The Force Awakens revealed that Daisy Ridley, a woman, was the protagonist alongside John Boyega, a Black man, with racist fans calling for a boycott. Men complained about Rogue One: A Star Wars Story because Rogue One is the second film in a row of the new phase of Star Wars releases to feature a woman in the lead (Oscar-nominee Felicity Jones). Never mind that Jones is flanked by an all-male, albeit racially diverse, supporting cast. And of course, Men’s Rights Activists (MRAs) protested Mad Max: Fury Road for its feminist themes and the horror of a woman as the co-lead with a man.

Disney is giving cult hit The Rocketeer a sequel, this time starring a Black actress (fingers crossed, the sequel will be directed by a Black woman). Comedian Jillian Bell (The Night Before) pitched a gender-swapped remake of the Tom Hanks/Daryl Hannah 1980s comedy Splash, with Channing Tatum in the mermaid (merman?) role.

These examples are mere raindrops in an ocean compared to the countless major movies being made by and for white men. But they stand out as definite attempts to rewrite pop culture history to be more inclusive and better representations of the world as a whole. For some, incremental change can be frustrating, and just as practically unhelpful as no change. Yet these diverse and inclusive steps are viewed by a certain privileged demographic as the pillaging of their childhoods. For some, even small progress is seen as too much, and forests are missed for the trees.

These whiny reactions from the MRA community are amusing for their silliness and for being ultimately ineffective, but they represent a sense of loss within the Mens Rights Activist community. These men feel like their childhoods are being taken away, yet they fail to realize that their childhoods are the only ones that matter to most of mainstream media. They don’t understand that the fact that boy-centric 80s and 90s properties are being brought back to life at all because studios are chasing the white, 18 to 49-year-old, male dollar. Aside from Disney, no other studio is really concerned about women consumers or people of color consumers, even though women, especially Latinx women, purchase 51% of movie theatre tickets. The profits from these marginalized groups are often viewed as lesser, inferior, or irrelevant. This contradicts the countless pieces of evidence that women and/or people of color are a powerful and immensely hungry audience. The Fast and the Furious series became a billion-dollar franchise when it expanded its cast to more women and more actors of color. Diverse movies perform better than those with the typical white male lead. For every half-dozen examples of diverse casting and gender-swapped reboots, there are a hundred other properties made to placate the cis, straight, white man that underperform at the box office. Even among many financial failures, the white male is still the default.

Right now, Hollywood is stuck in a cycle of bringing back old properties. The white male childhood still reigns supreme. The industry will need to experience a seismic change to get out of this routine. However, the best way to combat this narrow view of nostalgia is to create a more inclusive nostalgia for generations to come. I want our kids, of all races, genders, sexual orientations, and religions, to see themselves on the screen. Maybe this current trend of diverse reboots will inspire more marginalized groups to take a chance on a career previously seen as exclusive.

Maybe a young Black woman will become a historian, inspired by Leslie Jones in Ghostbusters. Or perhaps a Korean-American young boy will feel comfortable enough to come out as gay after seeing John Cho in Star Trek Beyond. Pop culture has the ability to shape our future, to inspire the world to be better. It’s time now for all kids to have that privilege of seeing versions of themselves on-screen.

My childhood was sacred, and I cherish those memories. But my childhood is not important anymore. It is of the utmost importance that older generations fosters growth for the future generation. Just look at the picture of Ghostbusters star Kristen Wiig interacting with two young girls in Ghostbusters uniforms at the movie premiere. That photo is a glimpse of the benefits of an inclusive culture, where no one demographic is privileged over the others. Boys, we had our time and it was mostly fine. Now, I (and many others) am hungry for more stories, different characters, and interesting perspectives.

Manish Mathur is a freelance writer in New York, and a major Alfred Hitchcock fan-boy. He writes about diversity and inclusion, Hollywood franchise culture, and analyses of classic films. He’s completely obsessed with Scarlett Johansson. You can read his writing at Mathur & the Marquee, follow him on Twitter @hippogriffrider, and like his page on Facebook.

Women Scientists Week: The Roundup

Check out all of the posts from our Women Scientists Theme Week here.

5 Women Scientists Who Need Their Own Movie ASAP by Maddie Webb

Issues around equal gender representation in film are compounded by many female researchers’ accomplishments being erased from history, resulting in very few women being key players in scientific biopics. As a woman studying for a science degree, this absence is as painful as it obvious. So in a bid to restore balance (and an excuse for me to nerd out), here are 5 female scientists that deserve to have their stories told on the silver screen.

Jurassic Park: Resisting Gender Tropes by Siobhan Denton

Yet in rewatching Jurassic Park, it struck me that not only is Laura Dern’s Dr. Ellie Sattler a portrayal of a female scientist that is largely unseen in film, but she is, on numerous occasions, keenly aware of her gender and how this leads to her treatment.

Mission Blue: “No Ocean, No Us” by Ren Jender

Audiences have to look to documentaries like Particle Fever, about the discovery of the Higgs boson, to see women scientists in prominent roles on film. The Netflix documentary Mission Blue focuses on one woman scientist, Sylvia Earle, a former chief at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and pioneering oceanographer and marine biologist who is on a quest to save the world’s oceans from dying.

When Will Black Women Play Leading Scientists More Often? by Tara Betts

In movies and on television, the absence of Black women as scientists is glaringly obvious…The response on social media to the vocation of Leslie Jones’ character in Ghostbusters offers an opportunity to ponder: When have Black women been cast as scientists in laboratories, creating and inventing significant and outlandish developments, and leading investigations? …Where are the Black women playing scientists in films in the 21st century?

Splice: The Horror of Having It All by Claire Holland

Splice could very well be a cautionary tale for the career woman considering motherhood. From the outset, the film shows Elsa as an ambitious scientist who loves her job – and who loves her life exactly the way it is. … This presents the central conflict of Elsa’s character: her repressed desire to be a mother, and her larger desire to remain in control of her own life, body, and career.

Beverly Crusher (Star Trek: TNG) and Dana Scully (The X-Files): The Medical and the Maternal by Carly Lane

The impact of Dr. Beverly Crusher and Agent Dana Scully cannot be understated, not just on the landscape of female representation on television or the portrayal of women scientists but the way they also drove young women to pursue STEM fields in reality. …They transcend mere descriptors like woman, lover, mother, caregiver, skeptic, scientist — because they’re all that and more.

Contact: The Power of Feminist Representation by Kelcie Mattson

Contact remains a singularly astute portrayal of a woman combating the oppressive confines of institutional sexism as well as a reminder of how deeply mainstream cinema still needs progressive feminist portrayals that contradict gender clichés. … How refreshing that a woman’s personal arc is considered important enough to be entwined alongside the movie’s core theme of discovering meaning in our seemingly meaningless universe.

Mary and Susan on Johnny Test by Robert V. Aldrich

While the show as a whole was run-of-the-mill, it quietly had two of the most brilliantly realized female characters in recent cartoon history: Mary and Susan Test. …Mary and Susan Test are ambitious, intelligent, and fully-actualized. Exaggeratedly brilliant scientists, it’s the twin girls who put into motion most events of the series.

The World Is Not Enough and the “Believability” of Dr. Christmas Jones by Lee Jutton

Dr. Jones went from being a promising step forward for Bond girls to one of the more maligned female characters of the franchise. … And this is what is the most disappointing thing about Dr. Jones. She’s a tough-talking woman whose best moments in the film come when she grows impatient with Bond’s testosterone-driven idiocy and counters his quips with her own formidable sarcasm, yet in the end, she’s just like any of those earlier Bond girls that Denise Richards dismissed as lacking depth…

In Praise of Jurassic Park‘s Dr. Ellie Sattler by Sarah Mirk

Dr. Sattler is awesome. She’s a character who doesn’t fit into any typical Hollywood box: A friendly, stable, super-smart woman who wants to be a mother, has her own nerdy career, and doesn’t think twice about being a badass. … I saw Jurassic Park when I was seven and from then on wanted to be Dr. Ellie Sattler.

1950s B-Movie Women Scientists: Smart, Strong, but Still Marriageable by Linda Levitt

While the happily ever after scenario in these 1950s B-movies comes with an expectation that women give up their careers in science to become wives and mothers once the appropriate suitor is identified, it seems there are women in B-movies who do have it all — they maintain the respect afforded to them as scientists and also win romantic partners, without having to sacrifice their professional interests to assume domestic roles instead.

Ghostbusters Is One of the Most Important Movies of the Year by Katherine Murray

They’re moved to realize that, after everyone talked shit about them for weeks or months on end, someone actually appreciated what they did. It’s a moment of art imitating life that mirrored my experience with Ghostbusters… I also vastly underestimated how powerful it would be, and how great it would feel, to watch an action-comedy with only women in the leading roles.

The Female Scientists of The X-Files by Angela Morrison

The X-Files consistently worked against the idea that women could not be capable scientists. In fact, there is evidence to suggest that the character of Dana Scully inspired many young women to pursue education and careers in science and technology – what is now known as “The Scully Effect.”

Women in Science in the Marvel Cinematic Universe by Cheyenne Matthews-Hoffman

Female scientists are few and far between in the Marvel world. Of the 65 MCU scientists in a live action movie or television show, 18 are women. And of those 18, 2 are women of color… While those numbers may seem a bit low, MCU’s female scientists statistics are pretty much right on target with the national average. Women are greatly underrepresented in the STEM fields in the U.S.

Contact 20 Years Later: Will We Discover Aliens Before Fixing Sexism? by Maria Myotte

But the entire gist is still pretty radical: A big-budget film about a woman leading a monumental mission that, if successful, would be the most important discovery of our time. Contact‘s feminism is all the more stunning to watch two decades after its release because of its stingingly accurate portrayal of sexism in science and refusal to appease the hetero-male gaze.

Dana Scully: Femininity, Otherness, and the Ultimate X-File by Becky Kukla

Instead of investigating the science, Scully actually becomes the science. …There seems to be a substantial link between Scully’s gender and the tests and science that is inflicted upon her. Is this her punishment for daring to be a woman in a male-dominated sphere? … There’s also something pretty grim in Scully’s abduction/missing ovum storyline that feels very reminiscent of higher powers meddling and making decisions about women’s reproductive rights.

Gorillas in the Mist, Dian Fossey, and Female Ambition in the Wild by Jessica Quiroli

Dian Fossey, a zoologist, primatologist, and anthropologist, was a controversial figure because she approached her work with primates in their natural habitat in a radical and unconventional way. … Just by doing work that she loved and believed in, Fossey made a statement about women’s value in the world.

If She Can See It, She Can Be It: Women of STEM on Television by Amy C. Chambers

It is important to have women represented in fictional media as scientists from across the spectrum of sciences… By making women more visible in science settings on television – in both fictional and factual programming – the inspiring images of science that can and are being produced can be associated with women who are not only represented as smart individuals but as part of a network of diverse and complex professional women.

The Ponytail Revolution: Why We Need More Women Scientists On-Screen by Kimberly Dilts

In Rewatching The X-Files, One Thing Is Clear: Mulder Is a Real Jerk by Sarah Mirk

I realized something even worse: Agent Mulder is not a dreamboat. In fact, he’s an asshole. An asshole who spends most of the series mansplaining to Agent Scully. … Twenty years after The X-Files debuted, it’s still rare to see a female character who’s as complicated and resilient as Scully — especially who works in science. … What stands out about The X-Files while watching it now, though, is how consistently Scully stands up for herself.

Rise of the Women? Screening Women in Science Since 2000 by Amy C. Chambers

I am interested in thinking about how women have been represented in recent Hollywood/American science-based fiction cinema and whether we have really moved beyond relying on stereotypes, sex, and spectacle. Female scientists are increasing in frequency in Hollywood, but they are not being given adequate representation – they are often secondary to their male partners.

The Ponytail Revolution: Why We Need More Women Scientists On-Screen

This guest post written by Kimberly Dilts appears as part of our theme week on Women Scientists.

One of my smartest, funniest friends, playwright Megan Gogerty, came home from Ghostbusters the other night, rightfully full of joy about having just seen four fully fleshed-out female characters spend the length of a film “nerding out on science and history.” She pointed out something about the experience that was revolutionary. Wait. More revolutionary than FOUR WOMEN NERDING OUT ABOUT SCIENCE IN A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE, you ask? Yes, MORE revolutionary. I’m going to let her tell you in her own words because frankly, she’s smarter and funnier than I am:

“That fight scene? I can’t… To see four women! Kicking ass as themselves, with not a single spandex leather catsuit or wedge heels to be seen! THEY ALL HAD THEIR HAIR TIED BACK. Do you understand how radical that is? The simple act of, y’know, getting your hair out of your fucking face before you fight a monster, rather than having it whipped sensually around over your eyes, blocking your vision? Buffy couldn’t do it. Mrs. Smith couldn’t do it. Sydney Bristow couldn’t do it. They were all forced into the Implausible Battle Hair code of conduct for genre heroines. If you are a man and were bored and didn’t notice their hair was tied back during the battle scene, may I humbly and gently suggest perhaps that you may not know what it’s like to be out in the desert, to not see yourself — to never, ever, ever, ever, ever see yourself — in a genre picture without having to squeeze yourself into the impossible corset the Male Gaze requires.”

I want to stop here and invite you to ponder this with me for a moment. In 2016, in cinema, it is a revolutionary act to see a woman tie her hair back on-screen in order to accomplish a task. Not to flirt – not because the messy bun makes her look cute in that “I just woke up and don’t really care what I look like but still look like a model kind of way” – but to just do a thing without getting her hair in her mouth. It is simply not done. That’s how low the bar is set for women in film.

We don’t just need female scientists on-screen, we need female scientists on-screen who have cellulite, and wear flats, and have passionate conversations about substantive, quantitative, peer-reviewed flovinium-laced flaxum jaxum time fluxes. We need women scientists on-screen who are women of color, LGBTQIA women, and women with disabilities. We need female characters who don’t cater to the Male Gaze — who, when going to fight monsters (as scientists often do in the movies, let’s face it), don fucking power ponytails.

It has to be normal for women to wield power in films. We need to see women be the smartest and to have a variety of body sizes, like men get to have. Why? Because story is how we understand the world. We create perception (and therefore, personal reality) through story, which has an immediate effect on reality because thoughts become words, and words become action (or inaction — how many young girls stay away from pools because they internalized the message that they don’t have “bikini” bodies?). If we normalize women in science on film, it helps to enable more women to be scientists in the real world. Don’t think media has that much power? Take a look at what CSI did for forensic science, or what Jaws did to (and then for) sharks, or what Frozen did for ice princesses. The X-Files‘ character “Dana Scully inspired many young women to pursue education and careers in science and technology – what is now known as ‘The Scully Effect.'”

THIS IS WHY FEMALE LED FILMS ARE IMPORTANT pic.twitter.com/DsCj0NlHvg

— trudie (@hoItzmanns) July 10, 2016

In high school, I was a “nerd.” I got straight A’s and I went to The International Science Fair. When it was suggested that I think about theoretical physics as a career, I actually did think about it… and then opted for a career in the arts instead because I’m a glutton for punishment who likes not having any money. Now, I don’t regret my choice, but I do sometimes wonder, would I have actually become a theoretical physicist if I had had, say, a single female science teacher? Or any signal from popular culture that a girl choosing science for a career was, if not cool, at least normal? I have no idea. But science tells us that outcome would certainly be more probable if I’d had even one woman role model in STEM.

We are truly in a moment of struggle over whose stories are being told. Do filmmakers believe that women are active protagonists worthy of their own tales, or passive objects to be used to further male narratives? It’s as big and infuriating and important as that — what is the story we want to tell about a woman’s place in the world? There are countries where women are not allowed to drive, women are put to death for having been raped or for reading. Here in the U.S., women contend with misogyny and sexism, rape and sexual assault, intimate partner violence, abortion restrictions, unequal pay, and sexual harassment. Women of color face racism; Black women face racism and police brutality. Queer women face homophobia and biphobia. Trans women face transphobia, harassment, and murder. The story that society currently tells is that women are property to be controlled — we are the discovered, not the discoverers, and cinema reinforces this notion in a million little destructive ways every day.

So yes, we need more women scientists in film. We need more women senators, and pilots, and coders, and entrepreneurs and activists, and filmmakers, and we need it to be totally normal for women of all races and ethnicities and sexual orientations to be these things on the big screen.

We need women to write, direct, produce, and fund these stories. Because despite overwhelming evidence that women want to see themselves on-screen and will pay cash money to do so, Hollywood, seems determined to maintain the status quo. If we want to see change, and we want to see our stories told from our point of view, we have to do it ourselves. So I’m writing a mermaid comedy about a marine biologist. It’s going to be broad, and goofy and by god, there will be ponytails. Who’s with me?

Photo of Margot Lee Shetterly, author of ‘Hidden Figures’ which is being adapted into a film, by NASA in the public domain.

Kimberly Dilts is a Los Angeles-based writer/producer/performer currently touring her second feature film, Auld Lang Syne on the festival circuit. She’s also currently working on rewrites for two films, both featuring female protagonists. You can learn more about her work at www.scrappycatproductions.com and follow her on Twitter @kmdilts.

‘Ghostbusters’ Is One of the Most Important Movies of the Year

They’re moved to realize that, after everyone talked shit about them for weeks or months on end, someone actually appreciated what they did. It’s a moment of art imitating life that mirrored my experience with ‘Ghostbusters’… I also vastly underestimated how powerful it would be, and how great it would feel, to watch an action-comedy with only women in the leading roles.

Written by Katherine Murray.

There’s a scene that takes place during the final credits of Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters reboot, in which the Ghostbusters look outside and see New York skyscrapers lit up with messages thanking them for saving the city. They’re moved to realize that, after everyone talked shit about them for weeks or months on end, someone actually appreciated what they did. It’s a moment of art imitating life that mirrored my experience with Ghostbusters so perfectly that I basically just started crying as soon as it happened.

Straight up: I saw this movie out of spite. I remember watching the original films and cartoon as a kid, but I wasn’t overly excited about either of them, or the news that the franchise was getting a reboot. I thought, shooting ghosts with lasers is pretty much the same thing no matter who’s doing it, right? I was wrong.

As the release date for Ghostbusters neared, the backlash against it grew. Apparently, there are a group of men who are offended by the idea that anyone would try, on purpose, to combat sexism in popular entertainment. In this worldview, making hundreds of movies that star groups of men is just natural and good – something with no political implication at all, because it’s what every reasonable person would do by default. Making a single movie that stars four women means you’re going to hell.

After watching this build over the past six months, I decided to vote with my wallet and pay to see Ghostbusters, even though I was still pretty sure I didn’t care about shooting ghosts with lasers. What I can report is that, while it’s not the best movie I’ve ever seen, it’s a pretty good action-comedy. I also vastly underestimated how powerful it would be, and how great it would feel, to watch an action-comedy with only women in the leading roles.

The nuts and bolts of the Ghostbusters remake are very similar to the original in terms of pacing and content. It takes a while to get going but, once the four main characters have met and resolved to start fighting ghosts, the action picks up, and the story gets a lot more exciting. The special effects are more intense than the original, and they’re gorgeous to look at. You’ve already seen a lot of the funniest jokes in leaked clips on the internet, but, while it’s not laugh-out-loud hilarious, the movie stays fun and amusing. The filmmakers are extremely diligent in making sure to reference the most famous scenes and set-pieces from the original series – one might argue that they’re diligent to the point of not letting the reboot step out from the shadow of the original – and most of the original cast members return for cameo appearances in one form or another.

All the evidence suggests that this was a very carefully considered and carefully planned reboot, designed to win over fans of the original. It’s not executed as well as the 2009 Star Trek reboot, but it’s executed better than Star Trek into Darkness, and better than I expected it to be, for sure.

Ghostbusters is very careful about gender presentation – there’s no sense that this is “the girl version of Ghostbusters” in the same way The Chipettes are the girl version of The Chipmunks. This is probably due, in part, to Feig’s preferred approach of allowing actors to improvise and draw on their own personalities to create characters. My favorite example of this, and the one mentioned in the article linked above, is that Kate McKinnon’s character, Holtzmann, comes across as having an ambiguous, vaguely queer sexuality in the film – something that McKinnon, the first openly gay women to join Saturday Night Live, brought to the table herself. There’s an amazing sequence, late in the film, where Holtzmann fights a cloud of ghosts and even as I was watching it part of me thought, “This wouldn’t have existed thirty years ago. If people like me got to shoot ghosts with lasers when I was a kid, maybe I would have thought shooting ghosts with lasers was more cool.”

Other aspects of the film felt more disappointing. The first is that, just as in the original, the only Black Ghostbuster is also the only one who doesn’t know anything about science and acts as a plain-spoken audience surrogate. Leslie Jones easily delivers the funniest performance in the movie, and it’s hard to imagine that she would have been able to do that if she were playing a serious, straight-laced scientist. But it still feels awkward that a film that’s so thoughtful in challenging Hollywood stereotypes of women didn’t think at all about the stereotype that white people are book smart and Black people are street smart, when it comes to forming action teams in movies. While Jones is defending the choice on the basis that there’s no reason why she can’t play a working class character, the concern for me is less about this individual movie and more about how it fits into a pattern.

Similarly, there is some weirdness around Chris Hemsworth’s appearance as the team’s pretty-but-stupid receptionist, Kevin. Kevin is clearly intended to be an inversion of the pretty-but-stupid female stock character, but it might have been more interesting not to use that stock at all. It’s funny that Kevin took the lenses out of his glasses so he wouldn’t have to clean them and that he keeps reaching for a decorative phone that’s kept behind glass. But when that’s coupled with Kristen Wiig’s character objectifying him, asking him inappropriate questions during a job interview, and sexually harassing him in the workplace, it starts to feel uncomfortable. I’d be willing to accept that the Ghostbusters are stuck with Kevin, even though he’s dumb, because he’s the only one who applied for the job. The movie would work just as well, and maybe better, without placing so much emphasis on how he looks.

Ghostbusters isn’t a perfect movie, but it’s one that’s claiming important ground for women in popular culture. By the end, I felt a lot like the citizens of fictionalized, ghost-ridden New York – pleasantly surprised and grateful that these women made an effort to do something I didn’t even know was needed, while the haters tried to tear them down.

Katherine Murray is a Toronto-based writer who yells about movies, TV and video games on her blog.

On ‘Annie,’ Lady ‘Ghostbusters,’ and “Ruined” Childhoods

And the matter of representation here is so important. Little Black girls deserve to see themselves on screen, to try to be like Annie the way I tried to be like Punky Brewster when I was a kid. They deserve to see this kind of Cinderella story, where the benefactor is a successful Black businessman (Jamie Foxx as cell phone-mogul and mayoral candidate Will Stacks, the less-creepily named equivalent to Daddy Warbucks). Black parents deserve to take their kids to movies that will show families like theirs. And people of all ages and all races need to see Black actors star in movies like this so the gross privileged reaction of “but the star isn’t white OH NOES!” goes away.

'Annie' (2014) movie poster — *Annie* (2014) movie poster

Written by Robin Hitchcock.

Some conversations I have had about the 2014 remake of Annie, starring Quvenzhané Wallis:

“Got any exciting plans this weekend?”

“Yes! I’m finally going to get to see the new Annie!”

“Why are you excited about that?”

“Well I probably watched the old movie upwards of 100 times when I was a kid.”

“I would think then you’d want to avoid this one? It’s probably just going to ruin your childhood memories.”

“Is it weird that I feel weird about the new Annie being Black?”

“Yes.”

“But it’s just that my image of the character is a little redheaded girl with freckles.”

“Well the original image of the character didn’t have pupils in her eyes, so, things change.”

Comic Annie's creepy blank eyes. — Comic Annie’s creepy blank eyes.

When an Annie remake was announced in 2011, produced by Will and Jada Pinkett-Smith with their daughter Willow attached to play the title character, the “Annie can’t be Black!” nonsense started up, and ebbed and flowed with every new development on the film. Oscar nominee Quvenzhané Wallis cast. “Annie can’t be Black!” Trailer released. “Annie can’t be Black!” Film opens and enjoys modest box office success. “ANNIE CAN’T BE BLACK!”

The remake brilliantly takes on this “controversy” by opening on a white curly-haired redheaded girl with freckles named Annie, who tapdances when she finishes giving her school report. The teacher then calls up “Annie B.” and out comes Quvenzhané Wallis with her charm cranked up to 11. She gets the classroom to participate in her report on FDR and the New Deal, and I can’t imagine anyone in the audience not being won over by the new Annie in this one scene, unless your racism is the Klan kind and not the internalized “but Annie NEEDS to be white” kind. (Which is still bad, and you should work on that.)

In fact, the new Annie being Black is a huge benefit to this film. First, it gives it a reason to exist. Family-friendly movies with Black protagonists are desperately lacking. Plus, an all-white crew of plucky foster kids (in this movie, Annie is very adamant she is a foster kid and not an orphan, because she believes her parents to be alive) in modern-day New York would be unbelievable. And it lets Quvenzhané Wallis star, and I defy you to name a more charming child actor working today.

Family-friendly movies starring black actors are important. — Family-friendly movies starring Black actors are important.

The movie itself? I liked it a lot! It has some issues: 1) Cameron Diaz can’t sing 2) everything sounds a little excessively auto-tuned (Jamie Foxx and Quvenzhané Wallis CAN sing, so that’s no excuse) 3) The new songs don’t blend in as well as they could have 4) The Obamas do not cameo in place of Annie meeting FDR 5) Rooster Hannigan doesn’t exist, and Traci Thoms as Lily St. Regis stand-in doesn’t get to sing “Easy Street,” so the best scene from the 1982 movie turns into one of the worst in the remake (Cameron Diaz really, really, REALLY can’t sing).

And here’s the thing: it could have been TERRIBLE and my childhood would be intact! It wouldn’t make the old movie cease to exist, wouldn’t change my memories of loving it as a child. Also my childhood was a lot more than one weird musical with a racist caricature named Punjab serving as the inexplicably mystical valet to a guy named, for realskies, Daddy Warbucks.

And embittered dudes out there, your childhoods were more than Ghostbusters as dudes. Lady Ghostbusters will NOT ruin your childhood unless the movie is actually about them time travelling to steal your lunch money and eat your homework (I would actually totally watch that movie).

Look. Every now and then they threaten to remake Casablanca. At one point there were rumors of a Bennifer (that’s the former power couple Ben Affleck and J.Lo for those with a short celeb culture memory) version. And yes, this gives me the “WHY!? NO! HANDS OFF!” reaction that I suppose people are having to new Annie and new Ghostbusters. So I’m trying to be sympathetic and give people the benefit of the doubt here, that they aren’t just being racist or sexist.

Did the Looney Tunes take on Casablanca ruin my childhood or my adulthood? — Did the Looney Tunes take on *Casablanca* ruin my childhood or my adulthood?

But keep this in mind, childhood-defenders who are particularly upset when their childhood faves stop being white or male: changing the demographic profile of the stars gives these remakes a reason to exist. Like, if they HAD remade Casablanca with Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, but made it about modern-day immigration issues (people forget that Casablanca was NOT a period piece) it might have been really interesting! Making the Ghostbusters women gives them the ability to create relatively original characters instead of awkwardly attempting to replicate the old ones. And the world needs more women-led comedy films, like it needs more Black family films.

The world absolutely does not need more movies starring white people, especially white dudes. I say this as a white person. I’ve had my fill. Hollywood relies on remakes and reboots an incredible amount, and thank goodness they’ve taken to changing the race or gender of some of these characters or we’d be in a never-ending cycle of universal white dudeliness.

It's going to be ok. — It’s going to be OK.

So fellow white people, please keep in mind: you will still exist if you are not absurdly over-represented on screen. White dudes: Remember how upset you were when they made Starbuck a girl? Remember how that was awesome? It’s going to be OK.

Robin Hitchcock is an American writer living in Cape Town. She is an actual orphan so you should trust her take on Annie.

Eight Trailers to Watch (and Love or Hate After)

However, in honor of some possible greatness, let us consider some more films that could also be equally amazing, or as roundly terrible. Enjoy.

Melissa McCarthy is going to be in Ghostbusters! — Melissa McCarthy is going to be in *Ghostbusters*!

Written by Rachel Redfern.

There’s a reboot of Ghostbusters coming, a la femme, and of course people are freaking out. It’s not new to have reboot that retools popular characters into another gender, Battlestar Galactica did it to amazing success with the character of Starbuck; in fact, after some of the death threats against her died down, she became a fan favorite and easily the most dynamic part of the series. Now, Ghostbusters is an epic classic of Dan Akroyd and Bill Murray and I will love it forever, and I can’t really think of any beloved film with such a complete makeover before, so whether or not this new Ghostbusters will be as amazing is yet to be decided.

However, in honor of some possible greatness, let us consider some more films that could also be equally amazing, or as roundly terrible. Enjoy.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bed87s9ORrk”]

Sisters

This is an easy one. Fan favorites and feminist/actress/producer/writer team extraordinaire Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are back together again as sisters. I imagine this is sort of how they are in real life? Anyway, we don’t know too much yet, just that they’re estranged sisters who really like the ’80s and are obviously back together for some embarrassing mischief and heartwarming family time.

What information does this offer us about women? Women are goddamned hilarious is what.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoQuVnKhxaM”]

Ex Machina

I’m excited about this; so far the trailer is super ambiguous–who is manipulating whom? Is the female AI character evil? Consciously pulling the strings of the men of surrounding her? Or is she a victim? Abused, feared, and typecast by her obsessive creator? On an entertainment level I’m excited, on an intellectual level I’m intrigued.

From looking at the trailer it seems that either way we’ve got something interesting going on with sexuality, violence, creation and it’s telling, I think, that the AI figure is a woman Alicia Vikander (The Fifth Estate). Also starring Domnhall Gleeson (Bill Weasley in the Harry Potter films, Black Mirror) and Oscar Isaac (A Most Violent Year, Inside Llewyn Davis).

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3IsUOSHlnU”]

Cake

Woman has bad marriage and/or gets a cancer, many things go wrong, has sassy girlfriend and/or sexy new lover, woman finally find self-discovery, lots of tears in between. This kind of Hollywood “chick flick” inevitably seems destined for Girls Night Out everywhere, but usually gets a lot of disdain from critics and male filmmakers. On the one hand, I get it, there’s usually not much difference in the plot and characters between the films, and they all seems fairly formulaic. However, there is something very necessary and realistic about the women’s stories that these films tell.

Female dissatisfaction is something that Betty Friedan recognized in The Feminine Mystique, and these films tap into it with their themes of anger and dissatisfaction coupled with reinvention or discovery being the resolution. It’s a simple, very human problem, and it’s interesting that it appears so often in films meant for women.

This film seems to fulfill much of that formula, with the addition of one unique detail: Anna Kendrick as the dead wife of Jennifer Aniston’s new flame/friend. Female friendship wrapped up in the darkness of suicide and chronic illness.

This one could be different.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62E4FJTwSuc”]

Terminator Genisys

The Terminator franchise feels like it’s been around forever, and regardless of its age, still manages to be a big moneymaker. And with the popularity of the Hollywood reboot in top form, Terminator is going to get one, again.

I bring up this trailer because it has Emilia Clarke in it (Danaerys Targaryen, mother of dragons, queen of everything she decides she wants, Winter is Coming ya’ll), so it should bring in that crowd. Also, Arnold is back, or at least a lot of CGI Arnold is back, proving that his original, fame-creating phrase, “I’ll be back” should actually be, “I’ll return incessantly.”

Anyway, minus the fact that Sarah Connor is a kick-ass rescuer instead of the rescuee, this new Terminator feels pretty stock and trade Hollywood action film reboot and I’m feeling pretty meh about it.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgbBwovOOoc”]

The Boy Next Door

I think the premise here is actually really interesting: dissatisfied woman has sexual relationship with high school boy, creating a destructive and obsessive situation that wrecks itself on their suburban life.

However, I think the dialogue here is struggling a bit, what with comments like “I love your mom’s cookies” and, as he takes her clothes off, “No judgments.” The whole thing looks like it could go the way of shirtless cliché.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp20Kn2VbYE#t=48″]

Queen of The Desert

Back in college, while taking an excellent, now-seemingly pretentious sounding course, “The Desert Sublime,” I studied Getrude Bell, famous anthropologist and explorer. She was an amazing woman who we just don’t hear that much about today; however, Nicole Kidman is about to change all that.

Kidman plays the Victorian traveler in an intriguing new biopic (not to be confused with the Hugo Weaving film, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert) from Werner Herzog. Bell’s story is pretty incredible and I can’t wait to see it on the silver screen, I’m a bit hesitant about her costars however: James Franco (Harry Osbourne!), Robert Pattinson (Edward!), Damian Lewis (Nicholas Brody!). I just struggle to see these actors outside of the 21^st century, and maybe have some personal issues with a few of them.

Also, I can’t tell from the clip what exactly to expect from the rest of the film, but I’m going to hope for the best. Queen of the Desert premiers this month at the Berlin International Film Festival.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L-9rcEhGm4″]

Clouds of Sils Maria

How actresses are expected to age has cropped up in the news lately. Juliette Binoche’s new film, Clouds of Sils Maria is pretty obviously addressing that issue. But it looks like its also addressing a lot more–namely fame and female relationships.

In the trailer, Binoche’s opposite is Chloe Moretz, whose character seems like a pretty pretentious, bitchy actress, but I’m assuming that’s just the tip of the iceberg we’re seeing so far. Then there’s this complicated relationship she’s got going on with her much younger assistant, Kristen Stewart, a relationship that seems ambiguous; is Stewart using the Binoche for her fame? Is Binoche sexually attracted to her employee? Lustful? Jealous? Obsessive? We’re not really sure yet.

Either way, Binoche and Moretz are amazing actresses, and in an out-of-character move, Stewart looks great.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zc3KTQJvK4&spfreload=10″]

Spy

I really like Melissa McCarthy. I’ve liked her since Gilmore Girls, up through Bridesmaids, The Heat (not so much with Tammy and Identity Thief, but hey, Samuel L. Jackson has Snakes on a Plane, so ya know, equality), and now probably this. It’s a spy movie where over half of the top seven people on the bill are women: this is a big deal people! Allison Janney will also be there and she’s hilarious, British comedienne Miranda Hart (obviously funny), and Rose Byrne, who isn’t known for being funny, but was also in Bridesmaids, so it looks like she can definitely be funny.

The plot doesn’t seem particularly difficult to guess, I’m assuming that McCarthy will get her bad guy in the end, but not before making a mess of things and engaging in comedic gold. Also, that bit with Janney and Statham about the use of the “T” word was actually pretty brilliant. More, please.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPyYEqYSo9A”]

_____________________________________________________

Rachel Redfern has an MA in English literature, where she conducted research on modern American literature and film and its intersection; however, she spends most of her time watching HBO shows, traveling, and blogging and reading about feminism.