Ghostbusters, or: The Politics of the Apolitical

Some say that controversies around the gender and ethnic categories of the new Ghostbusters have somehow “politicized” what in the end is just a comedy film; but wasn’t the original film already a fantastical staging of the Reagan Era creed that only private sector entrepreneurs can save us, even in the midst of a spiritual Armageddon involving some obscure Middle Eastern deities (to say nothing of the Romanian-Moldavian spirit of the second film)? Didn’t the lawyer who represented the State (via the Environmental Protection Agency) only make things worse with his invidious fixation on regulations?

And in terms of the gender politics of the 1984 film, had there been any doubt that Man sat comfortably as lord of the earth, at least one could rest assured that even Sigourney Weaver, the unyielding sole survivor from ‘Alien’, would have ended up as a dog-like beast commanded by some androgynous spirit from Sumeria, had Bill Murray not come to the rescue. Ah, halcyon days…

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