Every remake ever had this though, it is easy to point to it calling sexism, but was the reaction to the Robocop remake sexism? Was the reaction to Total Recall? The reaction to Transformers?
I cannot recall a single remake, or a movie (or cast) for that matter, that ever got such an enormously negative reaction, especially not from the moment it was announced. If we look e.g. at the Youtube dislikes, they are historically bad. No video before even came close to such numbers. Other than Star Wars I cannot recall when a casting announcement got such a reaction at GAF (1200+ posts). Even the "Scarlett Johansson/Ghost in the Shell" thread never reached such heights. As for the movies you mention, how exactly was the reaction at the announcement? If I look at various Youtube videos it seems the general reaction before release was very positive. Reaction at GAF, I only checked Total Recall, seems to have been pretty negative at the announcement, but still very low key, with few people caring. If we then also keep in mind that all these movies had white men as leads and (mostly) did not change the gender of (important) roles, I assume sexism was never brought up (for good reason).
If you point at comments that are sexist and call them out for being sexist, that is fine and just, but that is not what I am seeing in most of these cases. It appears everyone is sexist just for looking at these terrible trailers and calling them terrible. That is weird. And that is what Rich points out in his comments, too, you are pretty much damned either way.
I think I have seen way more people complain about supposedly being labeled sexist than I have seen people be accused of sexism.
I have noticed that many people seem to have a very simplistic idea of sexism. Sexism is not just an extreme, like "Women are less intelligent than men". Similar to racism it comes in all sorts of nuances, nor does it necessarily happen consciously. The point is not that most responses have been sexist, few people are foolish enough to be blatantly sexist, but that sexism has been an important factor in the general response. Context matters. For example I have seen people (at GAF) call the all-female cast a PR stunt. Is that a sexist remark? The complaint is (to my knowledge) never brought up for all-male casts (see e.g. the Magnificent Seven remake) and seems downright nonsensical. Is the person implying that he/she has a double standard? Is he/she making a comment that is specific to this project and if so, what is he/she trying to say? What about those that accuse the movie of reverse sexism due to Chris Hemsworth' role? It is often nontrivial to determine whether or not an individual statement is the result of (to some extent) sexist views. If we take a step back and look at the grand picture, sexism however seems like an obvious answer (as a general factor to some).
Rolfe might be petty in saying he won't review this movie because he loves the original so much that he dislikes the remake pretty much by default, but that doesn't make him sexist, just a petty fanboy of the original. Yet still, despite not knowing anything about the guy, people are calling him sexist. Which is weird.
The criticism aimed at Rolfe goes beyond simply not wanting to review the movie. I would not call him sexist, but all things considered (friends/context/history/video) I can (to some extent) understand why *some* would accuse him of being sexist (to some extent). I should mention though that for this particular incident I *do* have seen pretty dumb articles (from both sides), such as someone ignoring that Rolfe is a self-proclaimed Ghostbusters fan and instead pointing out that Rolfe seems to not have covered Jem. I also have not kept up about how Rolfe has responded to all this. Either way, he is a bad example for "Anyone tackling the issue is labeled a sexist".
If sexism ruins the chances of female-led comedies, I can't explain the success of all-female comedies like Bridesmaids, or Mean Girls, or Trainwreck.
If racism is real, then how come Obama got elected?
As with many things, we are not talking about something that is necessarily reflective of mainstream or commercial success. This may be a matter specifically regarding a very vocal minority, maybe even specific to geek culture. One could however argue that these incredibly negative reactions may have an impact on movies with female leads (and specifically regarding big budget and/or geeks). After all, this is an industry that pointed at Catwoman/Elektra to claim that women should not be leads (of big budget movies). This is an industry that has used whatever excuse it can find to keep women (and minorities) down again and again and again, behind and in front of the camera.
I think the dislike for this movie stems way more from "oh no my childhood" than it does from "ugh no women"
I have to disagree.
This is a world where Gamergate is a thing. As with Gamergate, this is another case where a lot of people have suddenly discovered that they care strongly about ethics, in this case regarding filmmaking, the moment women were involved with a big ("geek") property. Fortunately, unlike Gamergate, things have not escalated much and have been comparatively civilized.
Is this really a problem specific to Ghostbusters, a franchise with one great movie, one pretty bad sequel (almost twenty years ago), two animated TV series (the latter one pretty bad), comics, a manga, novels, many horrendous videogames and all sorts of shitty merchandise? Their fans now, at all times, decide that enough is enough?
Edit:
Can't believe I have to talk about this movie again. Jesus. Can we please switch to less annoying things? I really, really don't want to de-rail this thread and I'm honestly sick of talking about Ghostbusters.
