#Lady ghost buster cast series

As Andy Hoglund wrote for The Daily Beast, “It is not ghosts that haunt the film’s protagonists it’s their inability to connect with women.” From the open disdain towards women from Dr. Anthony single out Spiritualism as “The only religious sect in the world…that has recognized the equality of woman.”Įven accounting for the politics of the era, it’s difficult to understate the amount of sexism in the original film. When women see the same ghosts, they’re hysterical.Įlizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Original cast-member Dan Aykroyd has said that “Part of Ghostbusters’ appeal derives from the cold, rational, acceptance-of-the-fantastic-as-routine tone that Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, director Ivan Reitman, and I were able to sustain in the movie.” When men see ghosts, they do so as rational, thoughtful scientists. When they’re called to a ghost sighting at the New York Public Library, one of the first questions Bill Murray’s Peter Venkman asks the elderly librarian who’s witnessed the ghost is, “Are you, Alice, menstruating right now?” It’s more than a lazy joke. The original Ghostbusters made clear from the outset it was having none of this. “Hence sickness, rest, passivity, susceptibility, impressionability, mediumship, communication, revelation!” In 1866 the Spiritualist periodical The Banner of Light proposed that it was precisely because women were physically weak that their nerves were sensitive and receptive. Women who might have otherwise been institutionalized found celebrity through Spiritualism instead.

But these same unruly behaviors were qualities prized in an excellent medium, and women who exhibited these traits were routinely praised for their psychic sensitivity. Nervousness, erratic behavior, uncontrolled outbursts, flagrant sexuality-doctors and psychiatrists saw these all as symptoms of hysteria, that ever-elusive disease that mostly boiled down to women acting out. Spiritualism also celebrated precisely those aspects of femininity that the rest of culture was busy pathologizing. When Maggie confessed that the whole thing had been a hoax, the reaction was so strong she was forced to recant her confession. Underhill’s ability to convince influential figures like Horace Greeley and William Lloyd Garrison helped ensure the new religion’s spread: By 1850 there were over a hundred mediums in New York City alone, and within a few years the number of Spiritualists in America reached into the millions. Maggie and Kate’s eldest sister, Leah Fox Underhill, promoted her sisters’ talents before settling in New York City, where she offered to lead séances for the wealthy and influential, helping to ensure the widespread dissemination of Spiritualism. Their ability to talk to spirits quickly grew national attention, launching the movement that became known as Spiritualism.

#Lady ghost buster cast series

After all, what should be obvious to anyone not trapped in his own nostalgia is that communicating with spirits has always been the province of women.Īmerica’s love affair with ghosts began in 1848, when two sisters in upstate New York- Maggie and Kate Fox-claimed that their house had a ghost and that they could communicate with him through a series of rappings. It’s unclear why this new Ghostbusters-of all possible remakes, of all possible movies to be remade with a female cast-would inspire such overwhelming petulance. The Great Kingdom of Aggrieved Man-Children had already risen up against the Lady Ghostbusters long before they’d even donned their proton packs, stridently proclaiming to anyone that would listen that the reboot of the 1984 classic went against all tradition.