The unstoppable tides of virtue-signalling social justice-centric commentary surrounding the Ghostbusters reboot killed it at the box office, according to liberal house journal Slate.
Jesse David Fox, a film commentator, admitted that the all-female movie got so weighed down with political significance that would-be fans just skipped it.
He said:
The weekend before Ghostbusters was released, our sister site the Cut wrote “Seeing Ghostbusters on Opening Weekend Could Actually Help Fix Hollywood Sexism.” Though the point was correct—Hollywood is in the business of repeating things that work—the piece also inadvertently contributed to a conversation about the movie that I would argue hurt its box office.
When talking with comedy-minded female friends who skipped the movie, I kept hearing the same thing: A person’s position on the movie and his or her decision whether to see it, had come to feel like taking a political position.
For moviegoers who consider lighthearted movies a chill thing to do after a stressful week of work—which is to say, most moviegoers—that’s not the sort of mind-set you want your expensive summer action-comedy to engender.
Seeing Ghostbusters ceased to feel like a fun, breezy summertime decision.
As Heat Street reviewer William Hicks discovered, the film was actually alright.
But the culture war surrounding it was such an enormous turn-off for everyone who isn’t an SJW that it bombed commercially – and will presumably discourage studios from repeating such stunts.
By contrast, the happily un-PC Bad Moms has been a rip-roaring success, because it remembers that comedy films are not vehicles for advancing a progressive agenda – but a chance to chill out and laugh at dumb crap.
Who’d have thought?
