Safety lights are for dudes

I saw the new Ghostbusters earlier tonight and, I got to say, I enjoyed the hell out of it. It's not a great movie, in terms of the storyline or the set-up or the transitions between scenes or really even in the clarity of what was going on, but the effects were fun, the leads filled the screen with fun and joy, and seeing Kate McKinnon kick ass in that fight scene was worth the price of admission. It's hard to overestimate how pleasurable it is to see a group of women doing things (like fighting ghosts, as with these four, or making amazing music, as with the Dixie Chicks, who I saw a few days ago) that you usually only see men doing, but it's not only pleasurable. It's also shocking, and then it's surprising to feel that sense of shock. It's like not knowing you've missed something until you see it right in front of you and you think, "wow, I don't usually things like this. This is something different. And I like it." Yes, the male characters were caricatures, but unless you also bitch and moan every time a woman has had to fill that role in almost every single other action-type movie, then I just don't want to hear it. It's funny to see men in those roles, not because it's fun to demean men, but because it's funny to see someone who isn't a woman in that position. It shows how often women are the ones being demeaned, and how much we take it for granted that a woman should be in that role, and how the entertainment value of the Chris Hemsworth character comes from both his obvious pleasure in that role and in the direct contrast it provides to all the other movies where a lady filled that position. The pleasure is in the contrast. And in seeing the big marshmallow man get zapped in the 'nads.