Black women are getting killed off in their own shows, being confined to the sassy comic relief, and sexless mammies to help bring depth to white female characters or male characters, or sassy jezebels, or vicious sapphires, but we supposed to be excited because Charlize Theron shaved her goddamn head and lead a bunch of white girls and a token ambiguously brown girl through a nuclear wasteland and got dusty while she did. We supposed to be excited because a white woman gets her own show where she plays a sexy spy/secret agent, and is allowed to be queer onscreen. We supposed to be excited because a white girl is the new Jedi hero. And another white girl gets to be a Rebel hero.
We supposed to be excited because white women are getting all of the representation they’ve been getting since the inception of cinema and modern film.
Bitch you will pardon me if I yawn from all the excitement. My body is tired and unready.
Why is Leslie Jones’ character the only non-scientist in the group? Why is she getting framed as the ‘street smart’ character — the one who supposedly doesn’t have as much technological know-how as the other three women on the team? In other words, why is the 2016 Ghostbusters rehashing the exact same tropes as the original Ghostbusters did with Ernie Hudson’s character?
