Leslie Jones addresses racism surrounding ‘Ghostbusters’ reboot
Leslie Jones, the American stand-up comedian and actor, has addressed the racist abuse she endured amid the release of the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot by Paul Feig.
The supernatural comedy movie was notable for welcoming a female cast, including Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Jones. Soon after the movie was announced, the creators and cast were hounded with questions regarding this change for the franchise, many of which were negative.
In a new excerpt released from her upcoming memoirs, Jones discussed the hounding she and her co-stars had to put up with at the time. “I don’t like this movie,” she recalls one journalist asking, “and you’ve got five minutes to prove to me that it is worth watching.”
This same journalist, hailing from somewhere in mainland Europe, allegedly said the reboot wasn’t “worth it” before even giving it a chance.
This obtuse angle of inquiry was just a drop in the ocean when one realises the degree and scope of abuse the movie and its cast received online. “Sad keyboard warriors living in their mothers’ basements hated the fact that this hallowed work of perfect art now featured—gasp! horror! — women in the lead roles,” Jones remembered (via Rolling Stone).
“Worst of all, of course, was that one of the lead characters was a Black woman. For some men, this was the final straw,” she noted.
Continuing, Jones revealed that racism and misogyny weren’t the full extent of the abuse either. “A lot of it had to do with the fact that I was playing an MTA worker, as though that was something I should be ashamed of,” Jones added.
The abuse reached a head on the night of July 18th, 2016, a week after the movie’s release. Following harsh criticism and even a handful of death threats, Jones decided to take her Twitter account down.
“I leave Twitter tonight with tears and a very sad heart. All this ’cause I did a movie. You can hate the movie but the shit I got today . . . wrong,” she wrote.
The following day, she received support from Jack Dorsey, then the CEO of Twitter. He offered to put some security specialists on her account to protect her from trolls and hackers. With this support and a decline in hysteria surrounding the movie, Jones returned to Twitter.
“I cried not because I was being bullied, but because this is our world and because I can’t believe anyone would do this shit to someone, anyone, for working,” Jones wrote of her experience. “This is awful. I am in a movie. Death threats for something as small as that? The world was not as rosy as I’d hoped it was. But none of that shit was about me.”
Watch the trailer for 2016’s Ghostbusters below.
Never Miss A Scene
The Far Out Film Newsletter
All the latest film news from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.