Analysis: Ghost Busters – Family fantasy o Adult Comedy? 

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Analysis: Ghost Busters – Family Fantasy or Adult Comedy?

One of the most commercially successful comedies of all time - a break in rule that the bigger the budget the smaller the laughs. Ivan Reitman’s Ghost Busters (1984), a tale of three parapsychologists becoming professional supernatural exterminators in contemporary New York only to be thwarted by an over zealous environment agency bureaucrat and an ancient maniacal spectra known as Goza, achieved its spectacular box office return by appealing to both children and adults alike. The film treaded a fine line between being too explicit for the younger audience members and too infantile for older viewers. But how did Reitman and co-writers Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis achieve this feat? Was it deliberate? Was it a fluke? Why has it become such a rarity for films in the preceding decades to possess cross generational appeal?

I will be tackling this weeks topic from an almost entirely personal perspective, I turn thirty this year (although I will perhaps prefer to think of myself as twenty-nine years and thirteen months old come November) as a child of the 1980s I have direct experience of this film at various ages. As a six year old boy Ghost Busters was an exciting fantasy which stimulated my imagination; I can recall wanting to live in a fire station when I grew up, being terrified of Libraries and thinking that New York City was the most amazing place in the world. As a teenager I lost interest in the film, it seemed old hat, there were new and exciting possibilities in the world (such as these mysterious creatures with long hair and breasts that suddenly became intensely interesting) childhood favourites were put to one side in pursuit of more “grown-up” entertainment. The likes of Terminator 2, the Alien trilogy and Die Hard were ample replacements in the world of cinema; anything with lower than a 15 certificate from the BBFC wasn’t even worth considering, films rated PG such as Ghost Busters were for young children - not adults like this spotty-faced fifteen-year old who knew everything. But then came University and after my and my fellow course mate’s student loans ran out and sobriety reared its ugly head, we had to find other less expensive ways of passing the time in-between classes and out came the crusty old VHS’. No longer was it “sad” to watch films like The Goonies or Robin Hood Prince of Thieves (well, maybe the latter was still a little bit “sad”). Eventually Ghost Busters was picked for the evenings entertainment, the familiar sight of the old Columbia logo appeared onscreen and we relaxed, embarking on a familiar voyage of 80s nostalgia; ropey visual effects would surly provide all the laughs and we’d be comforted by memories of playing with our Ghost Busters action figures. To our collective shock and amazement, we were not shrouded in the familiar; we were not amused by kitsch nor overcome by childhood sentiment; instead we found ourselves watching an entirely different film, filled with jokes and references we’d never understood before; events which once seemed frightening were now hilariously funny, and crucially, this hilarity appeared to be entirely deliberate.

Ghost Busters is an astonishing balancing act, but to answer one of the questions asked above, it does appear that the films multi-generational enchantment was a fluke; it wasn’t necessarily intended to capture such a broad audience. The initial concept, originally entitled Ghost Smashers, was of four time travelling “ghost smashers”, taking on huge monsters (akin to the gigantic Stay Puffed Marshmallow Man that appears in the finished films last act) but the budget required for such special effects was too steep and so the script was re-worked. Much of what appeals to children seems to have emerged from this development process; in the first draft of the script the hero’s were an established agency, like the police, ambulance and fire services - hence the fire station base which was adapted to the new contemporary environment. As a child the notion of three friends living together in a dilapidated fire station and using a pole to slide down the various floors was exciting stuff - a fantasy if you will. The character of Ray Stantz (Aykroyd) has a child-like reaction to the buildings potential, insisting that his colleagues Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) and Egon Spengler (Ramis) camp out in the building over night, gravitating towards the buildings quirkiness and not considering its structural deficiencies. The team’s car, an old ambulance reconfigured into Echto1, was another feature that captured the imagination of this reviewer’s young and susceptible mind; being part of a fourth emergency service was a rather rousing thought. Ray turns up with the vehicle in a dreadful condition, as a child the imagination is stimulated by the vehicles potential; in the original draft of the script the first scene saw Echto1 driving at high speeds out of the station, again the mythology that so captivated younger audiences came in later versions of the film. The make-shift uniforms, the matching proton packs (which are basically modern day equivalents of laser guns), all providing a sense of a team, but not a formal team, more like a gang of mates, a club if you will. Aykroyd and Ramis had several actors in mind for the main parts originally, including John Candy, Eddie Murphy and John Belushi; Murphy was to play the fourth member of the team, Winston Zeddmore, as a major star of the day Murphy’s Zeddmore would have been hired much earlier in the film, when the role was re-cast with the relatively unknown Ernie Hudson the hiring was moved to later in the film so as to demonstrate how the team’s work load had increased substantially as the film progressed. By hiring Zeddmore, a seemingly unqualified fourth man, so late in the proceedings it re-enforced the child-like appeal, it said – you can do this too one day!

What about the all important ghosts? While not as comic as they might have been they’re far from the terrifying apparitions one might expect in a horror movie for example; as an adult they are entirely tame, although this might be in part due to the dated special effects rather than a maturing of the viewer. Only the librarian ghost at the start and a decomposing skeleton taxi driver that appears briefly, strike one as particularly scary in appearance, the former was deliberately toned down as production progressed, the latter feels like a reject from an extended Michael Jackson music video. It is enough to keep a child on edge, but not enough to have them hiding behind the sofa (curiously the only ghosts I can remember being scary came in the sequel Ghostbusters 2 when the team were surrounded by the ghosts while exploring a disused underground rail road). There is no peril in this film, that is not to imply there aren’t stakes, but no one dies in Ghost Busters, no one is seriously injured, the ghosts tend to cause a bit of mayhem and disruption but not much else.

There is of course the films soundtrack to consider when assessing its target audience, Ray Parker Jr’s theme song which by itself hit number one in the American charts and stayed there for three weeks, was a staple of kid’s discos from 1984 onwards. The catchy advert inspired jingle adding to the films marketing, a music video featuring the stars of the film grounds this firmly in the family film category and further entrenched the film in popular culture. To this day everyone knows the reply to the song’s question: “Who ya gonna call?”

For the adults though there is an entirely different film. While the central protagonists do good on the whole, saving the city from the aforementioned mayhem and disruption, this is New York after all, people have busy lives; Peter Venkman, our hero is really only in it for the money and the women. When the trio are kicked off the university campus they worked for, he performs an inspiring speech for Ray, which concludes that they should go into business for themselves, not to pursue science or make a difference but simply to make a profit. Hardly an inspirational role model for children, Venkman’s position doesn’t really change as the film develops, he remains sarcastic and self-centred throughout, his initial sceptic persona isn’t demolished by really seeing a ghost, he just calmly excepts it without ever admitting he was wrong or letting it have any effect on him. In the character’s introductory scene he falsifies a test for psychic abilities to humiliate a male participant and get a date with an attractive female; prior to this scene in the original script sexual obscenities were written on Venkman’s door, these were amended to “Venkman Burn in Hell” because Reitman was targeting the film at family audiences. So perhaps the schism in Ghost Busters reception is in part due to the intentions of the scriptwriters verses the director. The more adult centric content being a hangover from Aykroyd and Ramis’ screenplay and the family orientation being Reitman’s direction.

So much of the adult content isn’t explicit, and as such rather than being considered too “adult” for a child’s consumption, it is accepted because most of the adult content will simply go over a child’s head. I can remember my mother roaring with laughter when Venkman asks a librarian who claims to have been recently attacked by a ghost “Are you menstruating right now?” Of course this isn’t remotely funny to a six-year old given both a complete lack of understanding of what the word “menstruating” means and what Venkman implied about women in the process of menstruation when he incredulously asked the question. “What does that mean mummy?” the curious child asks “Nothing dear, but look at all that slim on the filing cards!” the mother eagerly responds. There are numerous examples of such humour throughout Ghost Busters, sight gags like Egon emerging from under the desk the ghost busters’ receptionist is sitting behind, after trying to repair some equipment, clearly alluding to oral sex for the adults, just a bit random and funny for children. One of the ghosts appears above Ray lying in bed before moving down towards his groin and disappearing, moments later his belt is unbuckled by itself, Ray’s eyes cross and his head falls back – to an adult another oral sex joke, to a child Ray’s reaction is due to the shock of seeing a ghost appear and his belt undo itself. Another sexual reference comes later in the film as the possessed Dana (Sigourney Weaver) attempts to seduce Venkman, she growls “I want you inside me” to which Venkman replies “it sounds like there’s at least two people in there already it might be a bit crowded”. This is probably the closest Ghost Busters comes to crossing the line; “I want you inside me” is of course tamer, although I’d argue for adults is actually more loaded, than say “I want you to fuck me”. A child isn’t going to know what “I want you inside me” alludes to, as it is specific to the mechanics of sexual intercourse. This scene and the proceeding references to it (“she barks, she growls, she sleeps above her covers – four feet above her covers”) are not funny for children, but the pertinent information is still conveyed, Dana has been possessed by a demon and the ghost busters know about it.

Jokes about accounting and politics are equally inoffensive to children as they are beyond there comprehension. Venkman convinces the mayor of New York to let them do their job because he will be saving the lives of “millions of registered voters” only for the bishop in the corner to smile and nod his head. A hilarious moment for anyone with an understanding of politics and religion, but beyond the faculties of an infant. This instance isn’t a problem but on other occasions I can recall misreading sarcasm as a child, when the team explore the haunted library in an early scene and they encounter a pile of vertically stacked books from floor to ceiling, Venkman comments: “no, human being could stack books like this”. For many years I honestly believed this was the case, no human being could stack books like that, I failed completely to grasp Venkman’s scepticism because the humour was too subtle.

Venkman and Ray both smoke in the film, I clearly recall noting this at the time and being confused as only “bad guys” smoke in films. There are instances of explicit language, the word “shit” is uttered several times “I’ve seen shit that will turn you white” Zeddmore insists there is no reason why this couldn’t have been “I’ve seen stuff that will turn you white” again these hangovers from the more adult orientated film that Aykroyd and Ramis wrote; a character is called “dickless” at another point as precursor to the films most hilarious gag. When Goza, finally appears she is played by a model wearing what appears to be nothing more than a bit of bubble bath, Reitman and company only get away with this because she is quickly replaced by the giant Stay Puffed Marshmallow Man, an altogether more family friendly foe.

In this article I’ve attempted to explore some of what makes Ghost Busters such an enduring comedy of the 1980s and why it was so successful with most age groups. Its duel target audience netting it a substantial profit; its legacy as a film that appeals to young and old in equal measure. But why so few films of this nature in the intervening years, why do modern films overwhelmingly target their films at narrower and narrower age groups? There is logic to this process of course, a basic rule of filmmaking is to always know who your audience is; but is there anything fundamentally wrong with attempting to capture two very different age groups? Perhaps it’s simply too difficult, even Ghostbusters 2 couldn’t re-capture the magic, the sex references and political jokes were all be erased and both Ray and Venkman seemed to quit smoking. Ghostbusters 2 was certainly more geared towards the younger viewers, with cartoon spin offs and merchandising going through the roof, not to mention a second attempt to top the music charts with a catching tune. We’re continually forced to return to the theory of “cinema by accident” which credits many of the classics to a series of unforeseen circumstances rather than the direct intentions of the key creative’s. In this respect Ghostbusters is a magnificent and wholly unique exception to a very unfortunate rule.