It’s a quick and simple process: go into hotel, destroy ballroom, capture ugly little spud, emerge from hotel, become rock stars with fans that chase you around New York City chanting the name of your company and selling t-shirts with your logo. Pretty quick route to becoming a superstar that’s beloved by the general public, right? But what if an enterprise like the Ghostbusters actually existed in real life, present day? Would they be treated like the rock stars we see in the movies, or would they be treated like any other public service?
These are the things that I tax myself with when I can’t sleep at night, and depending on how you look at it – it’s either incredibly profound or incredibly sad. But bear with me for a moment while I take you through my thought process, because I have a feeling that if Ghostbusters were a real Yellow Pages business here in the so-called “real world,” they might not receive the same reception that they get in the movies. And even more shockingly, I think the public might have a similar reaction to (gasp), Mr. Walter Peck.
Let’s start by breaking it down. Ghostbusters fundamentally exists because of a belief in the supernatural. And, while the widespread belief in organized religion certainly needs no argument, I’d imagine there are quite a few skeptics in the belief of the paranormal out there. Come on, be honest: how many of you have watched a couple of the Dan Aykroyd hosted specials on paranormal and extraterrestrial activities and said to yourself, “No way?” So immediately, the Real World Ghostbusters that exists in the tired and alcohol destroyed brain of Troy Benjamin has quite an obstacle to overcome.
For the purposes of this exercise, we’ll say that ghosts do exist and a real company has found a way to actually track and contain them. Once we’ve come to the conclusion that they exist, they infest your house, they’re a total nuisance and ruin all of your possessions (pun, somewhat intended), they scare the bejeezus out of you, and you yourself have no means of ridding your house of the infestation, who are you going to call? Well, when you have mice, termites, or any other pest you usually call the Orkin man. Right? Do large masses of people follow the Orkin man around selling t-shirts with his logo on it and chanting in unison, “Orkin, Orkin, Orkin, Orkin!” Most likely not. And if so, that would be pretty awesome to see.
I have a feeling that you, as the consumer, would be relieved to have the Ghostbusters arrive to take care of your problem (you might not be so relieved when you see their excessively expensive bill). But given the circumstances and the real world parallels, I don’t think you would necessarily idolize these guys. After all, they have incredibly destructive equipment; one would also imagine they’re covered in ectoplasm that doesn’t necessarily carry all that attractive of an odor. Think about it, when your Waste Management facilitator shows up at your door and takes out the garbage, if you’re Dana Barrett are you in any hurry to plant one on the dude’s kisser? I bet you’re telling him to hop in the shower before you head anywhere near him.
Okay Troy, you’ve got me convinced but there’s this little thing that the Ghostbusters do that you’re leaving out of this equation: they save the world and they put on one helluva light show as they do it (so what if they conjure up a couple hundred foot Marshmallow Men that crush whole city blocks?). Well, you have me there. However the cheesy and perhaps a little sentimental answer is that garbage collectors, exterminators, firemen, all of these public service members are saving the world in their own way. Garbage collectors are preventing the world from turning into the Earth seen in Wall-E (kind of), exterminators are saving us from another plague being spread (what’s the Swine Flu?), firemen and police officers it goes completely without saying. So how come masses don’t gather at four alarm fires and chant, “Ladder 6, Ladder 6, Ladder 6?” Again, I’ve never seen it but if it actually happens out there, I’d love to.
I know I’m completely ruining all the fun of the films by grounding them too much in a reality that, in all honesty – I love to escape in the form of film going in the first place. And surely, the best argument against me is that I have yet to meet a team of Orkin men that are as charismatic and entertaining as Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, and Ernie Hudson.
But don’t you just wonder? If Ghostbusters really existed and was available for me to truly call, how would I react?
(The Private Sector is a weekly syndicated column written by Troy Benjamin presented every Wednesday on Ghostbusters.net, GB Fans, and Proton Charging as an op-ed look at the goings on in the world of the Ghostbusters franchise. Learn more about Troy at www.troybenjamin.com)
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Well i suppose you could argue the films do have some sense of realism: With regrads to their fame, because they are a new gimmick they would get a lot of the media attention and frenzy. I mean just think new crazes that get media exposure these days, granted they probably wouldn’t get as prolonged as exposure, but they’d probably get the same exposure as say a new gadget relased from Mac or Windows 7.
Take GB2 the montage, it doesn’t feature any media coverage or rockstar magazine covers at all because they aren’t a gimmick anymore, no-one is interested. The only media present is in the court room, which would be present anyway perhaps not in the droves. Which i think is quite true to life.
As for what the Ghostbusters do for the city/world i think they are compareable in the real world to Firemen or Private Firemen for hire! When it comes to catstrophic disasters or even domestic disasters Fireman are always there picking up the slack and we’d all be screwed if they weren’t! Plus you can buy hoodies and T-shirts with Fire department logos so i guess there would be ghostbuster t-shirts. But in the real world Fireman aren’t as treated like rockstars like they do ghostbusters, maybe they should.
So i would argue there is a (sort of) grounded realism in ghostbusters but perhaps just hightened a tad. I think thats what makes it so good, you never question the world your presented, it just seams real!
I think something else would happen in real life: The government and some companies would buy (or force the ghostbusters to sell) the construction manual for the ghostbusters equipment in order to build their own stuff. Dont you think that the government wouldn’t try to build its on anti-ghost army instead of leaving the saving-the-world-business in the hands of four guys?
Who name’s their kid Troy anyway?? It’s just not reality.
I think they could still become famous. Look at the proliferation of dirty/strange/dangerous job shows. If crab fishers and lumberjacks can get a show, a bunch of guys running around catching ghosts with nuclear accelerators can. They’d even have the edge over other paranormal shows, like Ghost Lab and Ghost Hunters, because they’d actually be fighting paranormal entities instead of just looking for them. But, that’s just my opinion.
Part of the reason the Ghostbusters are so famous within the movie setting is because they publically claim, with significant evidence, to prove the existence of ghosts: the very argument over whether or not such things exist, and the controversy over a company making money on such a nebulous concept, is reason enough for them to be newsworthy. It’s the kind of thing that talking heads on 24-hour news channels can debate: are these men heroes or frauds? Walter Peck would probably spend more time giving interviews than conducting inspections.
One likely issue in real life that I don’t think the movies touched upon was the religious aspect of what the Ghostbusters do: rather than helping an earth-bound spirit move on to the afterlife, they laser it into a little box and hold it imprisoned. You’d probably have a lot of priests and rabbis declaring it a sin to prevent the ghosts from passing on to the next world. At the least there’d be some annoying religious sect protesting the firehouse with “God Hates Ghostbuster” signs.
The last point I want to make is that Walter Peck is essentially correct in trying to shut the Ghostbusters down. They’re using unlicensed nuclear accelerators around people and public property; the cancer rate around any location where Peter and the boys have been working is going to skyrocket. The Sedgewick Hotel would probably end up being a super-fund site, and Walter Peck would be the city’s hero.
I’d buy the idea that there would be a Ghostbusters reality show.
Much more interesting idea than crab fishing.
Bro- I had my first film class in college in 2004, we went on a 3 day road trip in 2005. Of course I had to watch Ghostbusters to pass the time- on the way back (the second time watching it) I had the single saddest experience of my life. I realized that by the time Winston joins- it is no longer Ghostbusters, it is Ghost Janitors. The guys even lost the glamour of it all. You see in the scene where they walk in on Winston’s interview and they’re all about sleeping and not going out and taking on more. You hit it on the head if this were real, but I believe you hit it even more on the head because the writers meant for it to become that in the movie.
)
(I’m more of the philosophy of Ray in the cartoon- “Wow this is fun” going around trapping ghosts in ecto-containment fields was my first job choice until I got in high school and realized it didn’t exist
Firt of all, i think that the GB could be very recongniced in real life given their area of expertice, is a subjet any one can relate to in a personal way, then you have the high tech instruments they get to play with they are very cool and their famous logo is one that even in real life i can see getting a lot of atention and then there’s the theme song very catchy and every one love her, adding to all that you have the seriousness of the problem itself the advertise to solve: “ghosts” i mean if you live in a house with problems like poltergeist or Amytiville (if gb are real this has to be too) Who you gonna call? that would be a relief to have those guys around, imagine that you just move or buy that house in this scenario you had to move or sell the house wich will end cost you more that probably what they are gonna charge you for capturing the beast, **protoncharging** etc… :;) i think they cant charge the same for a house and a Hotel right?? cheers “”".
@Chris Morrell
Good point, never thought of it that way… the love affair is over mid-way through the second film. But then take a look at the end of the movie, they’re getting the key to the city and there’s a banner with their name on it… so… I’d argue they’re still public celebrities.
@Trotski
Loving and patient people. The better question is what good standing and proud army feels confident having a man named Leon steering the boat?
@Matt
Good point… I’d be willing to bet one (or more) of the networks would be finding a way to spin it into a reality show… God help us.
The montage in the first movie shows the GB getting a lot of media coverage. I think that’s pretty realistic. Not all the coverage is good, either. The little snippet with Larry King implies that at least part of the coverage they were getting was blaming the GB for the ghost infestations in the first place!
No one gathered around to cheer and chant until the city started blowing up, walls bleeding, etc. I think it’s safe to assume that at this point in the movie, the city was scared shitless. Enter the only people in the world who might be equipped to deal with the problem… the Ghostbusters. I think that would draw a crowd.
@ Matt
You’re on the crab there! ‘Ghost hunting for dancing deceased crustaceans on ice’ Now that has to be where it’s at!! Not for the feint hearted.
@Troy
*Touche* Although I guess you have problems finding keyrings with your name on it. I blame the grand parents (saves a whole heap of arguing with the parents)
Who needs an army when you ARE Léon?
-as the great Jean Reno once declared “This is for MATHILDA!”
@ Wolverine
Re: Houses/hotels? Makes sense. Think Ghostbusters; The Monopoly Board Game.
Actually, it seems to me like firemen ARE kind of treated like rockstars, or at least heavily glorified, at least after 9/11. And the ending of GB1 was kind of like a paranormal 9/11 – except they actually STOPPED the “terrorists” from killing 3,000+ people. I could see people glorifying the Ghostbusters for such heroic actions, saving the city twice and all….
As for the more general day-to-day ghostbusting, I think people would still love the Ghostbusters because 1) it’s a totally unique occupation. There’s a million different bug exterminators, but as Venky says in GB2 “We’re the ONLY Ghostbusters.” 2) Their equipment is totally kickass. People get obsessed with the military (even though they kill innocent brown people and blow your taxpayer money) because of all the cool weapons and gadgets they run around with, so why not obsess over the less-but-still destructive Ghostbusters? 3) They’ve got this sort of rags-to-riches entrepreneurial success story that the sensationalist media sort of hypes up. The Ghostbusters are really like these Susan Boyle type characters; Susan Boyle with a proton pack – and I think that’s appealing to most people.
That was the point Troy, I’m sure you being a fan know that Dan Akroyd wanted “These guys are supernatural exterminators, they come in clean up an infestation and leave.” Sure they got some press and some “Glory” but anyone who does a new business does. I mean if someone came up with a way to capture rats and handle them he get’s a little bit of news coverage. These guys did somethign no one ever though of before similar to making a computer, or designing windows. They’d get a lot of coverage at first but it would kind of peter out.
Also I’m sure they registered the equipment eventually in the game they mention it’s part of their agreement with the city that they won’t use it when people are around.
The other thing abotu the religious stuff is and I cant’ believe I’m going to say this, but Dan who wrote the script doesn’t see ghost’s as peoples souls. In the Ghostbuster’s world ghost’s are psychokinetic impressions for example if someone were killed and felt serious anger about their death then that anger would form a ghost while their “Soul” moved on.
Now I’m doing a term Paper on Dan Akroyd, and have been doing a bti of research into his beliefs, and he says that that is what he views spirit’s as. So since he w rote the script it woudl make sense that in the GHostbuster’s world that is what Ghosts are. Thus how a train can be a ghost, because the people dying inside’s psychokinetic energy would make the “Train” as ghost despite it not having a soul.
So yeah I think yrou over thinking it a bit and I understand your point, I if you look at the Scene where their hiring Winston you can see them covered in Slime, chain smokeing just like any other physical worker.
Also their are cases where people who don’t believe them cause them trouble, look at the deputy mayor in the second film. I also believe the reason for the HUGE amount of gratitude for the deleted scene was stated by someone above. These guys stopped a terrorist attack on a massive scale. Sure it was ghosts but it was still an attack against the city of New York. The guy were heroes and that’s why I doubt after the first movie they’d have fallen from grace as much as they did. I wouldn’t care what the media said abotu someone who saved me from a fifty story tall marshmellow man. Heck if it was Godzilla I’d thank him with a huge pile of fish. I always felt the “Fall from grace” wasn’t properly explained. I mean New York is a loyal state, and to let the GB’s fall so hard and fast just seemed wrong to me.
I also always wondered about Ray’s parents house.
Well I guess the pin up centrefold that is Susan Boyle doesn’t have problems finding merchandise with her name stamped all over it either!
Oh Johnny did you pick the wrong wild horse!
@Tommy
I never read too much into things… why would you say that? Is it because you hate me? I notice that you sandwiched that statement in between several other sentences, were you trying to hide it? To soften the blow? Is it because I redesigned the SPT website several months ago? Is that it?
Whoa… crap… you’re right…
Sorry guys , have I missed a vital link her? My ESP levels have been abnormally low recently…and it may be a dumb ass question. And I excel at being a dumb ass occasionally, but what is a/an ‘SPT’?
I could hazard a guess…acronyms are my speciality.
I missed a vital ‘e’ -that much I do know.
Trotski you Dumb ass!
I can definitely see the GBs being recognized as heroes like someone said for the paranormal reasons alone. Maybe the people looking at the bill might hate it but much like the way we looked at them as kids, people sometimes fear death and are afraid of the unknown and they sort of make us feel safe.
As Bill Murray fittingly said “things that cannot be explained, things that most people don’t wanna know about…that is where we come in”
In that aspect, it’s incredibly fun and clever, the old idea of combining the mundane job of exterminating with that edge of it being supernatural.
@ Trotski: I’d love to see Ghostbusting with the Stars. Watching washed up d-list celebrities getting slimed, possessed and burned by stray proton streams would be highly amusing.
Step up to the plate and list your D-Cat celebs here…
A swell read, and certainly a nice escapism from everything driving me crazy in the real world right now.
Anyway, you’re right, and it’s a pretty awesome and deep (when you get past the initial “this is a movie” part and really understand why it’s deep) so I wanted to share some thoughts. I agree completely with all of this and haven’t thought much of it past religion and spooks before. Which is the part you didn’t focus too long on and I want to get back to.
You know, I’m not sure if all of this hubbaloo I hear about spooks on TV and elsewhere is real or not, but I’ve even had at least one lady contact my Ghostbusters fan group saying she had these things in her house and needed some sort of help or advice. Apparently, despite the fact her younger sister now needed a psychiatrist because she convinced herself these things weren’t real but instead a side effect of her “uncontrolled psychic powers,” and despite one of them smelled like damp dead people, she was aghast at any thought besides befriending these three humanoid, see through entities. Getting to the point, most people don’t believe crazy stuff like that, I’m not even sure if I believed this lady, and not even when they claim to see or experience them. Getting to the point, let’s say that these ghost sightings we hear about are real – some of them, but obviously not all of them as there are a lot of kooks out there – and now let’s say that some of them are in fact actually dangerous – like this one shapeshifter summoned by a witchdoctor that my professor claimed he ran into in Africa or this poltergiest I read about in late 1800 early 1900 missionary journals or that whatever-the-heck-it-was that tried to strangle that preacher I met once in the lighthouse (sorry, they’re all odd tales I’ve ran across, and there are certainly more) – and now let’s say someone can do something about it. Science and religious possibilities aside, these things can be zapped and trapped by mortal human beings. Okay. Now who the heck is going to call these guys? Certainly some. But most people, religious people included strongly, will think they’re nothing but charlatan fakes like the psychic hand palm readers or that Benny Hen guy on TV. Trust me, I’ve been around religious people. Not all of my life, mostly in college more than any other time. They won’t even believe when “brothers” and “sisters” in their faith have a personal experience spelled out as possible in their own religious literature – but instead tell everyone it’s a lie and that their religious literature supposedly can be twisted into saying the exact opposite, that this experience can’t or no longer happens. Heck, Jesus not only drank alcohol, he even made some miraculous, and yet many of his followers preach that alcohol consumption is sin and nothing Jesus would ever do. I don’t know much about other religions, but I’m sure not all of them would be easily convinced, even if you opened a trap in front of their face and waited for them to beg you to zap Slimer. Now let’s switch over to the athiests, scientists, and everyone else who is either over-educated or simply thinks they’re smarter than that. Well, not much to say here, but that, just like the religious may have a strong church upbringing or religious convictions that hinder them from believing in the supernatural outside what they were taught, these people also will have a hard time believing due to their strong beliefs, not even if you gave a demonstration. Basically, it would take a hundred or more feet Staypuft Marshmallow Man walking through down town New York city doing as much collateral property damage as possible that will not go away like smoke and mirrors the next day in order to get either of these sides to believe that the Ghostbusters are anything more but another attempt to con people out of their money like a lying TV evangelist with a fancy car and at least five Rolex watches. In other words, Walter Peck represents what normal atheistic or even religious “sensible” people would think about the Ghostbusters.
Admit it. I’m sure both you and me would probably be Walter Peck. Except we wouldn’t make the firehouse go boom. We’re not that dumb. Am I right?
And take the middle ground for instance: those shunned by both mainstream, conservative religion and the scientific community – ghost hunters, mediums, psychics… They’d probably be closer to believing, but… To catch and hold a ghost indefinitely? And via scientific metal contraptions? They probably wouldn’t believe that. Though, yeah, some would. And from that point, “Hello, Orkin man.”
The Orkin man part was great in your article.
Why would you need to contain a ghost indefinitely? Why would you need to contain a ghost at all? And if you could, how could you prove it?? Unless, of course you have the potential to live for eternity? (Stop ye Evangelists now!) and if you could do that…why on earth -or in Gozers dimension, would you need to make the transiton?
One thing that always puzzled me was the lack of reported spectral accounts for roadkills (victims of untimely and violent demises). Surely if there was an excuse for retribution that would be it?
@ Troy
I never realized they were getting they key to the city! I always thought they we saying thank you for saving the city and returning the statue of liberty!