Last week’s release of the trailer for Sony’s upcoming female-led Ghostbusters reboot caused an exceptionally toxic reaction on the internet. Within days, “Ghostbusters trailer reaction” became a thriving genre on YouTube, with legions of outraged fans—mostly sad, angry white dudes with fond memories of the middle Ronald Reagan years—taking to their webcams to express their utter disgust. The reaction videos are remarkably homogeneous, many beginning with the fateful words “I’m not sexist, but…” Chief among the complaints was that the new film was simultaneously too close and not close enough to the 1984 original.
In retrospect, it was inevitable that the Ghostbusters reaction videos should inspire a parody of their own. Darren Wallace, who self-identifies as a “VFX artist with too much free time,” has crafted a real doozy with an animated clip showing the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man’s reaction to the new Ghostbusters trailer. “This is not necessarily a reflection of my opinion of the trailer,” Wallace insists, “but rather a satirical skit about the negative reaction it has received.”
The video depicts the beloved, gelatinous sailor as a typical YouTuber: pale, overweight, and confined to grungy looking apartment with a Bill Murray poster on the wall. In the three-minute video, the Marshmallow Man parks himself in front of a computer monitor at a desk and films himself watching the new Ghostbusters promo. Director Wallace has the real trailer running in the lower right corner, so the audience can gauge the beloved mascot’s reactions to each individual moment. At first, he seems happy. The familiar theme song, logo, and firehouse bring a smile to his round, colorless face. Things start to go south, however, when the new ’busters actually start saying and doing things. Their jokes provoke only eye rolls and furrowed brows. Then, the trailer gets to that Exorcist-meets-Tommy Boy part, and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man just loses it completely. To say any more would be spoiling the punchline, but some other familiar faces from the 1984 film show up at this point to take advantage of the situation.
[via Laughing Squid]