on Ghostbusters

Though incomplete in its treatment of the subject, the real innovation of Ghostbusters (apart from its gleeful, unabashed geekiness - something it pulled off, quite precisely, before it was cool) is its treatment of ghosts not as discrete and singular hauntings to be the crux of a story, but as a sort of indestructible spectral effluent. These waste-ghosts are given neither history nor context; whereas the classically Gothic ghost is (more or less) an undead story needing to be told and/or resolved, these ghosts are more like a cross between city vermin and toxic waste - although, of course, we know that ghosts (and waste, and vermin) must have some story to explain them. That each ghost - each tragedy - is a component of a larger catastrophe, one that will grow, and grow, and grow, is the essence of the ectological crisis. A fuller understanding is one that incorporates the idea that each ghost, while a part of this greater phenomenon, is and has also and simultaneously its own story. Many unresolved tragedies seeking resolution; at the same time and in the same way - crucially - a single worldwide tragedy also seeking resolution.