I recently picked up The Real Ghostbusters off Amazon.com a few weeks ago and been trying to make a go at the first season of the seriess. The writing is surprisingly good for a 80′s children s cartoon and the plot at times can be pretty complex. The cartoon was written by Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd, so for all intents and purposes, what went on in the cartoon was canon. After getting a few episodes into the series, odd ball questions started popping up in my head about the Ghostbusters. At first, I tried Googling my questions to find answers, but couldn’t find any. I trolled some Ghostbuster fan pages, but didn’t find answers to my specific questions. So I’m just going to lay out my questions and try to piece together a rationale to help me understand the Ghostbusters and how they would exist in the real world. Feel free to put in your two cents.
Question 1: Does Janine Melnitz sleep or better yet, live at Ghostbusters HQ?
I don’t know. You regularly see the Ghostbusters do night jobs and treat their business as though it’s a on-callfire station (living quarters: beds, kitchen, living area, rec room, etc.). From 1984 through 1991 (Ghostbsters through Ghostbuster: The Video Game) you only see Janine behind the desk. If she does call it a day, lets say at 5 p.m., who takes the calls then? This is more of a question of logistics than anything else.
On top of that, does Janine even have a home? It’s never shown if Janine has a living quarters, but living arrangements for the Ghostbusters were rarely seen in either movie and weren’t really explored till the cartoon series. I would think it would be cheaper for the Ghostbusters to hire Janine on a salary basis and have her live at HQ so she could answer the phone whenever she heard it rang. From my memory however, there was a time when we didn’t see Janine at her desk, that was when Walter Peck first entered HQ and was met by Peter Venkman. She could very well have been on a bathroom break.
Question 2: What are the ethical boundaries of ghost capture?
This could be a topic all in its own. I’m going to just summarize a few ideas floating in my head and try to flesh out some kind of rationale.
First, let me give you a primer to what I think would be the basics for understanding the concepts of ghost capture. One of the big laws of science that’s used almost to a fault in the Ghostbusters universe is the laws regarding the conservation of energy; wh
ich states that energy cannot be created nor destroyed but only be transferred from one state to another. This is why we have ghosts: the body dies and the spirit lives on. This is also why the Ghostbusters cannot “kill” a ghost, only transfer it from one place to another (to the trap then the containment unit).
With that piece of knowledge in mind, let’s get to the meat and potatoes of the question regarding the ethics of ghost capturing. Lets say the Ghostbusters are on a call and capture a bunch of ghosts having their way in an abandoned warehouse. They go back to HQ, put the ghosts into the containment unit and call it a day. The next morning there are picketers outside of HQ, protesting the capture of people’s deceased family members. Whats a Ghostbuster to do? Release them so they can wreak havoc on the city or keep them contained in the grid?
Where does the sacredness of life end? At death? The ghost of the love one is right there in front of you. Yeah sure they don’t have a physical body but you’re able to communicate and interact with them as though they were alive to a certain extent. I’m under the impression that a ghost in the Ghostbusters universe is a culmination of their previous life manifested into a characterture of themselves (Slimer = glutton). So that would mean that along with bad ghosts, there are good ghosts. Where would the Ghostbusters draw the line of distinction? There would have to be a set of ethical boundaries placed for ghost capture in order to avoid any type of conflict of interest and social taboos.
Case in point. The Ghostbusters fought and won a battle with the invading God Zuul. Even though the Ghostbusters didn’t destroy or capture Zuul, they sealed Zuul from our dimension when they crossed the streams, shutting the door to our world for all time. What if that was Jesus or better yet, Christian GOD. What if GOD came down and had Stay Puff march down 5th Avenue (very OT of him, I know) and the Ghostbusters slammed the door on him from our plane of existence? Where is the ethical line in the sand that the Ghostbusters would never cross?
I guess one question only leads to another…
Question 3: Ghost rights
Ok, ghosts are of us but now dead, that’s understood. If I was a functioning ghost, I would like to not have to worry about being zapped than thrown into a containment unit just because I’m a free-floating ectoplasmic paranormal phenomenon. What if I could still do my job, but never tire. As a ghost, I’m sure I could do other feats that someone living couldn’t normally do (like float). Long story short, ghosts have benefits. This practice is put into use heavily in The Real Ghostbusters with Slimer. Slimer is pretty much the unsung 5th Ghostbuster. Besides occasionally annoying Venkem, Slimer regularly travels with the Ghostbusters and has been, on occasion, assist in ghost capture.
This doesn’t mean slimer has rights. He’s constantlyy reminded he’s a ghost and at any second, will be blasted back into the containment unit. Essentially, he’s a lovable slave on a children’s show: He’s useful, but merely a means to an end.
Ghosts can obviously communicate. Zuul, even though not a ghost but a lesser God, communicated openly to the Ghostbusters. Vigo, only being a shell image of the power which the living Vigo once was, spoke directly to the Ghostbuster, Dr. Poha, Oscar and Dana about his aspirations of world domination. Slimer speaks gibberish on The Real Ghostbusters but his points are conveyed well through body language and emotion. Hell, even the demons that possessed Dana and Louis in the first Ghostbusters used their human shell to communicate about the coming of the destructor and apparently, their want of coffee (yes, have some).
Where am I going with this? If realized that ghosts can serve a purpose and communicate, it would seem that theories and practices would have to change dramatically. the Ghostbusters wouldn’t be able to just take out a ghost because it was inconvenient for the client, there would have to be a set of checks and balances in place to ensure that the ghost was actually doing something bad.
Ultimately I think this would relegate the Ghostbusters to be little legal enforcers than anything else. Their containment unit the equivalent of a jail cell and their job descriptions nothing more than “protect the peace”. I’m sure it’s not all bad. At least they quit getting sued by the city.
Well those are a few questions floating around in my head, what’s your thoughts?
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