“Drop of a hat she’s as willing as, Playful as a pussy cat, Then momentarily out of action, Temporarily out of gas, To absolutely drive you wild, wild.. She’s all out to get you.” ↳ Queen – Killer Queen
i have this headcanon that the reason holtzmann’s ghost trap sends the ghosts to michigan is because she hopes erin’s parents will see the ghosts and finally believe their daughter
I saw Ghostbusters opening weekend! What a fun summer movie! I get pretty misty-eyed thinking about all the kids (and especially girls) who’re going to have a great rest of the summer busting ghosts. Patty and Holtzmann were my favorites. ❤️
Also: so much love for Leslie Jones, who is funny as hell and deserves nothing but love and respect.
Obviously, I really enjoyed the new Ghostbusters, and I’ve been thinking about how much a movie like that would’ve meant to their characters when they were kids. I’m so excited for the kids who’ll grow up with this film as a part of their childhood! So here are Holtzmann, Abby, Erin, and Patty as junior high schoolers, growing up as geeks in their own respective, delightful ways.
I don’t usually have time for fan art but my drawing hand’s been giving me trouble, so I wanted to try a looser style that doesn’t strain my muscles quite so much. Perfect opportunity to do something different, right?
Hello I would like to take up a moment of your time to explain why I firmly believe Jillian Holtzmann from the 2016 reboot of Ghostbusters has a form of high functioning autism (I’m thinking Aspergers aka now referred to as Autism Spectrum Disorder/ASD but I’ll keep it as Aspergers). ALSO, THIS SHALL HAVE SPOILERS maybe I’m not sure but I’ll give the warning anyway. AND this is going off of what I know of Aspergers and how I have experienced it over my 25 years of life.
First off, here’s some reference for you all. I loved the first Ghostbusters films and was beyond excited to hear that Kate McKinnon was cast to be one of the leads in the 2016 reboot. I saw it on the Friday release and I’m so happy that it was in the Ultra Screen. I absolutely loved it, I knew it was going to be great and it was even better than I could have hoped for. Later, I got home and got to thinking about it. Now, for those who don’t know/follow me, I have mild to moderate Aspergers but I wasn’t diagnosed until late/post high school. This means I am high functioning enough to “pass” as neurotypical (aka “normal” or non-autistic) but others still see me as “eccentric” or a bit odd but can’t exactly put their finger on why.
Here we go! Aspergers, also known as Pervasive Development Disorder, is a high functioning form of autism, and the biggest component that I can think of is not being able to pick up on social cues and also hyper-focusing (I abhor the word “obsess” because we cannot exactly help it) on 2 to 3 things at the exclusion of others. Those with Aspergers also tend to be considered clumsy and use unusual language (which you’ve probably noticed by now that is what I’m doing). Also, not that I really need to mention this but, those with Aspergers are of normal or higher intelligence (for example, I had a college grade reading level in middle school). ANYWAY, on to Holtzmann.
Before I start, this is just my opinion and anyone can have whatever headcanon their heart desires. Also, I’ll try to not gush over how beautiful and perfect she is but no guarantees okay here is why I believe she has Aspergers:
1. Her sense of presence is outside the norm, from the way she dresses to her actions.
She doesn’t really have a set style of clothing, though her staples (comfort items??) are her yellow-tinted [safety] glasses and her “Screw U” necklace. Her outfits can be kind of “grungy” (though always put together, I noticed) but not dirty.
She does also wear graphic tee’s (which I don’t remember any other character doing) and mismatched socks. She wears things that on their own, you wouldn’t think go together until you see someone wearing them and you’re like DANG that looks good actually.
Kate McKinnon even calls her a genius and bizarre. How she talks to others is unconventional and very expressive in that regard.
How she acts is always messing around, and only at the end does she get serious. The social cues part comes in when she’s making jokes when other characters, namely Erin, are trying to do their jobs and they need to be serious (though Abby and sometimes Patty also like to poke fun at her).
Not to mention her mega badass gun-licking before kicking some ecto-butt
2. She gets really excited about her inventions…
…to the point of talking really fast when explaining which gadget does what and not really letting the girls ask questions before she straps them in for a field test.
I’m thinking that her “topics” of “focus” are her inventions and also the paranormal sciences.
Also, she got so into celebrating their first ghost caught that she grabs a guitar from one of the band members and smashes it on stage
3. She corrects others on words at some point
Which I personally remember doing on several occasions.
4. She’s (somewhat) clumsy
Now this really isn’t much to go off of because I only remember the one scene but when she was dancing around with two propane torches (I think that’s what they were) and lights something on fire.
Let the neurodivergent!holtzmann headcanons begin. For my money she is, inevitably, bipolar (hypomanic during the film) but oh the relatable possibilities.
hoooo BOY let me tell you my Thoughts on this one, anon. Buckle your damn seatbelt.
Part 1: The Non-Sexualized Costumes
First of all, let me start by quoting from this post that I love from @cloama:
McCarthy, Wiig, Jones and McKinnon in this movie are not funny-hot, like Cameron Diaz dorky dancing in a pair of underoos in Charlie’s Angels. They’re just funny and serving you soft-butch, wild-butch, nerd-chic and (albeit a little too stereotypical) cut-a-bitch realness
It was true before the movie came out and it somehow rings even truer now. How easy (and lazy) would it have been to make the jumpsuits sexy? Skintight catsuits with zippers down to show off maximum cleavage like a Sexy Ghostbuster ™ Halloween costume. Honestly it wouldn’t have surprised me, since even Black Widow and Wonder Woman apparently aren’t allowed to kick ass on screen without wedges are part of their costumes.
But the jumpsuits were baggy and painfully practical and entirely unsexy, and so were the rest of their wardrobes. The way these women dressed was so real; it was work-appropriate and casual and most of it looked pretty damn comfortable. They wear cute rain boots. I love those rain boots. There were no ass-shots or gratuitous naked scenes or that godforsaken scene where Plain Female Character has to get dressed up Because of Plot Reasons and we discover she’s been Bangable All Along.
This movie does not give two shits about the Male Gaze. It doesn’t care if you want to fuck these women.
Part 2: How did all this wlw fanservice even happen
Okay, so idk if ya’ll have noticed but I’ve been devoting a lot of time and blogging to the marvel of modern media that is Jillian Holtzmann, trying to figure out what the hell it is that makes her so appealing. And I think you just nailed the answer: the movie wasn’t trying to present her as sexy at all.
Despite the fact that sexuality and attraction is one of the most fluid, hard to quantify things in the entire world, there’s a very narrow idea of what makes a woman “sexy” in modern media.
…yep, there it is. Performing femininity is key, and that mean immaculate make up, push up bra, revealing clothing, long well-cared for hair. High heels factor into it a lot. And I’m not saying these women aren’t attractive or that they don’t look good, but…
As a woman who sometimes performs some degree of femininity myself, I understand what a pain in the ass it is. More often than not I look at a woman who’s meant to be a sex symbol and all I can think of is how painful those shoes must be, how long that makeup must have taken, is that bra hurting her back? The way most women are presented as sexual is laboriously unsexy, because it’s all so fake by nature.
(This is in no way a slam against real, non-fictional women who chose to present themselves in any of these ways. You look rad.)
You know that gif from Community where Donald Glover is talking about how he prefers women in pajamas over lingerie because he just wants to know that they’re comfortable? It’s like that.
ENTER HOLTZMANN.
Like I said, this movie doesn’t give two shits if you think Holtzmann is sexy. She’s not presented in any of the ways usually used to sexualize female characters. Her wardrobe choices are violently weird and mostly body-concealing (we never even got to see the crop top under those overalls), she makes a lot of weird faces and does weird voices, she’s not geeky in a cute feminine way but in way that likes blowing shit up and doing god-only-knows what with cadavers.
(You’re an ENGINEER, Holtzmann. What the hell do you need a dead guy for?)
And yet. She’s completely and utterly confident in all of this. Kate McKinnon sells all of Holtzmann’s capital-w-Weird with so much confidence that you have, like, zero doubt this is Holtzmann exactly as Holtzmann wants to be. She’s loud and weird and really unapologetic about making sex eyes at her teammates and also at guns. She’s not sexy because she’s in underwear with perfect makeup; she’s sexy because she’s wildly magnetically strange and is having a blast doing it and you want in.
And, yeah, she’s sexy because she’s really REALLY obviously casually confidently gay and hits on her teammates with style and aplomb in charmingly odd ways.
Dear Hollywood: less Sexy Women ™, more women who are so cool and confident and fun that they become sex goddesses along the way. There’s a difference.
