This year proved to have a new addition to the Athena Film Festival, in which the first ever Leading Man Award was given to Paul Feig for his dedication in promoting female protagonists and showing women on screen when others in Hollywood avoided it. Ghostbusters star Kate McKinnon came out to support Feig and presented the award to him as the two reminisced on the struggles they had in making Ghostbusters as well as just showing funny women on camera. Here are some of the key points Feig made in his interviews:
You received a lot of backlash on Twitter and the internet ever since rumors of Ghostbusters came out. How was it like fighting with trolls who were against the film?
Well fighting on the internet is very interesting because itβs such a weird fight because youβre fighting with faceless people who are hiding behind their computers. Look, there are plenty of fans of Ghostbusters who have an issue that itβs a reboot, and that I completely get, I find that valid. But when itβs just pure misogyny, I donβt want to give voice to it. When Iβm on the internet, I try not to block people, I want to hear all voices but sometimes you just hammered on for a year and you finally crack and I just decided that I just wanted to start blocking people because I donβt want to give those people a voice in a forum and itβs just such a non-starter when itβs just misogyny then whatβs the point?
You can listen to their speeches the rest of the interviews with Feig below:
