Perhaps the most infamous scene in the original Ghostbusters isn’t even actually a full scene. Of course, I’m talking about the moment when Ray Stantz, played by the series creator Dan Aykroyd, lets the trousers open from a floating female figure and is … let’s say “delighted” with her. The experience is so intense that Ray crosses his eyes. It’s a moment that keeps popping up as the latest film, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, turns the franchise into a family-friendly coming-of-age tale about teenagers taking on the ghosthunter cloak. The original Ghostbusters wasn’t a family movie.
But beyond that very obvious point, this sex scene raises a pretty tough question: if ghosts can have sexual relationships, they must have feelings, right? And if they have feelings, shouldn’t they have rights? The Ghostbusters go around capturing these ghosts just because they exist. What happens to the spirits in this containment unit is completely unknown. It could be heaven or it could be hell.
To answer these tricky questions, let’s go straight to the source. In this week Galaxy brains, I am personally accompanied by Dan Aykroyd to discuss the philosophical questions raised by ghost sex and imprisonment.
As always, this conversation has been edited to sound less strange.
Dave: One thing I want to talk to you about is the philosophical implications of some of these things. Apparently, Ghost hunters is a romp. It’s a fun adventure story. It’s a comedy. But one of the things that has always piqued my interest in adulthood is that there are spirits who can be familiar with the living. There is a scene in the original Ghost hunters where your character Ray is intimate with a ghost.
Dan Aykroyd: Yeah, I remember the woman who played that. Her name was Kym Mistress and she was a Playboy Playmate. She played the ghost. I wish they’d let this scene run a little longer.
Dave: As a child, I thought the same thing.
Dan Aykroyd: Sexual encounters with ghosts are very, very common. And there are some people I know who have a house, who are present and not try to clean it up. They say, You know what, I’ll stick with it and I’ll live with it.
Dave: Yes. So the reason I care about this isn’t necessarily lustful or sexual, but the idea that when you lock these ghosts in the containment unit Ghost hunters, they live there, presumably forever because they cannot really be disposed of. You’re just trapped, aren’t you?
Dan Aykroyd: You are trapped. But once in, it’s a merging of their energies. So think of it as emptiness. Once you get in there they mix and they all become that ball of psychic energy. You could fit a million spirits there and it won’t take up any more space. It is not that there is a real spatial concept in this room.
Dave: So you live in a vacuum and a kind of emptiness. Does a mind have awareness when it can be intimate and love and be concerned with sexuality? Do you notice anything, at least in your imagination of this universe? Are you aware of the void you are in?
Dan Aykroyd: You know, compassionately speaking, we’d hope the amalgam of their psychology mixes everything up so they can sit and hum for years. I fear that there may still be remnants of residual consciousness. So it’s probably a prison. I wanted it to be compassionate. But you know, from my family’s research … if you look at my father’s book, History of ghostswhich has just been published in Poland, by the way, is a definitive article on media and science and the world of paranormal research. They firmly believe in the spiritual, that consciousness survives and goes on just like you were when you went through this whole life. I suppose you have a fish consciousness. Once you take the hook off they don’t really do much.
Dave: Yeah, I’m just so intrigued by it. Not to say that Oh, the whole premise is not compassionate. It’s like, Oh yeah how about that? How about living in it? I think maybe there will be something to explore there in later films because I have no idea about it.
Dan Aykroyd: Well, it would be a void. And I think it could be a great animated project.
Dave: Yes. What’s going on there?
Dan Aykroyd: Well, we have an animated idea in the works with Ivan Reitman from Ghost Corps. Maybe I don’t know where we’re going in terms of the story with the first two films, or if it’s going to take another turn and introduce a whole new world. We are only just developing this. It’s exciting to think of Ghostbusters being animated because we already had a very successful TV show, The real Ghostbusters.
