Well, it’s official: Speaking to The Daily Beast, director Paul Feig has confirmed Kate McKinnon’s kooked-out inventor character in the Ghostbusters reboot is gay.
“I hate to be coy about it,” he says, “but when you’re dealing with the studios and that kind of thing…”
The 53-year-old director of Bridesmaids and Spy says he wanted to make McKinnon’s character a lesbian in order to bring out Kate’s personality and lend her energy to the film:
You know, Kate is who she is and I love the relationship between Kate and Melissa’s characters. I think it’s a very interesting, close relationship.”
“If you know Kate at all she’s this kind of pansexual beast where it’s just like everybody who’s around her falls in love with her and she’s so loving to everybody she’s around.”
“I wanted to let that come out in this character.”
He didn’t prompt McKinnon, either. “I wasn’t like, ‘And now you should wink at them.’ This is stuff that is coming out of Kate.”
That’s why you connect with those characters. They’re playing versions of themselves. That’s what makes a comedic actor fantastic, when that personality comes out.”
“That’s why it’s so terrible when writer-directors say, ‘Stick to the script!’”
“Why would you hire these people who have these enormous personalities and then just cut them off?”
The Twitterverse is down with this news, and down and McKinnon in general:
The new Ghostbusters movie is in fact bad news for men, but only because Kate McKinnon has made every woman in this audience fully gay
— Liz Watson (@watsontots) July 16, 2016
Not only was Ghostbusters hilarious but I lost my mind thinking about a little queer kid seeing Kate McKinnon in this movie.
— GABY DUNN (@gabydunn) July 17, 2016
I honestly only want to see the new Ghostbusters because Kate McKinnon is a really attractive gay lady
— daddy kim (@boegard) July 9, 2016
Y’all, dear lord #Ghostbusters delivered, and on a related note I now want to be #KateMcKinnon when I grow up.
— Jeff Levene (@jlevene1) July 19, 2016
@Ghostbusters was a game-changer. Wish I’d had these ladies as role models growing up #KristenWiig#KateMcKinnon@Lesdoggg@melissamccarthy
— Sarah Cook (@WeekendClassWar) July 19, 2016
Impressed by @Ghostbusters! Love the #gender re-framing of childhood heroes & fun in every scene – #KateMcKinnon *mic drop* #Ghostbusters
— Rachael Wilken (@talyn_lightstar) July 19, 2016
Iylse Mimoun, author of Choose Your Own Love Story: (Mis)Adventures in Love, Lust, and Happy Endings, agrees: “Putting aside plot problems and your ruined childhood for a minute—-there was a point during Ghostbusters when tears sprang to my eyes, realizing I had never, in my entire life, seen a non-sexualized non-glamorized female action hero kicking butt on screen. Those four amazing ladies clomping around in those stupid suits busting ghosts was completely groundbreaking.”