It feels like at least some of the vitriol surrounding Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters is starting to die down, now that the movie’s actually out. (That, or we’ve finally learned to stop sticking our hands in the woodchipper and going on Reddit.) Still, the lingering spirit of all these childhoods being ruined could probably use a little exorcism, courtesy of someone whose childhood was actually defined by the 1984 original: Harold Ramis’ daughter, Violet Ramis Stiel.
Splitsider has just posed a new essay from Ramis Stiel, one part tribute to her father—who died in 2014—and one part reminder not to take Ghostbusters so damn seriously. She walks the reader through her own history with the franchise—including her outrage at seeing her dad be replaced by “some blonde guy in Sally Jesse Raphael glasses” in The Real Ghostbusters cartoon—while also emphasizing his warmth and openness to change. “‘It’s business, Violet,’” she recalls him saying when she asked him about the transition. “‘The cartoon is its own thing. The same way you used to ask if the fans knew I wasn’t really Egon? Well, I’m not. It’s a character. There was a different Superman when I was a kid. Things change.’”