Nerd Alert! All-female Ghostbusters team and comedian Ron Funches in Tacoma

By Rev. Adam McKinney on October 14, 2014

Over the past week, the Internet collectively lost its shit like a bunch of whiny babies at the very notion of a female Peter Venkman. Director Paul Feig announced that his Ghostbusters reboot would indeed feature an all-female Ghostbusters team, which prompted legions of fedora-wearing, neckbeard-having troglodytes to declare the franchise officially ruined.

Personally, I'm just glad that Dan Aykroyd's lunatic hands are staying far away from this project, but if you're still not sure that Ghostbusters can't survive the casting of some g-g-g-girls, let me make this very easy for you: it's not the casting that's the problem, it's you. You, the people that saw red when Thor was rebooted as a woman. You, the people that came out en masse to harass a female journalist for daring to offer even a mild criticism of the portrayal of women in video games. You, Ghostbusters alumnus Ernie Hudson, who expressed his displeasure at this new casting news by saying - out loud, in front of microphones - that he hopes the new Ghostbusters cast would at least be hot, even if it was unlikely they'd be funny.

In this day and age, where women continue to make strides for their rights in the face of disgusting opposition, it's remarkable to me that we can still be bickering about the gender of people in jumpsuits shooting plasma rays at marshmallow puppets. Just grow up and watch your children's entertainment with as much dignity as you can muster.

THURSDAY, OCT. 16-SATURDAY, OCT. 18: RON FUNCHES

Tacoma Comedy Club's Fourth Anniversary weekend is a great way to take your mind off the Internet's confused He-Man Woman-Haters with performances from Ron Funches. You'd be hard-pressed to find many more lovable comedians working today than Ron Funches, who brings his delightful laugh to Tacoma for a three-night engagement. The ability to come across as likeable and completely natural is a hard one for comedians to tap into, but Funches brings it in spades.

It doesn't hurt that he's also a massively funny guy, bringing a gentle whimsy to even hard subjects like race. Ron Funches has an uncanny ability to disarm audiences, even opening with the line, "Hello, Mr. Whiteface. I mean you no harm, so please don't come at me," before revealing that this was a conversation he had with a cat. Whenever you get bogged down with how unbelievably shitty people can sometimes be, it helps to get soothed by a guy like Ron Funches. One giggle out of him and all the misogynist Ghostbusters fans of the world seem to wash away. 8 p.m. Thursday, 8 and 10:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Tacoma Comedy Club, 933 Market St., Tacoma, $15, 253.282.7203