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Brooklyn 99’s Terry Crews: “I am a BIG feminist”

Brooklyn 99 is one of the best shows on American TV right now, and in addition to being fucking hilarious, it’s also incredibly diverse. Women get as much screen time as men, the boss is a gay black man (married to Sparks Nevada, dreamy), and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a lazy joke based on stereotypes in the show.

Terry Crews plays a thoughtful, sensitive family man, despite being a hulking ex-football player. I’ve loved Crews for a long time, because he seems to have an awesome sense of humor and he seems to be very well-balanced (did you know he’s a talented artist?).

For instance, here’s what he did at the premiere for The Expendables 2:

Terry Crews rocks a bikini

Today, he did an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on Reddit. When someone asked him how he feels about the new all-woman Ghostbusters reboot starring his Drunk History costar Kristin Wiig, Crews responded:

OH! I LOVE KRISTEN! And you know what? First of all, as a card-carrying feminist, I am a BIG feminist, anytime I see women being stars – the stars that they should be, and being featured, and being highlighted, it makes my heart happy.
Because it’s long overdue. Women are great, and funny, and amazing, and smarter than men – for real! – and it’s a reboot that needs to happen. There are SO many good things about that, what can I say? It’s going to be a HIT. And GO LADIES! I’m with you! I can’t wait to make the premiere!

Excuse me, I’ll be over here sighing and watching this gif.

(EDIT: I should mention that I don’t agree with him that women are smarter than men. But the rest is great.)

Rebecca Watson

Rebecca is a writer, speaker, YouTube personality, and unrepentant science nerd. In addition to founding and continuing to run Skepchick, she hosts Quiz-o-Tron, a monthly science-themed quiz show and podcast that pits comedians against nerds. There is an asteroid named in her honor. Twitter @rebeccawatson Mastodon mstdn.social/@rebeccawatson Instagram @actuallyrebeccawatson TikTok @actuallyrebeccawatson YouTube @rebeccawatson BlueSky @rebeccawatson.bsky.social

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9 Comments

  1. I posted this in a comment on another post here at Skepchick, but this is probably an even more appropriate venue. Here’s a fantastic interview with Terry Crews by Elamin Abdelmahmoud about feminism, the damage that machismo does to men, and rape culture.

  2. While it’s great that Terry Crews is enthusiastic about increased opportunity for women in his industry, I disagree with the idea that there is such a thing as a reboot that “needs” to happen. While sexists have been far too mad about this project (which has been entertaining to watch), everybody else seems far too happy. Good people are involved and it should be funny, but at no point in the last 30 years have I ever thought we needed another Ghostbusters movie.

    1. I’m not sure how that’s any different from any other movie that’s ever been made, though.

      I’m not sure why some people are like WHAT A REBOOT?! NOOOO!

      There is a reason reboots happen: Because they are successful.

      And why shouldn’t there be an all-female cast of a really popular sci-fi comedy? How is that not a good thing? I don’t see the bad in this at all.

      I mean, YOU don’t have to watch it. That’s pretty easy. So why are you trying to bring everyone down based on your own personal opinion?

      Not sure there’s much of a difference between you or “the sexists” tbh.

      Did you get this upset over the Batman reboots? I doubt it.

    2. Can you explain why this isn’t a good thing and why it doesn’t need to happen? People say this all the time but no one ever says why. I don’t get it, honestly. I don’t care if a movie is a reboot, as long as it’s done well.

      1. Thanks for the link. It’s nice to have something I just really don’t get explained to me by someone with the same tastes in ’80s movies I do. So, I understand why some people are pretty excited about this movie, I’m just not a big fan of remakes. I was skeptical about the Batman reboot (I thought Shumacher pretty much destroyed the franchise, so we should have moved on), but so were a lot of people and there wasn’t this much push-back to those of us who turned out to be wrong (Nolan did a great job, besides not seeming to know what to do with Selina Kyle). It seems like I have to like this project or be branded a sexist, which kind of rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it’s just my contrarian streak speaking. But, I’ll probably go see this movie anyway.

        Also, take every character from Ghostbusters and replace it with a woman. It’s pretty much the same movie, only without a love-interest and Venkman trying to seduce undergrads, which lifts right out and is easily replaced with a different type of scam, respectively. So, it doesn’t seem to be telling a new story. This does make a great statement about how men are viewed as default and how female characters only exist so the star can “get the girl”, but that’s about it. So, if some ’80s comedy is to be gender-swapped, I pick Animal House.

        Also, I don’t remember there being a big movement to remake Ghostbusters, at least not the way people want a Wonder Woman or Captain Marvel movie. So, the “Oh my god, this is wonderful” reaction seems a bit odd to me.

  3. I have a theory about why women and others minorities cab be precoded as smarter inside done field. It’s simply that the bar is so much higher for then that the one that achieve are indeed smarter.

    Of course you have to be open minded to actually notice that those women or minorities are indeed smarter or dedicated then the masses, otherwise your preconception will block your vision and make you notice only the fumbles no matter how small.

    1. Some serious researchers have proposed exactly that model as a test for whether bias exists in a field. If the average performance of minority or woman employees is much higher than the average performance of the majority in the field, then there is a selection process going on where only the best of the minorities, women, or whatever underrepresented group are getting hired.

      It’s a statistical test of the notion that the unprivileged have to run twice as fast just to stay where they are.

      I’m pretty sure I read about it here on Skepchick, but I can’t remember enough of the context to find a reference, despite my strenuous 5 minutes with Google. Can anyone else provide more information?

      BTW, as I recall, the original research examined competence. If the hiring bias didn’t select for super competent minorities, but instead for some other attribute, such as looks or docility or social connections (religion, nepotism, golfing ability, whatever), the bias might not show up in this test, but other tests might reveal it.

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