When growing up, Ghostbusters II regularly rotated into my cinematic soundtrack (along with Can’t Buy Me Love, Troop Beverly Hills and Girls Just Wanna Have Fun). We would watch these flicks on repeat, except it was the 80’s and we had to rewind the tape.
Do you recall the River of Slime that coursed beneath New York City? That pink ooze, which Veckman figured out they could shoot from the proton packs? In one scene, several of the Ghostbusters, soaked in the stuff, argued to the point of wanting to quit their ghostbusting gig. Then, in the next moment, they hugged one another, sappy in love.
After an experiment with a toaster, the Ghostbusters discovered that the slime could be used to influence people for good or evil. When supplied with hatred, it emitted hatred. When given lovingkindness, it was returned. The secret to the river- was it good or evil? – was in feeding it.
So when the evil Vigo tried to incarnate the baby (the mythic allegory is abundant) while trapped in the museum covered with a pink slime jello-mold , the Ghostbusters use the slime to animate the statue of liberty. Because, of course they did. And what saves the day and the baby? The Ghostbusters managed to get all of NYC to sing. The slime river running beneath them changed from feeding on foul-mouthed rudeness to Your love keeps lifting me Higher and Higher.
My love for movies – even cheesy 80’s flicks- lies in how art brings to light a truth we cannot understand otherwise. I’ve experienced this river – though I choose to see it as a clear river of living water rather than pink slime – and its effect on my life. I notice that when I feed it anger, my own anger will boil over. And when I sing, life sings back.
Friends, there is a river that runs through us all, and connects us all. It will return to us, and those around us, what we provide it. So sing. Sing to it. Remind the river, the world, and your own soul that everything started with goodness.
Now, excuse me while I go ask Netflix to help me relive my childhood.
(Image above via Wikipedia)