The 'Ghostbusters' Song Is Way Pervier Than We Realized
It's hard to imagine Ghostbusters without Ray Parker Jr.'s beloved theme song, which has become a ubiquitous piece of pop-culture history in its own right, beloved by all ... except for Huey Lewis, who famously decided he was "gonna call" his lawyers after hearing it. Since we're still no closer to seeing the new Ghostbusters: Afterlife anytime soon, we decided to use this time to take a closer look at the iconic song, which, it turns out, is way weirder than we thought.
At first, the lyrics simply describe a generic haunting, with Parker urging people to call the Ghostbusters while also asserting that, while he recommends hiring professional phantom exterminators, he, personally, is not afraid of ghosts. The music video is even more confusing because, although Parker's song is actively promoting the Ghostbusters, he appears to be a ghost himself and is stalking a young woman at her modest home, seemingly located inside the Tron universe.
Then things get ... surprisingly pervy. The ghost's behavior borders on sexual assault; Parker sings about how there's "an invisible man, sleepin' in your bed." The video shows us this; the woman's bed sheets are mysteriously pulled back just before Parker pops out from underneath the bed. So is he the "invisible man" and is merely singing about himself in the third person, or, in this video's narrative, are there two separate ghosts creeping on this woman?
Parker also says that this "freaky" ghost "likes the girls." Which isn't a thing that happened in the movie Ghostbusters. In fact, apart from Ray's brief, wholly unnecessary, wet dream sequence, the issue of sexually active ghosts is never brought up once. The woman in the video tries to escape, but Parker continues to haunt her, all while claiming that he "ain't afraid of no ghost" -- which is kind of a weird brag for a ghost to make.
The tune later became the theme song for the Ghostbusters Saturday morning cartoon show, where it was enjoyed by millions of children who presumably didn't realize it was about a horny poltergeist with no respect for consent or personal boundaries.
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Top Image: Columbia
