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She was also a member of Prangstgrüp, a student comedy group who set up and recorded elaborate college pranks.
In 2007, McKinnon joined the original cast of Logo TV's The Big Gay Sketch Show, where she was a cast member for all three seasons. For me, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire — now streaming on Netflix — wasted its one compelling plot point: Whatever Phoebe Spengler (Mckenna Grace) had going on with ghost girl Melody (Emily Alyn Lind).
Quick catch-up, in case you’re lucky enough to have not watched the newest new Ghostbusters movies: Phoebe is the 15-year-old granddaughter of original Ghostbuster Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis).
She was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for the second time in 2015. Their friendship isn’t typical, as there are flirtations immediately between the two, and all of their dialogue is laced with indirect themes of both being outsiders from their respective families.
Unfortunately, like Frozen Empire, 2016's Ghostbusters - or, at least, Sony Pictures -was apparently too afraid to commit to the LGBTQ+ storyline it set up.
Phoebe Being Gay Would Connect To Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire's Larger Themes
It's A Film About Figuring Out Who You Are
There's a lot going on in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.
She eventually won the very next year, becoming the first actor from SNL to win the award since 1993.
McKinnon began appearing as Hillary Clinton on the series leading up to the 2016 presidential election. However, at the same time, it's equally possible that the pair share a romantic attraction. Arguably, Phoebe was Afterlife's standout character, so it makes sense that the character got an even bigger role in the sequel.
Still, it’s almost as if Sony chose to leave a lot of the obvious parts of the characters’ relationship out so that they could establish distribution in countries like China, where such characters might be digitally removed or censored altogether due to how queer people are viewed.
The screenplay by director Gil Kenan and Ghostbusters: Afterlife director Jason Reitman reads as if Phoebe and Melody’s unexpectedly close friendship would turn romantic without actually saying just that.
The fifth film in the franchise, which is currently in cinemas, has been met with a generally mixed response. After an initial encounter and long talks about each other’s troubled family trees, Phoebe and Melody hatch a plan to be in the same space as one another.
That same space means that Phoebe must die and become a ghost in order to fully experience what the other side is like.
McKinnon won the 2014 American Comedy Award for Best Supporting Actress, TV for her work on SNL. In 2014, she was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, as well as for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics along with four of her colleagues for the song "(Do It On My) Twin Bed". McKinnon herself is gay, and it makes sense that she would want her character to share this trait.
Frozen Empire's tentative handling of its potentially LGBTQ+ character is symptomatic of a wider Hollywood problem.
While the issue of failing to be explicit about a character's sexuality has, unfortunately, cropped up twice in the Ghostbusters franchise, it's not a problem that's specific to the series.
Melody, who passed away when she was 16 years old in a fire that took her family’s life as well, cannot move on to the next step of the afterlife due to unfinished business. Phoebe's storyline with Melody is easily one of the movie's best parts because it brings some much-needed emotional depth to the film. Phoebe’s immediate decision is to turn herself into a ghost to interact with Melody upon meeting her, which tracks well with a screenplay that seems to want to tell a story about identity without actually doing anything to dig deep into that story.
Much like how the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Pixar have brushed queer characters under the rug to sell more tickets in countries outside of North America and Europe, it seems that the Ghostbusters franchise has done so as well.
(But not surprised!) The two of them share a teary but totally non-romantic goodbye, and Melody goes off to the Great Beyond, or whatever. Ghostbusters 6 hasn't been confirmed yet, and given that Frozen Empire has been underperforming at the box office, the chances of it happening any time soon seem slim. That hair!
She was nominated for an ECNY Emerging Comic Award in 2010.