Are you referring to this bit?
[quote=Kingpin post_id=4987391 time=1699116911 user_id=76]Though I know you’re not a fan of that kind of speculation.
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-If I may suggest, if you break the post you’re quoting into sections like I do, it makes it easier to answer the questions you bring up about something I, or someone else has written. 
In (hopeful) response to your question, I’d just noticed on past occasions when we’ve been discussing scenes that you sometimes reject outright someone’s interpretation of a scene because there isn’t direct evidence to support it, even though it is one of the likely interpretations of the scene. I was just remarking, based on past experience, you’d probably reject my idea that the guys were being supported by the public in the court because they were underdogs in the legal system… Rather than neccesarily because they were the Ghostbusters.
[quote=RichardLess post_id=4987400 time=1699148086 user_id=47215]The movie by far shows us more people supporting the ghostbusters than being against them.
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It doesn’t show us them categorically stating they believe them.
A stage magician can claim his magic is real, and he might prove popular with the audience… But that doesn’t mean they believe for a second that what he’s doing is anything but smoke, mirrors, sleight of hand and misdirection. You can root for an underdog while also acknowledge there’s no chance in hell, or you think there’s no chance in hell they’ll succeed in what they’re trying to do.
[quote=RichardLess post_id=4987400 time=1699148086 user_id=47215]We only get people in position of power doing this and one kids dad.
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Yet that “one kid’s dad” can suggest that it’s not just people in positions of power who thought the Ghostbusters were full of ■■■■, but people on the lower levels of the societal/power sliding scale as well. The ConEd guy is plausibly another example, in that he was much more convinced that the Ghostbusters had put the slime under the street than it was the product of something supernatural.
[quote=RichardLess post_id=4987400 time=1699148086 user_id=47215]We don’t see it, it doesn’t mean it’s not happening.
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It can’t be said that it is happening though. There’s nothing suggesting New York is any different spiritually in 1989 than it was in 1984.
I appreciate that we’re grappling with things that Dan and Harold likely never considered when they were writing the script… I wish they had considered if New York would’ve become a paranormal holy sight in the wake of the Gozer case.
Either way, I feel the version of Ghostbusters II that eventually made it into the cinemas suggests (intentionally or unintentionally), that the guys aren’t taken seriously even after they saved the world.
If the majority of New York had believed and supported the Ghostbusters, then surely Mayor Lenny and his administration wouldn’t have been able to get away with refusing the pay the Ghostbusters for the Gozer job…
The negative response from the Ghostbusters-supporting majority of the public would’ve run the strong risk of harming Lenny’s future career prospects if the news ever got out.
And going back to the post-Ghostbusters careers of Ray and Egon, they clearly weren’t taken seriously as paranormal investigators by their peers at the university… If the university regends/department heads had believed in them and what they were doing, wouldn’t the university have brought them on to fund a revitalised Paranormal Studies Department?
I believe the suggestion/evidence is there that the Ghostbusters weren’t believed or taken seriously by the majority of New Yorkers… It frustratingly requires us to read between the lines, but there’s too much stuff present in the film to convince me otherwise.
[quote=RichardLess post_id=4987400 time=1699148086 user_id=47215]I think your POV is if people believed in ghosts the Ghostbusters would be constant celebrities, there would be fan clubs and the Central Park west case would be treated not unlike the Roswell UFO incident. Would that be correct?
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Maybe… I’d imagine that had New York become a paranormal pilgrimage spot, that Ray for instance would probably get groupies turning up at his shop, and Peter might be dealing with autograph hunters… While also taking advantage of any impressionable ladies who wanted to know more about the famous Ghostbuster… The kinda stuff we saw at the height of their fame in the first movie.
As I said in my previous reply, I believe they are the victims of a lot of the population convincing themselves that what they saw wasn’t real… I can especially believe this because it happens all-too-often in the world we live in. 
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I hear ya I know but I’m far too lazy to do that quote business. I’m doing this from my iPhone and that’s just…yeah. It’s a pain in the ass. Unless there’s an easier way? Every quote I want to respond to I have to copy and past, do the quote thingies. If there a way to do that’s easier, I’m all ears, or eyes.
I write these posts in a stream of consciousness way. I’m sure that sucks for those reading sometimes but that’s just how I roll baby. No in all seriousness it can be very…trying for me to copy and paste with my fingers on my iPhone. My hands shake pretty aggressively when performing certain tasks.
And I’m all for speculating. What I’m against is what you kinda just did. The “likelihood of it being correct interpretation”. Careful with that. You might think it’s the correct or right interpretation. Doesn’t mean it is. Likelihood or otherwise. For example I love Mr Michael T’s theories. How involved they are. I don’t agree with all of them but I love the thought he puts into them and I’m fairly confident the majority of the time it’s more thought than the filmmakers put into it. So I guess it’s a difference between calling head canon canon. (A lot of these issues revolve around GBA and the mini pufts. They don’t make sense and I’ll die on that hill lol)
It doesn’t show them categorically saying they believe in ghosts? I think the magician thing is a poor analogy. This is a court of law not a magic show. You applaud a magic show and show support because you are seeing a cool illusion. You get what you paid for. Venkman says who ya gonna call and the people cheer. Why? Because they agree with him. Sometimes shit happens, someone has to deal with and who ya gonna call. We hear audible “Yeah’s” from the crowd. If cheering for that doesn’t indicate you buy what that person is selling, I don’t know what to tell ya. Seems pretty clear to me. What does the prosecutor say? She references supernatural. As their “exclusive province”. They cheer to Venkman’s response to that. That’s as clear as it gets I think
The kid telling Ray his dad says they are full of ■■■■ is a meta joke. I don’t think it’s indicative of anything other than what the movie tells us. Frankly, we don’t know if his dad holds a position of power. We don’t see the dad. So it’s more of a “Look at how far they’ve fallen, they are taking shit from a snot nose kid”.
Now don’t get me wrong. There’s definitely regular folk that wouldn’t believe them. But this is about the unfounded criticism.
See the con Ed guy is a separate issue and his stance is not known. He catches the GB’s lying. So his skepticism would be warranted. But if he believes in ghost isn’t hinted at one way or the other. Just that he doesn’t buy the slime, which as far as he knows, has nothing to do with ghosts.
Something to consider…how long would you say the GB’s were active for? As a business? In the first movie. 4 months? If that?
I’m glad the movie doesn’t get bogged down with stuff like showing Ray with groupies or anything that’s not really important to the story. Showing Ray and Winston slumming it doing Birthday parties and then dealing with groupies, having Venkman signing autographs after his TV show…the movie wouldn’t work as well. It might be more in line with that might happen in reality but we need to see them down and out. That Venkman has resorted to pretending to be a psychic on TV. That sort of pathetic nature would be undone if you have Venkman’s ego satiated by groupies or autograph seekers, right?
Ok. Here’s another thing to consider. What is the population convincing themselves isn’t real? Again you are assuming things not found in evidence. Did anyone besides those present at CPW see Mr. Stay Puft? You see a camera but we don’t know what it captured or didn’t capture. We don’t know if the PKE forces messed with the TV signal or that even stuff like that can be captured on camera at all. In GB2 they have to do all sorts of technobabble to “see” Vigo on the film, right? So we just don’t know what others saw or didn’t see and the movie is smart not to address this I think.
Also check out that quote action? Lol. No I’ll try and take your advice and use quotes when I can but it’s just such a hassle sometimes. It’s a bitch for me to copy and paste things. My hands tend to shake when I perform sma,l focused actions. I’d be an awful surgeon. Can’t even play guitar anymore.