After watching Ghost in the Shell and comparing it to Carl Silvio’s arguments about the movie, I find that I have several things that I agree with, and several things that I do not agree with.
To begin with, I agree with Silvio and Harraway’s belief that a cyborg is a “figure whose sense of identity is derived from attributes”. I think that Major Kusanagi seems to fit with that definition. The Major’s understanding of identity also fits well with these beliefs. The Major’s sense of identity confusion also fits well with Silvio’s argument about the cyborg representing cultural anxieties about the loss of subjectivity. The Major has trouble understanding who he actually is, he attributes so much more to identity than people usually think about.
I also agree with Silvio’s claims about the theme of the organic versus the inorganic within the movie. To start with, Silvio claims that the Puppet Master “represents a truly technologized, computerized post human subject”. The Puppet Master truly represents the inorganic within the movie. There seem to be more inorganic representations than organic. However Togusa appears to be the only character in the movie that is almost wholly organic, and even he is partially machine. The ability to “reconstitute” the shell of a cyborg and reuse it continues with the inorganic imagery in the movie. By merging with the Puppet Master and creating a new individual, thus allowing the characters to “escape the control of the organizations that created them” gives the characters a way to find harmony within their inorganic existence.
I also agree with Silvio’s claim that the movie visually objectifies the feminine characters within the movie. I agree, partially, with notion that the Major represents the archetype of “women superheroes”. However, the Major is not wholly female. While the body is female, the mind is male, so the Major is only partially a woman superhero. The major also emphasizes his masculine side when trying to rip open the tank. His muscles bulge and he exerts so much strength that he rips his arms from his sockets. So the image of the woman superhero image is diminished still. I mostly agree with Silvio’s claim that the Major and Botau represent “hyperbolic extremes of femininity and masculinity”. Botau very closely represents the extremes of masculinity but the Major only represents the extremes of femininity visually.
However, I disagree with Silvio when he says that Botau “with mouth agape” objectifies the Major. I feel that he is constantly trying to avoid objectifying the Major’s body, whether it is out of respect for his skill or the knowledge that he is really a male. In that scene that Silvio is referring to, Botau quickly averts his eyes away from the Major’s body and he is constantly covering up the Major’s naked form. I also disagree with Silvio’s claim that the movie challenges the cyberspace hero’s paradigm, at least in part. Silvio quotes Balsamo “cyberspace heroes are usually men, whose racial identity, although rarely described, is contextually white”. While the Major may not exactly fit into this idea, I believe the Botau does. He may not be the main protagonist of the movie, but he would certainly be considered a hero of the movie.
I really liked this movie and found both Harraway and Silvio’s arguments about cyborgs and Ghost in the Shell to be very interesting, even if I did not agree with all of the arguments.
