A Visit With Some Old Friends

At the Library

I have been spending this first holiday week reading. I just finished The Scarlet Letter.

I found the Ghost in the Shell manga at the library in the young adult fiction section (I was a young adult when it came out so I count!) 

This Major is far less serious than the one in the anime. She pulls goofy faces and is drawn in a highly sexualised way.

This is often the downside of "strong" female characters being designed by men. 

They never quite get us right. We have to be broken somehow and follow their ideas of what or who we should be while striking stupid poses and being vulnerable in some supposedly feminine way.

The drawings and design of Major make it clear that, working vagina or not, she's there to please the male gaze. This means she will have a teeny tiny waist, over sized breasts and a tendency to stand in weird twisted poses that are meant to show off said breasts and tiny waist.

Reading this manga reminded me of one I had purchased in Italy in 1997 about a cyborg named Alita.

The text was in Italian except for the German phrase "panzer kunst" and I had trouble following the plot. 

The artwork however, was brilliant.

In my story Alita had to race in some futuristic deadly roller ball game and she had roller blades instead of regular feet. 

She made a bet with this guy over something (did I mention it was in Italian?) and ended up betting her heart (which was a mechanical but shaped like a human heart).

Here are some images I found of the character:

I doubt my Alita manga is still around as I made the mistake of leaving it at my mothers house and, like my drag queen t-shirt from New York and Royal typewriter, it has probably been permanently misplaced (sold or destroyed in the name of Christianity).

I had a strange feeling that in the wake of film Ghost in the Shell someone might have gotten hold of the "Battle Angel Alita" story and decided to make a film of it.

I was right. That someone was James Cameron. He has since the passed the script on to another male director and the film is due for release in 2018.

I'm sure it will have the same over sexualised male wank fantasy vibe that the male designed manga had and end up ruining a potentially fantastic female character.

Hey fellas, I'm on all fours and my rear is in tact and ready for action.

At first I was pleased to rediscover these old favorites from my youth but then I begin to realize how often their personalities, stories and depiction are made ridiculous by the men who created them.

I hope one day my daughter (who is studying animation) and women like her are able to develop female characters with better stories, body types and personalities. 

Ghost in the Shell

Back in 1995 I rented this movie and was impressed by the quality of the animation. I must have missed all the deeper philosophical undertones because I had to go back and re-watch the film to remember what it was about.

I watched it dubbed in Spanish on Youtube and then I read the Wikipedia page to make sure I had understood the finer points. I'm afraid my ear for rapid Spanish dialogue is fading but I got most of the good stuff.

The animation is still stunning and the story is intriguing, exploring the issues and consequences of putting a human brain (the ghost) into a mechanical body (the shell).

Unlike movies about robots achieving consciousness, the main character Major was once human and still has suppressed memories of who she was before she became a government weapon.

She has control of a body she can't feel and, strangely, was given breasts complete with nipples but no female genitalia.

She has the ability to become invisible which allows her to use stealth with her targets.

The theme song for the film is a wedding song and it gives me chills. Here it is in the opening sequence of the 1995 film:




If you've heard anything about the new movie it's likely about the controversy of casting Scarlett Johanssen as Major.

This was another in a long line of Hollywood fuckups when it comes to casting ethnic characters.

Heaven forbid American audiences have to watch an unknown Japanese actress play the role of a Japanese character written by a Japanese author.

It makes for uncomfortable watching when Major finds her Japanese mother and speaks to her in American accented English.

A young Japanese girl gets put into a white woman's body and while her mind is supposedly unchanged, she can't speak Japanese with her mother. ハァッ?!

One film reviewer criticized the scene where the robot emerges from white goo saying that this was the epitome of white washing but in its defense, it was an exact replication of the anime version (seen above) and was not some blatant statement of racial superiority (not this time at least.)

Now that we've addressed the white elephant in the eiga, let's move on to visuals.

They were absolutely gorgeous and faithfully reproduced the best scenes from the 1995 anime .

The reunification of Major with her mother gave her a palpable humanity which was missing from the animated film. She meets her supposed nemesis in this film and learns of their common history. The film ends with the original theme song from 1995 which was amazing.

If it weren't for the idiotic casting decision I think this thing would have probably owned at the box office.

Take note film industry, the world is totally ready to see people of different ethnicities acting out their own stories.

Professor Phillips

Our media department was looking for some law students to pose for a law school pamphlet and I thought it would be fun.

As compensation they were giving out $20 gift certificates to the local mall.

I'm used to being one of the older students in all of my classes and I'm used to be asked if I'm a member of faculty when I go to the uni's medical center so when they said they didn't have anyone to pose as a professor I gladly volunteered.

I was having one of those days where I feel all puffed out but I sucked in as much as I could and struck various poses with a collection of papers.

My fellow students looked on in feigned enthrallment while I pulled faces that felt maternal.

I was told to put my hair behind my ear so they could see my face so I'm sure you can see my graying temples. Yay.

I kept trying to strike casual poses (cause I'm the cool teacher who get's the kids of today) and I was told to straighten up.

"So sorry, I'm a natural leaner," I said.

I was next directed to gaze at a spot where an imaginary student named "Stephen" was standing.

"Oh Steve, you card."

I feel like I just got memorialized as the dowdy professor who is really into cats and crafting.

Can't wait to wince at the results.

I took my giftcard and went to see Ghost in the Shell at the mall.