Major Motoko Kusanagi is a human living in a cybernetic body provided by her employer, Public Security Section 9, for the purposes of covert assault and intelligence investigation. And third, I recommend you also read this piece by transgender film critic Willow Maclay, which reaches a lot of the same conclusions I do, and really, you should be following her work regardless. I don’t believe this invalidates my perspective on transgender themes in the film, but I also accept room for disagreement. Second, I am non-binary and transgender, but I have chosen to not medically transition, so while I have experienced feelings of gender dysphoria and have my own relationship to the conceptual gravity of claiming one’s identity as one’s own, I don’t have personal experience with physical transition. First, while Ghost in the Shell doesn’t contain any explicitly transgender characters or portray those experiences, by drawing these parallels I am attempting to convey why cyberpunk is relevant to the trans community. I feel it necessary to state a few caveats to my perspective before continuing. It’s why many in the trans community have adopted films like Ghost in the Shell – the original anime film, not the remake that misunderstands its own appeal so much that it feels compelled to add a superfluous joke at the trans community’s expense – into the meager halls of trans film canon, despite having no textual relationship to the trans community at all. In a sense, the transition from purely biological to cybernetic can function in this way as an allegory for transgender experience, as a way for those who opt for the biological self-determinism of transition to transport themselves into a world where their existence and choice to live freely isn’t constantly demonized or misunderstood. If malcontent in your own skin, the body you need to feel like yourself is not only theoretically obtainable in this cyberpunk future, but its difference to unmodified biology is so commonplace so as to be benign. But cyberpunk worlds are often emblematic of a difference in status quo when it comes to body modification, as multifunctional prosthetic limbs and cybernetic upgrades are portrayed as relatively common or second nature to society, no different than the accepted presence of eyeglasses or hearing aids in the present day. This is a common experience for transgender folks, one that is the source of extreme discomfort and pain for many and acts as an impetus for medical transition. If you are surprised that many transgender people have a particular affinity for the aesthetics of the cyberpunk genre, you probably haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about your own body and how who you are contrasts with how the world perceives you.
We at want to give those queer readings of genre films a voice. Such is the case with all manner of LGBTQ cinema, which has often relied on metaphor to smuggle queer themes into cinemas or been subject to queer interpretations after the fact.
Horror, science fiction, and fantasy are the venues through which we explore ideas through metaphor and allegory, sometimes unintentionally through the lens of an audience who connects with a work’s themes in a manner specific to them. Pondering about various philosophical questions, such as her own life's meanĪs Motoko and her subordinates follow the enigmatic criminal's trail, other parties-including Section 6-start to get involved, forcing her to confront the extremely complicated nature of the case.It’s a common adage that, in fiction, the monster is never just a monster. Like many in this futuristic world, the Puppet Master's body is almost entirely robotic, giving them incredible power.Īs Motoko and her subordinates follow the enigmatic criminal's trail, other parties-including Section 6-start to get involved, forcing her to confront the extremely complicated nature of the case. The strong-willed Major Motoko Kusanagi of Section 9 spearheads a case involving a mysterious hacker known only as the "Puppet Master," who leaves a trail of victims stripped of their memories. The world is now more interconnected than ever before, and the city's Public Security Section 9 is responsible for combating corruption, terrorism, and other dangerous threats following this shift towards globalization. Due to great improvements in cybernetics, its citizens are able to replace their limbs with robotic parts. Description: In the year 2029, Niihama City has become a technologically advanced metropolis.
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