Of course we may have certain traits and characterizes in common, but there should still be something that separates us. Your identities are the things that you connect with in this world and make it apart of you. Also, the Main part of Identity is that it should be yours and yours alone. However Akira, Perfect Blue, and Ghost in the Shell, were all perfect example that showed the opposite of what identity should be. In Akira you had the government taking experimenting on little kids and turning them into monstrosities. Then there’s Perfect Blue that questioned how much control we really have over our lives. Last, Ghost in the Shell displayed how our identity can be easily removed from reality. From watching these films, now I personally question what do we really control in our lives. Also wonder if events that were showed in Akira are actually happening or will happen. The internet also plays a big part of how identities can be manipulated. Just like in Perfect Blue when Uchida took advantage of Mima’s hyper reality, individuals are doing that in our world. Every day, people have the potential to pretend to be others and obtain their life. From there, they can do whatever they want with it. Ghost in the Shell kind of sort of had both elements in the movie. In that world, individuals were either mostly human and part machine, or mostly machine and part human. Either way, each were prone to getting hack by people such as the Puppet Master. In this movie, a lot of manipulation over identity was really visible throughout the film. Two scenes that I can remember is when the Puppet Master took control over the woman and the false life of the garbage man. The garbage man story was interesting because this guy actually thought he had a wife and little girl. Also he swore with is heart that he was in the process of getting a divorce. After being captured by the police, his reality became unstable because the life he thought he was living wasn’t real. He didn’t have any of those individuals in his life.
Now that I have seen these films, I think everyone has some control of their lives. However due to other social factor, I think we are influence to have something in our lives that’s not ours. For example, as we discuss in class about nicknames and how people view us. If everyone else is choosing names for us and telling us how we act or what we should act like, then are we really ourselves.
I agree with your overall analysis of what you have gauged from these three anime films. Identity is one the few things that really distinguishes us from everyone else. It is the core component of our lives and allows us to influence other people's lives as they meet us. These films show how fragile our control over our own identity is and what horrible things can happen when others have influence over it. As you said the hyper reality personae we create on the internet unknowingly leaves us susceptible to identity theft, like in Perfect Blue. The the possible futures shown in Akira and Ghost in the Shell are truly frightening as well. Like you said, there is even the possibility that some government out in the world is already doing Akira level experiments. In the world of Ghost in the Shell, having mechanical augmentations leaves you open to a new threat of others hacking your body. I would be horrible to be in the same situation as the garbage man who was being controlled by the puppet master. His entire memory was hacked and everything he thought was real was just a lie. I know we all have some control of our lives, but we really do need to be careful of what we allow others to choose for us, even just nicknames.
ReplyDeleteI totally understand what you mean by your last statement "If everyone else is choosing names for us and telling us how we act or what we should act like, then are we really ourselves." Society really does tell us how to act, because nearly everyone wants to fit in, and nobody wants to be an outcast. People are afraid that if they show their true selves, it might not be what everyone else wants, and they'll be shunned. This leads to fake people, and eventually they forget their "true" selves and let their fake selves become their reality. These movies really do well with explaining these ideas through symbolism and scenarios. How do we even know if we're out "true" selves, and not just a "fake" version that overwrote our old selves?
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