8/14/2019 CORE 112: Thoughts on 'Ghost in the Shell'

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Pamela FoxCORE 112

“Ghost in the Shell” Response

For me, the most frightening aspect of the technology of “Ghost in the Shell”

is that ghosts can reside in any shell; irregardless of their original age or gender of

their soul. The lead character begins as a twenty-something female warrior and

ends the movie in her new body, that of an innocent looking school girl. Yet her

personality remains somehow unchanged.

It seems to me that our personalities are very much shaped by our physical

appearances. I don’t mean only in the materialistic superficial sense – that our self-

esteem depends on the aesthetic quality of our appearance – but also just that our

own memories and the memories that others have of us are shaped by our

appearance. Oftentimes I hear stories where someone’s loved one suffers a

horrible accident that leaves them misfigured, and the people around them are so

shocked that the deformed appearance belongs to the person they once loved that

they can no longer bear to be around them. Even though the personality, or “the

ghost,” may remain the same, people don’t seem complete without the physical

appearance that’s accompanied them their entire life.

With the popularity boom of plastic surgery and other cosmetic

enhancements (due to better technology making them cheaper), we are beginning

to see the new-body phenomenon happen to small degrees. Luckily, most plastic

surgeons are careful enough to make sure their clients still retain a resemblance to

their original appearance, and many of the plastic surgery shows end with the

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happy client exclaiming, “I look so different… but still like myself!” It almost seems

like there’s a physical ghost too, something bigger than the sum of the parts of the

face, a synergistic representation of our face that can’t really be defined – just felt.

I say this because oftentimes I see people and am struck with a huge sense of déjà

vu, and then I realize this person they remind me of looks nothing like them

(different genders, ages, etc.), but there’s still this nagging feeling that the two

look remarkably similar.

So the lead ghost in the movie, to me, is still missing an essential part of her

humanity, the physical ghost, and that’s something that prevents others from

connecting with her as well. What’s the point of befriending a personality when you

can’t visualize them in your head? Many online RPG players and chatters will

probably counter that you can make quite a friendship, but the virtual world is still

distinct from the physical world. Though I’m not sure what the physical ghost is, I

hope we don’t become so transformed that we lose that essence.