Women Power

Mamoru Oshii, the director of The Ghost in the Shell, describes the positions, abilities, and limitations of women in today’s world. The film mainly presents the battles of the Japanese National Public Commission known as Section 9 against criminals and illegal associations. Section 9 selects elite, skillful men in the fields of technology and battle to overcome them, who threaten the Japanese government and society. In the beginning, Motoko Kusanagi, a female cyborg, is built in a laboratory. Kusanagi has superhuman power, and her extreme physical strength helps Section 9 to capture and execute criminals. Kusanagi’s role represents women’s roles in today’s society, and the film as a whole shows a male-dominated world that does not allow women to go to the front line except as cyborgs.

Kusanagi leads the Section 9, together with Daisuke Aramaki, a head of the department. Through her performance dealing with numerous criminal cases and overcoming powerful enemies, the female cyborg gains trust from its members. Kusanagi’s role and performance represent women’s rights and powers in today’s society.

In the Samurai era, women were not allowed to speak in public. If women spoke out, they would be executed by the Japanese government. In today’s world, women have gained more rights and powers. In academics, politics, and business, women are equally measured with men based on their capabilities. My mother used to say, “While men can focus only on one thing, women can do several things at the same time.” For example, women’s ability to manage multiple things is applied in the role of secretary. Condoleezza Rice is one of the most outstanding United States Secretaries of State in the US history.

Making Kusanagi a cyborg denies that women can perform as much as men do on the battleground, which requires physical strength. The film implies that the only way for females to become stronger than any male is to become a cyborg. In the story, only male characters and cyborgs are involved. The film examines the women’s roles and abilities in the military.

Who are the majority in the US army, males or females? Even though females are allowed to join the army, few of them are in the army compared to males. Throughout history, military has been considered as a man’s mission. Males are more adaptable to military training and go to the battlefield because it requires physical strength that females do not have. With thinner bones, narrower shoulders, and smaller muscles, females naturally possess less physical strength than males. Some women are masculine in terms of their actions, ways of talking, and personalities; however, their bodies are constructed to gain less muscle than males. Some men who talk and act femininely are still physically stronger than women.

Oshii presents women’s positions in actual society through The Ghost in the Shell. Kusanagi’s position in Section 9 represents the roles of women in society, and the female cyborg symbolizes the reality of what women can do on battlefields. If Kusanagi appears as a human like Angelina Jolie in Tomb Raider, how many of you think that would be possible?

The Keys of Critic

Many people check what film critics say or how many stars they put on movies to decide what movie the people should watch. If a critic says, “Home Alone contains an educational content for children to become stronger to survive in the collapsed society,” parents would let their kids watch the movie. As a result, the kids learn how to set traps in their house and experiment the effectiveness of the traps with their family members. From the above example, the parents pay attention only to “educational for children” but do not read the main part of the story “to beat bad people.” If a critic says that a movie is great, educational, or he/she put five stars on the movie, people would watch the movie without reading the rest of the summary; therefore, not only critics need to understand contents and meaning of films, but also do critics have to have a sense of distinguishing what movie children should or should not watch for the children to grow in the right way.

 Critics should look for how the society becomes better. In politics, there are critics from different religious or political backgrounds. Many critics tend to make positive comments to the groups of which the critics support or believe in to make good reputation of the group. On the other hand, these critics may accuse other groups, which compete against their own groups, to create negative image of the groups. For example, a critic, who supports Democratic Party, may write about how capable and hopeful vision Obama has for the U.S. future without mentioning how bad the U.S. economy goes in the present. The critic may only mention about Bush’s overuse of national budget to military without mentioning other works he has done for the country. People read newspapers or magazines everyday to know what is happening in the world they are living in. If critics write articles, which support only one side of the political parties, the critics may lose their trust from the people. In order for critics to gain trust from viewers, the critics have to have broader mindset to respect and study the ideas of other political parties or religious groups rather than to follow and support only their own groups. These successful critics will be able to assist the society to become better. “Living for the sake of the society” may be the good motto for critics to keep in their minds when they criticize anything.

Through taking this course, I hope that I can understand what the critic really means and criticize music, film, politics, religious, or all other categories in the way that can explain effectively. My goal throughout the semester is to be able read articles or watch TV shows from critical point of view. Popular culture still means too broad for me to understand what it really means. I, therefore, want to study more deeply about the history of how music, films, or media has changed throughout the decades.

Who's Really Brainwashed?

Aum Shinrikyo, a religious group, is formally recognized as a terrorist organization by a several entities including Canada, the European Union, and the U.S. because the Aum Shinrikyo’s members carried out the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995, which “killed twelve and causing an estimated six thousand people to seek medical attention.”

A Japanese journalist, writes in his blog, “We, Japanese Society, have to fight against cults, Aum Shinrikyo and Unification Church.” His comment emphasizes viewers that the Unification Church is just like the Aum Shinrikyo. His powerful strategy is that he often repeats “Aum Shinrikyo and Unification Church” in TV shows or other mediated opportunities. If the Aum Shinrikyo is recognized as a terrorist organization, why does he call the group a cult instead of giving them the correct title of terrorist? It is because if he labels the Aum Shinrikyo as the terrorist, he would separate them from the UC, which is considered neither a terrorist group nor destructive cult. His ultimate goal is to attack the UC, but not the Aum Shinrikyo. By putting the UC in the same category with the terrorist group, Aum Shinrikyo, the journalist can create a false image of the UC as a kind of terrorist group.

Also, the journalist emphasizes “we, Japanese society” have a responsibility to suppress the Aum Shinrikyo and UC. The words “Japanese society” led Japanese people think that they are supposed to be on his side, and move in the same direction to abolish these religious groups. Through his message, the journalist coerces the Japanese into following his direction, or they will be isolated from the Japanese society. 

The journalist claims that the Unificationists are brain washed by Rev. Moon; however, the journalist is the one, who is able to brain wash people that the UC is the same as a terrorist group with his outstanding writing technique.

Negative images of the UC through mediated tools have lead to more than 4000 cases of kidnappings. According to Douglas Burton on the website (Unification Church News) around 4000 Unificationists “have been abducted and subjected to coercive psychological torture intended to break their faith during the last 30 years.” 

Wrong Things to Show

During a lit class on the last Thursday, we saw music videos of western pop musicians. Then after watching the videos, students in the class shared their impression and observations of what these musicians represent or tell to viewers. Maybe, singers have right to express themselves through the media, but I hope some singers concern that what they show influences people and the society.

The music video of Trey Songz's "Bottom Up" gave most students the impression of man's dominant world. In the video, Trey Songz and other female dancers appear. Trey Songz is the one, who sings a whole time. The female dancers are dancing with wearing sexual costume, which expose their whole legs. A couple of the dancers are chained their both hands. The dancers shake their backs and hips so many times during the song that I thought the female dancers intend to stimulate men viewers' sexual desires. I wasn't sure what Trey Songz wanted to tell viewers through the music videos, but I thought the pictures of the video were morally collapsed that the video shouldn't show on MTV or other websites, which everybody can watch it. Hopefully, Trey has some reasons of showing the video in a good way. If he has no idea, he should know as a popular musician that how badly the video can influence, especially, teenagers.

Even the worse video than Trey's was the music video of Katy Perry's Teenage Dream. Katy Perry appears on a open car with a guy, who is driving the car in the country side. Katy is singing, at the same time, she is touching and kissing the guy. In the other scene, Katy and the guy are on a bed in a motel room and start taking off each others' clothes and kissing. Even though I never heard her intention of showing the video, but I thought that the video explained viewers that what Katy was doing with the guy on the video was the "Teenage Dream," which many teenage female were supposed to long for. The video can lead teenage viewers to know that "Teenage Dream" is to have sex with other guys or girls. I think the video has a great potential to make the US society much worse. Katy, if you are concerned about making the society better, maybe you should delete the video?

Many young people think that whatever pop musicians do or say is cool, and they try to become like them through acting or appearing like the musicians. Even though these musicians have right to show things through their music videos, they should limit the contents that they can show not to influence viewer in the bad way.