Refiguring the Radical Cyborg in Mamoru Oshii's GHOST IN THE SHELL

'''Silvio, Carl. "Refiguring the Radical Cyborg in Mamoru Oshii's Ghost in the Shell."' SFS'' #77, 26.1 (March 1999): 54-72.

The film promotes the radical cyborg, and while at first it may seem subversive to gender dynamics, Silvio argues, GHOST IN THE SHELL (animation, 1996) inherently reinscribes them. (Maly, 02/07/02)

From the abstract: Despite the fact that Mamoru Oshii's Ghost in the Shell seems to espouse a political agenda that is in keeping with feminist theorizations of the cyborg, it covertly reworks this agenda into an endorsement of conventional configurations of sexual difference. The film gratifies desires for a strong, multiply-positioned female protagonist who uses technology as a means of empowerment, while simultaneously containing her subversive potential by re-narrating it within an older and better known paradigm: the dominance of masculine mind and spirit over the feminine materiality of the body[..., making GHOST] an instrument of ideological containment [...].

See for continuing discussion of the GHOST movies and debates on the politics of the cyborg.

RDE, completing, 3July19, RDE, Title, 26Aug19