Derganz Baker- Who am I

Losing your identity must be extremely discouraging. There are three people who went through this traumatic experience.  Tetsuo is the main character of the movie Akira. Tetsuo lost his identity because of science. Scientist did experiments on children to enhance their supernormal powers.

After hitting one of the children who had been experimented on Tetsuo wakes up in a strange hospital. His body had been changed forever. Tetsuo’s body is now surging with a new power. Slowly he lets his powers take over, and he likes the feeling of control. Towards the of the movie his power completely engulfs him and he turns into this large unidentifiable body. He is no longer the little boy in the biker gang, and he is no longer the boy who showed that he wasn’t a weak kid. He can no longer control is powers because they have become too strong.

The next person to lose sight of who they are was a girl named Mima from the movie Perfect Blue. Mima went from being a pop star to an actress. Mima’s identity is lost through the media. Mima is doing a movie and after a while it is hard for her and the audience to tell which is reality and which is the movie. Through the film Mima is objectified by men. Her audience is pronominally men. The director and the writer have Mima do a smutty rape scene. Mima also is being haunted by her former pop star self. With the movie filming and the figure following her Mima doesn’t know who she is anymore.

The last character was a woman named Motoko from the movie Ghost in the Shell.  If someone where to look at Motoko they would assume that she was human. They would be partially correct. Motoko used to be fully human, but now she is only 5%. The rest of her body is cyborg. Motoko has a hard time understanding who she is. Motoko goes swimming even though cyborgs aren’t supposed to get wet. She does it show she can feel fear, and her slow floatation to the surface is like her birth. In her ghost, a cyborg’s soul, Motoko knows she is different in some way; as if she is capable of more.

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Derganz Baker- If this is a dream then WAKE UP

The movie Perfect Blue is one of those movies that mess with your head. The main character is a young girl named Mima, a young pop star turned actress. Little did she know that changing careers would challenge who she was. Poor little Mima went from a cute innocent pop idol to a bucket full of crazy.

Mima’s main audience, as a singer and actress, was predominantly men. Throughout the movie Mima is repeatedly objectified by men. The director of the movie had Mima do a rape scene. In her heart she knew that she didn’t want to do the scene but she felt that she had to do it or risk letting everyone down. Another man that took advantage of Mima was the photographer.  He took nude pictures of Mima and showed something that Japanese people find unacceptable. She was exploited for the enjoyment of men. But it all works out in the end. Every man that used Mima for her sex appeal ended up dead.

Another thing that helped de-rail Mima was the fact that she was put in the spot light. We “normal people” put celebrities high on a pedestal.  They are put high above everyone else. We follow them on line and read about then in magazines. It’s kind of sad to think that celebrities don’t really have a personal life. Every time they say or do something the whole world knows about it. If you take that all into account you can understand why Mima goes crazy.

Mima slowly loses her personal identity. Someone puts up a blog called Mima’s Room; we later find out that her stalker is the one who created the site. The person knows her extremely well. They went into detail about which foot went first when she got off the subway.  Later she realizes that if the site said she did it then it must be true. For example the site said one day she went shopping. Her response was, “I guess I went shopping today.” For Mima, and the audience, it is hard to tell the difference between the movie and reality. If Mima doesn’t know which one is real, then she doesn’t know who she is. I think the big sign of Mima’s loss of identity is when her fish died. When Mima got home and saw her fish dead she tore the room apart. The fish represented Mima and their death represented the fact that she had given in to everything around her. After she stops crying she noticed that there are two fish still alive. To me that means that there is still hope for Mima, she will overcome all the difficulties.

Derganz Baker- Ride'em Cowboy

The movie Cowboy Bebop is a movie about a gang of bounty hunters hunting a bad guy and trying to save all mankind. The main bounty hunter, and main character, is Spike. Spike is an ex-gangster turned hunter. Spikes likes to play by his own rules, he is very impulsive. Spike is kind of like the lone gunmen, in the beginning credits it ends with Spike standing all by himself. He says that he does bounty hunting for the money, but Spike is not very believable.

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The other people in Spike’s group are: Jet, a former policeman who gets some of his information from an old friend; Faye, the one who first encounters the villain; and Edward, a kooky little girl on the team who is a master hacker. The team gains one more member and her name is Electra. Electra is a government agent also trying to catch the villain. In the end the government turns against Electra and tries to kill her.

Speaking of the villain, his name is Vincent and he is a tad insane. Vincent was supposedly killed in a war years ago. Years ago Vincent was used as a lab rat. Scientist invented a nano machine that enters the human body disguised as a lymphocyte.  When the nano machine enters the brain the subject sees lights, which appear as butterflies. Vincent has lost all sense of reality; he can’t tell if he is dead or alive.  Vincent believes that the earth is purgatory, and his plan is to unleash the machines and infect the whole world.

There are a few key focal points of the movie: butterflies, the Moroccan market, and purgatory. The butterflies are a kind of link between life and death. Vincent sees the butterflies, and he wants the whole world to see them too. The Moroccan marketplace is the place where Spike gets all his information about the machines and about Vincent. Spike actually befriends the scientist who created the machines, Dr. Mendelo. The Moroccan market place seems to be the place to go if you want to find something illegal. The market is a strange and mysterious old world city in the middle of a high tech world.

The last important point is purgatory. Purgatory is a place of waiting; it’s kind of like limbo for the soul. It is the place between heaven and hell. Vincent believes that earth is purgatory. The song Knockin on Heaven’s Door is appropriate for the movie. It’s about a man knowing that the end is near.

Everyone wants to know what Vincent’s intentions are. Some may think that Vincent is evil and trying to destroy the world and kill the whole human race. Others may say he is trying to have everyone experience the same thing he did. In a twisted way Vincent could be trying to set the world free.