Episode Notes

This week, we get deep into episodes 7 through 13 of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. We try a little harder this time at doing some recaps but Niamh gets distracted getting right into faer bullshit from the beginning. Connor makes his case for episode 10, but if you are trying to avoid this one, which has some of the roughest content of the series, just know we discuss it from approximately 1:24:54 to 1:32:27.

We talk about the sexualization of Major Kusanagi, the aura of the ghost in the age of its technological reproducibility, how the reproduced object can be reconstructed to produce a new aura with a purpose that can be revelatory just as easily as it can be fascistic, reality and unreality, the societal view of binary gender as “Default Male” and “Other”, choosing to be queer and trans, capitalism’s ability to co-opt that which opposes it, cycles of nationalized violence, the development of AI sapience and individuality, escapism and utopia, and our first big reminder in a few episodes that Section 9 is just a bunch of shitty cops.

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Works Cited in this Discussion

“Entomology of the Pinup Girl” from What is Cinema?, vol. 2 by André Bazin

“The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility” by Walter Benjamin

“Beyond the Image in Benjamin and Bazin: The Aura of the Event” by Monica Dall’Asta, published in Opening Bazin: Postwar Film Theory and Its Afterlife

“The Ontology of the Photographic Image” from What is Cinema?, vol. 1 by André Bazin

“Ghost in the Shell: the Major’s Body (3)” by Claire Napier (full series: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)

Content Warnings for this Discussion

Sexuality
Reference to Alcohol
Gore / Organ Transplants / Organ Theft
Dyadism / Sexism
Violence Against Women / Torture / Snuff Films / Terrorism (esp. 1:24:54 to 1:32:27)
Ableism in an Institutional Context
Cloning
Police Violence
Brief Mentions of Suicide

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