Ghost in the Shell

Ghost in the shell, as a narrative medium attempts to utilize the idea of the cyborg to create a visual for a post-gender society. The film is largely successful at this; however its success comes from an ideological perspective. The idea of cyborgs necessitating a post-gender society is sound only theoretically, as biological barriers prevent it from being realistic. Many side questions and themes branch off from this main thesis, among which are the role of identity and personality in a post-gender society.
Identity plays a large role in the film as a narrative device. The most blatant exposition of identity is the unspoken suggestion throughout the narrative that the character of “the Major” is really a male consciousness trapped in a cyborg female body. Several details in the film allude to this. The Major herself displays a somewhat bland personality throughout the film. S/he shows little outward emotion and his/her facial expressions rarely deviate from his/her standard poker face. This raises the question of, if our emotions do not give us away as being either male or female, then how do we gauge gender in the absence of obvious biological deviations?
Also, at the climax of the narrative, the Major’s female body ripples with muscles as he/she struggles to lift a heave hutch. The visual itself is startling, as we see an attractive, decidedly female body burst with masculine muscle tone. This suggestion if perhaps more disturbing than the former, in that in a cyborg body, not even biology may distinguish between the sexes, and if we don’t have that reference point, then what is there to separate gender at all? The point of the narrative as a whole and of the film specifically, is that as a general society we should not differentiate between the sexes at all, and that the distinctions we make between male and female are entirely societal constructs which need to be destroyed in order for society to advance. This paradigm is romantic, if not outdated. Recent research in psychology and genetics has uncovered distinct biological differences between males and females. Modern science has reached an understanding about gender that almost entirely contradicts the idea that gender is a social construct. Dr. Leonard Sax, M.D. has published several books in the last decade detailing the biological differences that exist between males and females, and cites a great deal of irrefutable scientific research data. Realistically speaking, we cannot suggest that gender is entirely constructed by societal mores.
While, as a result of such research, we cannot defend the proposition that gender is entirely constructed, we may also see the argument presented in The Ghost in the Shell as realistic in a theoretical sense. The main argument within the narrative of The Ghost in the Shell is that we do not need to let existing social constructs restrict who we are as human beings. The Major is a good example of this, as he/she combines a somewhat bland, genderless personality with an ideal female body, and a somewhat male profession. The Major never questions his or her gender or whatever identity is supposed to come from that gender. He/she simply does what he/she is good at and, in the end, finds peace in his/her life without attaching gender to his/her personality.
Cyborgs as a narrative tool are a useful way to communicate the idea of a post-gender society, however they ignore the biological reality of our physical world. Theoretically, the utilization of cyborg technology works to promote a post-gender world, but they are unrealistic in a world that is ordered by biology.