2019 Volume 12 Issue 1 Pages 14-27
Before attempting to conceptualize the body schema/image in the film Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, which is directed by Mamoru Oshii, this study compares the film with European and American cyborg films. Based on this comparative review, it is concluded that the film intends to avoid the return to humanism in the postmodern condition where the theoretical and ideological skepticism has arisen, and such thought of the film is called posthumanism.
Next, this study analyzes what kind of body schema/image is created by posthumanism. In the film Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, the bodies of dolls are interpreted as artificial constructions. The body schema/image constitutes the underlying theme of the entire film, and the bodies of dolls are exactly the representations of human bodies. In other words, the film reveals that the understanding of the body is socially constructed, and such social constructionist perspective of the body frees us from the mystique attached to ‘human bodies’ as organic unity.
Furthermore, according to the body schema/image in the film Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, ‘the construction of the body’ is not merely an abstract concept but has boundaries defined in concrete conditions and also this construction can only have the contingent foundation: ‘the body’ can be constructed by networks and interactions with others different from but constituent of oneself. In addition, this understanding of the body may be connected with the concept of respect for others that cannot be understood or valued by humanism.
