Monday Chat #2 – Perfect Blue: The Avatar is an Illusion

I suppose this is a bit of a spoiler for my “Currently Watching” segment, but last Tuesday I saw Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue for the first time, and it left me a lot to think about. So much, in fact, that I’ve decided to write about it here.

I’ll try to stray away from spoilers to the actual movie as much as I can here (though there’s plenty to talk about when it comes to the actual movie as well). Instead, I want to crack open the themes of Perfect Blue – more specifically, that of the avatar.

The idea of the perfect version of oneself never really hit me that hard until I saw this movie. In this Internet Age, we really do live double lives – the life we live and the life we want people to see. I try my best not to make them too different, but often I can see myself trying to frame things in a way that make me look better than I actually am.

It’s an interesting concept. The avatar is really a shell of the person – the tweets, instagram photos, facebook statuses, and even likes/favorites are all meticulously designed either consciously or subconsciously to hide the flaws of the person who uses it. In this way the fantasy of the screen is different from the reality.

Though Perfect Blue does not really touch on how our virtual selves effect us (the movie was released in 1997, right before the internet received mainstream uses. Though a few years later Serial Experiments Lain does in fact dive into this conundrum), but it still keeps to the main theme of the avatar in a different, also still very relevant way. Mumi is torn when she decides to leave her job as a pop idol singer in order to pursue an acting career that holds more maturity. Firstly there’s the clear difficulty in the act of switching professions like that – especially someone who already has minor celebrity. But on top of that, there comes doubt – does she want to be an actress, or a singer? This creates a horrid complication where she must keep up the guise of her loving the acting world while in reality being completely distraught over who she is, until it finally consumes her.

Many times people insist on holding in their greatest problems and doubts in order to make the outside – the world the rest of us see – as clean and orderly as possible. But this habit – an ultimately self-destructive habit – only continues to fuel the fire of suffering. For when everyone acts like they are perfect, its hard to see imperfections; and in this way, it makes many believe that they are much weaker, because they do in fact have these imperfections. Then, the cycle continues. Just as Mumi turns down multiple offerings of help, the person behind the avatar often does as well – the show must go on, whether it be for a young actress or for the average person and their snapchat account.

Still, more could be uncovered here. I admit that I have only really dug into this idea at the surface, and there is much more to talk about – especially in our modern, digital world. That’s why Perfect Blue I feel would be one of the few movies to really benefit from a reboot conceptually; given the right amount of everything else (director, writers, budget, etc. etc..), a new Perfect Blue could really expand upon the ideas inlaid in the first one while still staying true to Satoshi Kon’s original ideas.

Anyway, that’s all I wanted to discuss for the topic of the day. Now for the highlights:

Currently watching: In addition to Perfect Blue I also saw Baby Driver in theaters. It was pretty damn good – especially with that second half – but I felt like I got underwhelmed by certain aspects. I feel like a lot of my disappointments of the movie came from knowing so much about it before watching (such as watching the trailers, reading reviews, etc. etc.). The soundtrack was also pretty underwhelming throughout, which was kind of sad speaking that it was pretty much the most advertised part of the movie. Still it surprised me with how well the tense scenes were developed so that managed to get all it’s points back, and I still gave it a 9/10 (remember to check out my letterboxd at https://letterboxd.com/astuka/ !). As for TV watches, I’m continuing on with Twin Peaks, and if episode 2 for GoT is exactly how its described in the leak (which you’ll know by the time this blog comes out), I’ll probably just drop that show entirely. Honestly I’m tired of its stand still plot and boring characters, and with Twin Peaks on at the same time it’s a pretty obvious choice of what I’m gonna watch instead.

Currently playing: For the most part, this week I’ve only really been playing Rome Total War and Guild Wars 2. GW2 has got me back into action by re-enticing me into WvW, So I think its safe to say I’ll probably put another decent chunk of hours into that before I’m done. Also, since I’m back into MMOs, I thought now might be a good time to start up FFXIV again. When it became (partially) free, I got up until about level 8, then I was bored. But with the massive amount of people saying they’re super into it, I figure it deserves another shot. As for Rome Total War, my game keeps crashing because apparently it can’t handle elephants. And my army has a lot of elephants. Like, a LOT of elephants. Don’t ask why that is, it just… it is.

Currently reading: Nothing new, though I feel like dropping House of Leaves since nothing has really happened in it for awhile. I’m still reading the excerpts from my English book, as well as more on battle history. A particularly good excerpt written by Feynman in the English book has got me reading his Lectures on Physics series, though as of writing I’m not that far into it.

Currently listening: Since Tyler’s new album Scum Fuck Flower Boy just came out I’ve mostly been listening to that in terms of new music. I’ve only done one complete listen to that album, so I don’t really have anything to say about it just yet. As to what I was literally listening to while writing this, it included some classics such as Hope Sandoval’s On The Low and Billy Joel’s Where’s the Orchestra.