Released in 1997, the film Perfect Blue follows the transition from music idol to actress for the young Mima Kirigoe. The film, directed by Satoshi Kon, is in the style of Japanese animation, or anime, and is an adaptation of the novel Perfect Blue: Complete Metamorphosis. Through the precision enabled by the animated film medium, Kon depicts Mima’s harrowing spiral into psychosis as she loses all distinction between reality and delusion. Initially a member of the fictional J-pop idol group “CHAM!,” Mima is pushed by her agent Tadokoro to leave the idol business and pursue the path of an actress. Simultaneously, Mima discovers a website titled “Mima’s Room” that very meticulously details her everyday life in the form of an online diary; she is advised to ignore it by her manager, former J-pop idol, and confidant Rumi Hidaka. Her aforementioned agent ends up securing Mima a large role in a detective drama named Double Bind that involves a rape scene. Although Mima claims to be okay with the role to further her career, the viewer witnesses the line between real life and her work very rapidly disappear. Seamless scene transitions between reality, her work, and her delusions and an imposing, macabre soundtrack help instill feelings of discomfort and discombobulation within the viewer. Amidst her delusions include the presence of a hyper-obsessed fan stalking her every move, false memories implanted while gruesome murders befall her peers, and an illusory manifestation of her J-pop idol persona bullying her for the decisions she makes. Just as with Mima, we are left unknowing whether each scene truly takes place or to what extent the delusions are real— it’s all simply another piece of Mima’s living nightmare. And it is throughout all this chaos, we notice one consistency: the male presence in the erasure of Mima Kirigoe’s identity. Looking at the film through a feminist lens, we observe how Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue illustrates how through their positions of power both physical and structural, men destroy women’s identities and break them down into pretty little showpieces.
The screenwriter for Double Bind, Takao Shibuya, plays a significant role in the sexualization and objectification of Mima. Initially, Mima was only meant to play a minor role in a single episode of the drama, but her agent convinces Shibuya to give her a larger role. Culturally in Japan, J-pop idols are presented with an image of purity and innocence. Dating is often strictly forbidden and the girls are presented as the perfect feminine ideal. Given power over Mima, Shibuya eagerly grasps at the chance to defile her. He writes her into a scene where her character is raped and subsequently traumatized. In a call with the director of the show, Shibuya shares how although he’s worried how Mima might react to the scene, he’s more worried about whether or not the agency will care that it may ruin her public image. How she feels or may react isn’t important; Mima Kirigoe does not matter— it is the flat image of Mima displayed for all to see that matters. In the depiction of the rape scene, Mima is merely a doll meant to satisfy the tucked-away male fetishization of defilement. The once-innocent music idol is now both a toy and visual candy. At the same time, Satoshi Kon subverts the expected sexual portrayal of this scene in particular. Kon lingers to the point of uncomfortability: the discord of men throwing Mima down onto the floor is quickly dissipated as the camera crew ends the shot and moves their cameras and then demands the scene to continue. The viewer is left with a jarring transition from loud to quiet to loud to quiet and so on. The scene criticizes and parodies the lifeless nature of filmmaking and how actors are merely just tools used to satisfy the wishes of the directors and other higher-ups in the filmmaking structure. The howling noises of the men get louder, and the camera begins a disorienting spiral. The viewer sees the life and color leave Mima’s eyes. Her psychosis begins and Mima is left as a limp doll for the men-in-power to use as they wish.
This idea of just being a tool or doll is further substantiated as Mima has a photo shoot with the famed photographer Murano. Compared to the depiction of Double Bind’s rape scene, Kon opts for a more sexual approach in framing how the photographer captures Mima. Whereas the rape scene mostly plays shots from Mima’s perspective, many of the shots during the photography scene are from Murano’s perspective. The viewer is forced into the position of the male gaze and subsequent sexualization of Mima Kirigoe. The viewer observes a very sweaty Murano slowly approach with his camera as Mima undresses throughout the photos. The camera with its large lens plays as a stand-in for the idea of a phallus. The males in Mima’s life only see her for the lump of flesh, and until now, that lump of flesh was hidden behind the purity of being an idol. The men around her have slowly picked her apart and now nothing remains except for an empty shell which they can fill up and use as they wish. No part of her is safe: the camera is there to “capture” it all.
Throughout the entire film, Mima is hounded by a hyper-obsessed fan seeking to capture his favorite J-pop idol. The stalker, Mamoru Uchida, first appears in the opening scene of the film. There, while Mima is announcing her departure from her J-pop group, a group of delinquents starts instigating a large fight and are about to throw cans at the idols. Uchida steps in and stops them. While leaving for her apartment, Mima is handed a letter that links her to a website entitled “Mima’s Room.” On the website, there’s a meticulously written online diary written from the perspective of Mima. These diary entries are also sometimes accompanied by photographs from that day’s events. By his mere constant presence at everything Mima-related, it is very thoroughly implied that Uchida is “Me-Mania,” the owner of the website. This implication is later revealed to be true as the viewer sees Uchida hard at work on the website while also receiving tips from someone claiming to be “the real Mima Kirigoe.” In a room filled to the brim with posters and enlarged photos of Mima, it is in this particular scene that we gain particular insight into the motivations behind Uchida’s actions: he is obsessed with the idea of Mima Kirigoe, the innocent member of CHAM! Throughout the first half of the movie, Uchida is frequently spotted very desperately purchasing everything Mima-related. After the rape scene, he is shown as entirely downtrodden between the shelves of a bookstore. Uchida desires this idea of Mima he has crafted all in his own head. To him, Mima Kirigoe, the living person, is an imposter who has destroyed something that is supposed to be all his own. Mima Kirigoe is supposed to be this girly character that sings cute songs about love and dances cute little dances on stage. Uchida cannot come to terms with the fact that Mima is a person independent of his idealization of the idol Mima, and therefore seeks to destroy her. Later in the film, Uchida attempts to kill and rape Mima in the same space where she filmed the rape scene for Double Bind. In seeking out her defilement and destruction, Uchida wants to secretly fulfill his desires— that even though Mima Kirigoe is this faraway, idolized “thing,” she is singing those songs about love and dancing her cute dances all for him. To Uchida, Mima the Idol belongs to him and him alone.
Satoshi Kon puts on display the entrapment that all women within the entertainment industry face. It doesn’t matter whether they are cute and innocent or just playing a role in an imaginary script, women will always be objects of desire as long as the patriarchal systems are in place and men remain the only source of creative power within the industry. Just by the mere presence of a female being onstage, the male impetus is a constant force, seeking to fulfill its desires, whether voyeuristic or physical. Women are stripped of their identity and are just dolls to be toyed around with by the powers that be. Satoshi Kon utilizes this to provoke a subversive method of storytelling that enables Mima to find her identity within the maelstrom. Throughout the film, Mima poses the question, “Anata wa dare nano?” or “Who are you?” In its Japanese form, the question is a direct way of asking “Who are you?” but the bluntness is lessened by the feminine copula of “nano.” Mima is constantly taken apart piece by piece and rearranged to the liking of the men-in-power. Even when questioning her own identity, she retains the sense of formality instilled deep within her psyche. As the film progresses, the male figures controlling Mima are murdered one by one. It is only through their disposal that she can progress forward and craft her own identity. By the very end of the film, Mima can comfortably gaze into her reflection and declare “Watashi wa honmono da yo!” or “I am real!” An assertion bolstered by the particle “yo,” Mima’s declaration is an utter certainty: she is who she is, and not just a pretty puppet on display for the entertainment industry.
Through the various displays of the male gaze and subsequent male abstractions of the female person, Satoshi Kon depicts a narrative that illustrates the objectification of women within entertainment. In this portrayal of the industry, Kon ultimately suggests that the entire structure must be undone from the bottom up and allow women to retain their identities as individual, living, breathing human beings.