Jumbled Thoughts on The “Shell”
I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of the Major’s new Scarlett Johansson body being referred to as a “shell” in the movie. This thought mostly persisted in my head because of the saying referring to someone as “a shell of their former self”. I haven’t seen the original film, or read the manga, but I would assume the usage of “shell” referring to the new body would be pointing to the disconnect of the original soul and the new manufactured body, slightly altering the wording of the theory of the “ghost in the machine”. Going back to the “former self” saying, given that Scarlett Johansson’s character is revealed to be Japanese, does that add a new dimension to that saying? Her new body is capable of doing extraordinary superhuman things, which supposedly wouldn’t lead someone to levy that claim against her physically. But is she a shell of her former self in that her soul now inhabits someone of a different race, furthering the distance between the soul and the body even more? I don’t think the film addresses that, with the reveal of the Major’s past seeming more like a cheap way to keep the character Japanese while also keeping Scarlett in the role and having a needless twist.