An essay on the Mamoru Oshii film Ghost in the Shell.
In the penultimate scene of Ghost in The Shell (GITS), protagonist Major Motoko Kusanagi leaps on the back of a spider tank and attempts to rip off the door on the tank’s control panel. As she struggles to tear the door from its hinges, the artificial muscles in her fully cybernetic body strain and swell. Her body is constructed as female, with wide hips and a distinctive bosom, but as her muscles swell under the tension her physique momentarily becomes masculine. The contours of muscles and tendons become visible under her skin. She looks like a body builder. However, the strain is too much and her skin rips and reveals the machinery underneath.