CONTENT WARNING
This episode contains discussion of intense sexual violence with regards to some of the film's scenes - a brief warning will also play before this episode's plot summary. Listener discretion is advised. If you have any feedback for our handling of sensitive subject matter, please let us know on any of our socials or email.
Closing off Dolly Back's Noirvember is Satoshi Kon's masterful Perfect Blue (1997), an animated thriller that deals with existentialism, digital lifestyles, pop commercialism and everything in between! When Mima first enters the acting world in the Double Bind TV show, mysterious fans accuse her of abdicating her pop idol responsibilities and call her a traitor, and fidelity becomes the question at the center of her mind from then on. Is she being faithful to herself? Is her reality faithful to her memory? Is Mima, the actor, the pop idol, the fully realized person, faithful to reality? Even the film's closing line winks at the audience in light of the seemingly impossible answers these questions have - join your hosts this week as they dive into the powerful flourishes of the film's animated medium, metacritical tendencies, and prescient character 25 years on!
Susan Napier's Essay - “Excuse Me, Who Are You?”: Performance, the Gaze, and the Female in the Works of Kon Satoshi (Accessible via your institution log-in)
