Shattering the Illusion within the Self:
Loss of Privacy in Perfect Blue
By İlayda Yılmaz and Gülçin Dayi
Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue (1997) is an animated psychological thriller illustrating the destructive effects of celebrity culture, which violates the privacy of an individual through social media. The movie displays the unlikelihood of having a private life away from the fans or cameras for those who work in the entertainment industry, given that their primary target is the consumer society.
Consumers think that they own celebrities since they gain money by appealing to the masses. Believing that they have the right to decide how celebrities must live their lives, obsessive and entitled fans can be quite dangerous when their idealized image of a celebrity clashes with the reality of that person. This kind of mindset leads people to violate celebrities’ privacy through social media and stalking.
After quitting her pop band to become an actress, Mima becomes a target and victim of her stalker fan Me-Mania and her manager Rumi, both of whom are obsessed with her. Her withdrawal from her pop band bothers those obsessed with the image of innocence that comes along with the title of the pop idol who is dressed in pink, nearly infantilized, and regarded as a doll or a puppet controlled by the industry and the masses for profit. Prying into her private life and destroying her privacy, they affect Mima’s mental health negatively by gaslighting her into thinking that she is the killer of three people.
Rumi creates a blog named Mima’s Room, which functions as Mima’s diary, consisting of every smallest and most intimate detail about her life such as the brand of milk she purchased that day or which feet she uses first when she gets off the train. Considering that her photos and statements about everything as well as the places she shops and resides are also revealed to the public through this website, Mima does not have any privacy. Her data, being published on the internet, where everyone can easily access information about her personal life, exposes her to the dangers of obsessive people who can potentially harm her.
Mima’s deranged and entitled stalker Me-Mania, often seen with his camera while recording Mima as he follows her everywhere she goes, is one of the major threats that this website creates. The opening sequence of the film, in which he appears to be holding Mima in his palm, implies that he perceives her as an object he can buy rather than a free individual capable of making her own decisions. Associating Mima’s innocence with her status as a pop idol, he feels entitled to have a say in Mima’s decisions. His obsession is so dangerous that he sends Mima’s set a bomb consisting of a message stating that it was just a warning, and a fax written traitor and eventually ends up trying to kill her as he is overwhelmed by the idea that Mima is an imposter. Rumi and Me-Mania get more violent and dangerous as they stalk and threaten Mima, brutally killing those who contributed to “the loss of her innocence” such as Mima’s second manager, the photographer who took her naked photoshoot, and the writer of the show who wrote a rape scene for Mima. Without having any protection against these threats, Mima finds herself in a vulnerable situation where she develops a sense of paranoia about her identity and confusion regarding what is real and illusion. All of these dreadful repercussions, resulting from invasions of privacy, a lack of protection, and inhumane treatment of those who are killed, highlight and reinforce the importance and implementation of the values, such as respect for private life, the right to life, security, and liberty.
