Thinking Out Loud: Do Cyborgs Dream of Electric Lesbians?

Following on from my watching of the 2019 Ghost In The Shell film, I was discussing the franchise with friends and one of them was surprised when I mentioned that, canonically, Mokoto is a Lesbian. Is this something that people are not aware of? I'll admit that most versions don't cover Mokoto's sexuality as explicitly as the original Manga, with that one page I'm sure you found pretty quick, but even Stand Alone Complex has pretty obvious elements hinting at what's going on, or did you not notice that all of Mokoto's friends are women and they like to all sleep in her four-poster bed? I think the problem of "Queer Invisibility" is down to two reasons with Ghost In The Shell, one being that a hetronormative societal lens tends to minimalise queer behaviour; "oh they're just gal-pals!". Secondly, elements of Japanese Queer culture are not often translated over to the West and can be missed. Even with all my broad reading and viewing, I've found scant little available in English, though I highly recommend the novel Forbidden Colours if you can find it.

Anyway, let's discuss that infamous page in the manga, the one with all the naked women. There's some translation issues, but what is essentially happening is a group of women are using cyberwear to link their brains together and trigger a shared orgasm. Now, that's not strictly sex as we currently understand it, but it's pretty damn sapphic behaviour, especially for a high-ranking member of the Japanese Military. And here's were we finally get to the point I have to make about Scarlett Johanssen playing Mokoto. In Stand Alone Complex and S.A.C. 2nd Gig, it is pretty strongly hinted that Mokoto defected to Japan during "the war" (in-setting there was a third World War, but the details are pretty sketchy), most probably from Europe, as she's dismissive of Americans pretty often. But why bother with this character element? Well, even today, Queer persons and culture tend to be marginalised in Japan, so a Japanese creator wanting to make a queer character might be expected to find a way around criticism by, just for example, making her European rather than native-born Japanese.

Now, the 2017 Ghost In The Shell kind of wimps out on what could have been an interesting premise around Mokoto's origins and sexuality, but how much of that is down to backlash against Johanssen playing a character many assume to be Asian is pretty difficult to determine. I recall getting into a pretty fierce argument with a Chinese-Australian acquaintance who was adamant that Johanssen was "stealing" the role from an East Asian actor, and whilst I can see her perspective, Mokoto is, in a sense, a European woman wearing the "shell" of a Japanese woman. Of course, the 2017 version did nothing with this premise, which could have been really interesting, instead making Mokoto a Japanese woman in a European cyborg shell. I tend to believe that particular script element was due to backlash against Johanssen in the press, but of course I can never prove it. Hopefully any future adaptations of the story and characters for Western audiences do something interesting with Mokoto and her complexities.