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As pop idol turned TV actress, Mima is intimately identified with and by media. In a sense, she lives or dies by it. What are the defining characteristics of her media world? Who or what produces it? What are its benefits and dangers for Mima?
For Mima, her media world is something created by the people around her. As she mentioned, she didn’t want to do the rape scene but she also didn’t want to disappoint the people who worked hard to get her the role.
Mima’s media world is inseparable from her real world. The series of warning she received gave her a sense of danger which later turned into the deepest fear for being an actress. Also the murders that occurred always seemed to have something to do with Mima although she only recognized them as illusions or dreams. We later find out that Rumi was behind these plots where she left clues for Mima that led into believing that she might be committing murders unconsciously during her wonder-off time in the other persona. From the entire second half of the movie, I totally lost track of the true reality. Mima wakes again and again from her dream but always find out that the things that happened in her ‘dream’ was not mere dream at all. The media world of Mima is like a swirl pool that sucks her deeper and deeper into illusion.
As for the one who produced Mima’s media world, I can’t really tell if Mima got out of her illusionary world after saying she was real so I’ll just assume that the ultimate producer is Rumi. Rumi covered herself pretty well. Maybe I should say Kon covered her up pretty well by always giving us clues of the freak being the murderer. Certainly the freak plays a big role in Mima’s media world but ultimately Rumi creates this projection of the ‘idol’ Mima that drove Mima crazy. But at this point it is very hard for me to confirm whether the ‘idol’ mima is just an illusion in Mima’s mind or Rumi.
Mima’s media world brought her profits and a successful career, but it also engulfed her, finally making her unable to escape illusion.
I think a really important line from the film was when Mima spoke to her mother on the phone and told her, “You don’t understand this industry”…
The world in which Mima is trying to be successful in isn’t easy, by any means. She must take on physical and mental burdens (ie. the rape scene), and must decide if she wants to make those sacrifices in order to push her career forward. Mima has essentially 3 different personas: her former pop idol self, her rookie actress self, and her “true” self…can these 3 personas be disconnected? Is it so easy to switch from one role, in a sense, to the other? Mima attempts to let go of her former pop idol self and thrust herself into a different world (acting), but the same media industry. She tries to live a normal, day-to-day life when she is not working; grocery shopping, riding the subway, tidying her dirty apartment, etc. But she soon finds that her media persona(s), yes, both the rookie actress self and her former pop idol self, refuse to separate themselves from every part of her life.
I kind of cheated and read some theories and analyzations of Perfect Blue, and now know that Rumi suffered from folie à deux–which is basically having shared delusions. Rumi deluded herself into believing that she is the “true” Mima, the former pop idol persona of Mima, and has transferred–imposed, even– her delusions and hallucinations onto Mima. While Rumi is the person who is truly mentally unstable, and has been from the start, this “shared psychosis” has led Mima on a downwards spiral and caused her to doubt her own innocence several times–about murders, about who she really is, etc. Mima is now questioning everything that she knows, and she can’t tell illusion apart from reality, like the audience! Because a lot of what the viewers see if from Mima’s perspective, or so we assume, it is also hard for us to decide what are illusions and hallucinations, and what is truly happening in reality.
Her media world is characterized by both the external pressures and Mima’s internal struggles. It seems that Mima herself tries to complete the “metamorphosis” from a pop idol to an actress. However, what she actually does is all planned and controlled by others, for the sake of the others’ benefits (ie. agent company) instead of her own will. Thus, she has to undertake mediocre (only speaking one line in the TV-series) or physically/mentally destructive roles (the rape scene.) Also during the transformation from idol to actress, Mima experiences intense collision of her former identity as an idol and latter identity as an actress. I remember there is a scene that portrays the discussion between Mima, Rumi and the producer about whether Mima should act the rape scene, while Mima chooses to defy her own will to satisfy the producer. Therefore, it is Mima’s selflessness that directly intensifies the conflict of her two identities, and let her raise many doubts about her career in her media world.
In short, Mima sacrifices herself in order to please everyone else, including her audience, the producer companies etc, and she earned herself fame and better opportunities in her career as an actress (ie. she receives a lot of interviews after filming the rape scene.) But the drastic change of her physical role and identity not only causes her mental confusion and the haunting illusions, but also simultaneously drives people that refuse to accept her current identity to the extremes (ie. the split personality of Rumi and Me-Moria.)
Mima’s media world is defined by her fans. By being a pop idol, she has created an image of herself as a sweet and innocent girl. If bad press were to get out that shows her shifting to a new image she would lose many of her fans. Although this could possibly bring her new fans and change her image, it also has a high chance of destroying her career. This is seen is Perfect Blue when one of her fans starts to go on a murderous rampage in order to keep her old image intact. Although it means that as long as she keeps the same image she will always have fans and a career, it also puts her on thin ice. One wrong move could completely change her life and put her without fans and without a job. It causes her to need to watch everything she does to maintain her image at all times.
As a celebrity, Mima lives for her fans. Her world revolves around keeping her fans, ultimately for the purpose of monetization. Even if that isn’t Mima’s first goal, it is definitely one of the main goals of her agency. Making herself into a character to be enjoyed by the masses is Mima’s life both as a pop star and an actress. The fans (current and potential) create this media world that Mima lives in, where their wants dictate how she lives her life. This from the beginning is detrimental to Mima’s sense of identity. This media world pushes her to be a version of herself, until she can’t really tell who Mima really is. For example, Mima’s mother said she left because she just wanted to sing. However, she was now content with becoming an actress, per the wishes of her manager. Had she convinced herself to desire being an actress? Or was it a genuine dream of hers? After the rape scene for Double Bind, Mima is in constant emotional turmoil from the decision she made. She hadn’t really wanted to do the scene, but “the industry” pushed her to justify this to herself. At this point, ghost Mima (and perhaps the “real” Mima) mocks her for giving up on her dream and ruining her reputation for a career that she didn’t really want. Obviously the potential for fame and wealth is a benefit to Mima, as well as the opportunity to pursue her dreams, is a great benefit to Mima, if it leads to her happiness. However, this spotlight forces Mima into the relentless public eye, blurring the lines between her real self and the character she must play to please the crowd.
Mima’s pop idol persona is controlled by forces other than herself. The website, Mima’s Room, through which many of her fans perceive her, is maintained by an obsessive, maniacal fan who is in turn manipulated by Mima’s agent fronting as the young pop idol. As Mima progresses down her path astray from her pop origins, her persona becomes more autonomous and destructive. The film, released in the early years of the internet, provides an eerie prediction of the power and danger of maintaing a presence on the internet. Mima is rendered powerless as she discovers words and actions attributed to her “true self” that are not her own, and these revelations contribute to her crumbling sense of identity.
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