Helter Skelter Comparative Essay

Helter Skelter, a live-action movie adaption based on Kyoko Okazaki’s manga “Helter Skelter”, is a story about a successful model and icon of beauty in Japan, LiLiCo, who undergoes multiple cosmetic surgeries all over her face and body to attain the picture-perfect appearance that every girl desires in order to stay in the top of the modelling world. While LiliCo is eaten alive with the pressure of the modelling industry and the tolls from several full body plastic surgeries, she desperately maintains her perfect image on the media as she makes the lives of those around her miserable. A Streetcar Named Desire, adapted from Tennessee Williams’ play, this film follows a story about a former schoolteacher, Blanche DuBois, who leaves a small town
In the movie Helter Skelter, LiLiCo is the top supermodel who is a product of excessive full body cosmetic surgery driven by vanity and greed. "Pretty on the outside, but just like a fruit the bugs have eaten from within" (Uda, Amagi, & Ninagawa, 2012). LiLiCo is the manifestation of beauty and vanity, and her body is unable to withstand the burdens of multiple surgeries as her body deteriorates. She is nothing more but looks; she is corrupted by the importance of being at the top of the modelling world as her greediness eats her inside and out. In the movie A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche DuBois constantly fears death along with the manifestation of aging and loss of beauty. “And turn that over-light off! Turn that off! I won’t be looked at in this merciless glare!” (Williams, 1947, p. 18). Throughout the whole movie, Blanche refuses to tell anyone her age and is never seen under the light because it will reveal her faded looks. She uses the shadow to feign her appearance and personality. Blanche, a flirtatious Southern-belle, also frequently asserts her sexuality towards young men as a coping mechanism with the belief that she will be able to avoid aging along with death itself. In both of the movies, the protagonists conditioned themselves that nobody will love them and that everybody will eventually leave their side if everyone found out their true nature
In Helter Skelter, LiLiCo is extremely dependent on her regularly abused manager, Hada. Hada is probably the only character in the movie who truly sees how broken of a girl LiLiCo truly is. Without her manager, who LiLiCo views as her sex toy and private assistant, LiLiCo wouldn’t be able to reach the top in the perverted modelling world. On the other hand, A Streetcar Named Desire displays a more feminist critique on dependency. Blanche and Stella exhibits two different kinds of femininity. Blanche’s femininity is based on illusion, while Stella’s femininity is based on reality. However, they still find themselves overly dependent on men. Both Blanche and Stella find that having a man as the only means to achieve happiness. In the film, Stanley represents a physical frightening threat of masculinity, aggressive, brute, and dominant. Not only Stanley is physically asserting his masculinity, but also mentally. It reaches to the point where Stanley asserts himself onto Blanche and rapes her. Although Stanley is physically abusive to his wife, Stella still stays on his side and refuses to believe Blanche’s rape story. Stella chooses her love and dependency on Stanley over believing her sister. For Blanche however, she sees marrying a guy named Mitch as a liberation from reality. “I don't want realism. I want magic!” (Williams, p. 145). Despite Blanche’s poor reputation of constantly exploiting her sexuality