Puzzling MA movie quote in 'Neuromancer'

[Chu Liu Hsiang]

Re-reading William Gibson's 'Neuromancer', I came across this sentence. Case describes how Molly, a contract killer, enters a room where they expect trouble/ danger: 

Quote

For a few seconds, he knew, she was every badass hero, Sony Mao in the old Shaw videos, Mickey Chiba, the whole lineage back to Lee and Eastwood.

The novel was published in 1984, and is supposed to be set in 2035. Sony Mao? Mickey Chiba? Was Gibson not sure about the names, and did not care to check (which I think is unlikely). So if he did this on purpose, was the idea that in a dystopic 2035 nobody knows the real names anymore?  Does Case just remember them wrong? Are they just 80s akas for actors (Mickey Chiba = Sonny Chiba, Sony Mao = ??) ? Gibson could have used 'movies' instead of 'videos', anticipating that video tapes would be replaced by other media. But then again, I think video can just mean movie. I probably think too much about this but I was amazed to find this quote, obviously I had not yet watched the genre when I last read the book.

Has anyone read the book and wondered about this, too?

[ShawAngela]

27 minutes ago, Chu Liu Hsiang said:

Re-reading William Gibson's 'Neuromancer', I came across this sentence. Case describes how Molly, a contract killer, enters a room where they expect trouble/ danger: 

The novel was published in 1984, and is supposed to be set in 2035. Sony Mao? Mickey Chiba? Was Gibson not sure about the names, and did not care to check (which I think is unlikely). So if he did this on purpose, was the idea that in a dystopic 2035 nobody knows the real names anymore?  Does Case just remember them wrong? Are they just 80s akas for actors (Mickey Chiba = Sonny Chiba, Sony Mao = ??) ? Gibson could have used 'movies' instead of 'videos', anticipating that video tapes would be replaced by other media. But then again, I think video can just mean movie. I probably think too much about this but I was amazed to find this quote, obviously I had not yet watched the genre when I last read the book.

Has anyone read the book and wondered about this, too?

the first name that came to my mind while reading "Sony Mao" is Angela Mao...but he says "in the Shaws movies", so, maybe Ching Miao ? Or Shan Mao ? It seems to me that he played small roles in12 Shaws' movies.

[J.J. Hayden]

Perhaps it's a mix of Sonny Chiba and Mickey Mouse (I know Mao means cat, but just for the sound), maybe he couldn't use the name Sonny Chiba for legal reason and took a way around it while taking a stab at the mouse.

Just a thought.

[starschwar]

For a few seconds, he knew, she was every badass hero, Sony Mao in the old Shaw videos, Mickey Chiba, the whole lineage back to Lee and Eastwood.

 

The way this is phrased suggests to me that Sony Mao and Mickey Chiba are more recent in the "whole linage" than Lee and Eastwood.  That is to say, in Neuromancer's timeline, these two are a generation or more removed from the action heroes of the 1970s.  Note that he describes them as Shaw "videos", specifically, rather than movies or films.  In other words - Sony Mao and Mickey Chiba are hypothetical "future" action heroes from our perspective, but vintage icons from the perspective of the character narrating the story.

[dionbrother]

Recall that passage when I was a teen reading that book.  I just presumed Gibson was mixing up pop culture stuff on purpose.  He knew most of his potential readers likely didn't watch those movies so he could invent his own thing and sound original.

[Chu Liu Hsiang]

Great food for thought. Thank you, everyone!