Isn’t this The Entire Point?
That there is value in truth, even if the truth is painful?
That we should believe in and fight for a cause, even if fighting is hard?
Ah see, but he is depicted as the soyjack
at least there is no ads there
Oh, hey Cypher!
Years after the release of The Matrix, both of the Wachowskis came out as transgender women.[183] The red pill has been likened to red estrogen pills.[184] Morpheus’s description of the Matrix creating a sense that something is fundamentally wrong, “like a splinter in your mind”, has been likened to gender dysphoria.[184] In the original script, Switch was a woman in the Matrix and a man in the real world, but this idea was removed.[185]
The last detail about Switch is so cool—I wish they had kept it.
As first time directors, the studio had a lot of say over what they got to include. Often to the story’s detriment. Humans were originally processors instead of batteries (which makes a fuck ton more sense)
So was Switch supposed to be a woman in the Matrix because of a bug and in the real world he was his true self, or did the machines allow her to live her true gender in the Matrix?
She was a woman in the matrix because the robots wanted as little possibility for people to question their existence, so everyone identified with their own images. There was no gender dysphoria in the matrix unless you were nonbinary.
I’d wager Matrix was true expression.
Just because it’s a trans allegory doesn’t mean they figured it all the way out. I think it was mostly the broaching of the topic and putting the ideas into normal people’s head that something like that could happen. I can imagine a very different social experience if explaining trans in the early 2000s could have been boiled down to “I’m kinda like switch from the matrix.”
Bruh. Think through the thought for a moment before you dismiss it as something that wasn’t thought through. People with gender dysphoria often question their existence. The robots don’t want people to do that, cause they’ll start finding the seams. So yeah, everyone meshed with their gender (assuming it could fit within the binary parameters of the 90s) because the matrix wants to be as stable as possible.
Also check out
“Begin Transmission” by Tilly Bridges
There’s an interview with Keanu where he tells the story of how he explained the plot of Matrix to some child, who basically replied with “what does it matter if it’s real or not?”
Neo basically had no free will and had no real choice in the matter anyway. The Architect designed the Matrix so that the One would appear eventually and reset the instance after the rebellion. If he didn’t take the red pill he would have woken up in another way. He only had true free will when he decided to save Trinity.
“Would you rather have an average mediocre life, or a bi-polar life that swings between being a god and a pauper on the run?”
You mean that dead-end job and no social life to speak of? Not to mention the clashes with police he had.
Neo wouldn’t even have left his house to go to the party if it wasn’t for the white rabbit reference.
This guy loves porridge
Living the dream.
Morpheus gave him a choice. But, of course, being a good marketer, he didn’t say how reality would be.
I’ve seen this many times and it’s always fucking funny for me every time. The combination of the picture and the caption is so perfect.
The Matrix, Office Space, American Beauty, and Fight Club all came out in 1999. They all starred white males between the ages of 30-40 who have become disillusioned with their soul sucking jobs in a consumerist society. They all have an epiphany that breaks them away from the corporate consumerist grind and rebel against it, before finally becoming a sage who can live in the world but not be destroyed by it. Except for Kevin Spacey’s character, but seriously, fuck that guy.
Cipher’s a much better example. He’s tempted not with being an office drone, but with having a steak in a fancy restaurant, so being upper middle class? Anyway, that’s enough to get him to resort to literal murder.
Anyway, 1999 was a weird year in film. It seems almost trite nowadays that having a stable job with stable housing and being able to afford Starbucks every day was the bane of human existence, when nowadays it’s living in the lap of luxury.
Having a stable job just means masking everything different about yourself so you can be a good little worker ant in the capitalist machine. I want a stable job in the sense that I do something I genuinely want to do which serves my fellows.
There’s a reason they thought 1999 was peak in the matrix. If the biggest problem was boredom.
There are some takes in these comments.
Cipher had the right idea
Cipher: “I love steak. Yum yum yum. Even if its fake, I love steak.”
Agent Smith, smiling: “As soon as I don’t need you anymore, I’m going to turn you into a literal cockroach and step on you.”
Cypher really was cyberpunk Ralph Cifaretto.
They tried to make the Matrix seem ominous, then they showed the girl in the red dress.
