And for anyone who wants to check: US release of "The Matrix" was March 31st 1999
this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2024
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The Wachowskis are both trans and the matrix can famously be read as a trans allegory
How’s that an allegory? Taking the red pill is waking to trans reality or something?
Edit: thanks everyone for your responses, it was eye opening. Time for a rewatch.
Thermodynamics. The original idea was the machines using human brains as CPUs, execs said "the audience doesn't know what computation is" so they came up with that "humans generate energy" thing which is complete and utter inefficient nonsense.
If people didn't understand the computing thing they could have just said it was designed to keep the human population under control and not rebelling against their machine overlords.
Yes but why keep humans around then, why not just kill them all off? Could be some "Robot Law" injunction, "don't harm humans", but I'd say introducing that would introduce complexity into the setting that detracts from the main themes.
"We're using humans for their computational power" doesn't need much history or exposition as it's a completely practical matter: Suspension of disbelief for minimum investment, a script writer's dream.
Just compare it to adult children putting their elderly parents in a nursing home. Also, based on the Animatrix it seems like it has a lot more to do with keeping humans from fighting back and destroying the earth even more than it does with using them for computing power, since the machines didn't need human brains prior to building The Matrix.
antidepressants vs HRT
I was typing up a thesis, but this really sums it up, doesn't it lmao
The leading brand of estrogen in the 90s was red.
OH. Hah, I always thought this was one detail they got wrong for some reason, considering estradiol is bluegreen. Should have considered the context back then.
There's a lot. Like the way Agent Smith (representing the system) constantly disrespects Neo's identity and deadnames him.
Smith doesn't represent the system, but the co-opted power structures of the system by a dictatorial force. If you remember, the system wanted Smith dead just as much as it wanted Neo gone.
Taking the red pill (estrogen at the time was a red pill) enables you to see that a lot of society is a facade and there are depths beyond it. In the real world that could be things like learning that there are people and lives that society refused to acknowledge like trans people
I've always wondered the same. I've watched the trilogy multiple times looking for the trans parallels, but I don't really get it.
Switch was meant to be trans (hence the name I think) and their in matrix visual identity was different to "reality". But corpos didn't like it.
Thanks for choosing the right wording! It's certainly one of the ways to read it. And it's also a good idea to sometimes search for a new matrix theory and then doing a re-watch. It is mindblowing how many different, sometimes completely crazy yet beautiful narratives the original trilogy can fit to, all while also being enjoyable as is without any.