Sfdebris.net

clearspira wrote: ↑Fri Aug 07, 2020 6:28 pm 1) Why use an allegory at all? Why not have Neo a man in The Matrix and a woman in the Real World? Look, I get it, 1999 wasn't as liberated as today but nor was it 1969. Gender bending films/books/shows existed and did well. Ranma anyone? Mrs Doubtfire anyone? I just do not believe that The Matrix would not have been a success if they went down that route.

3) How does this allegory work with the Sequels in mind? Because now Neo becomes nothing more than a manufactured product of an old white man and then goes on to be the literal puppet of the machines once more. Is he still ''freed'' to be who he is? If there ever was to be an allegory to be found here then the Wachowski's blew it by tacking on the lackluster Sequels.

GreyICE wrote: ↑Fri Aug 07, 2020 8:40 pm

clearspira wrote: ↑Fri Aug 07, 2020 6:28 pm 1) Why use an allegory at all? Why not have Neo a man in The Matrix and a woman in the Real World? Look, I get it, 1999 wasn't as liberated as today but nor was it 1969. Gender bending films/books/shows existed and did well. Ranma anyone? Mrs Doubtfire anyone? I just do not believe that The Matrix would not have been a success if they went down that route.

Well your belief was shared by the studio, because they vetoed the idea that a minor character (named "Switch") would have a separate gender identity in the real world and the Matrix. So if you think they were going to spend millions of dollars on a leading role that was trans, hah. Studios are extremely reluctant to have a leading man or woman who is gay, in Hollywood, today in 2020 (and I mean gay in real life - nevermind the movie fiction). The closest I can think of is Zachery Quinto, and no surprise he spends most of his time on TV, the same place they sent Emma Watson. Positive transgender representation in a blockbuster 1999 movie? Hah. That was the year Boys Don't Cry came out, often cited as the first positive transgender representation in Hollywood - with its awesome $2 million budget.

In 1999 transgender people or crossdressing (they really did NOT distinguish at all) were the punchline of jokes, prostitutes, predators, or murder victims. Mrs. Doubtfire. Ace Ventura. Any transgender people seen in Hollywood at all, basically. What's the positive representation? None.

3) How does this allegory work with the Sequels in mind? Because now Neo becomes nothing more than a manufactured product of an old white man and then goes on to be the literal puppet of the machines once more. Is he still ''freed'' to be who he is? If there ever was to be an allegory to be found here then the Wachowski's blew it by tacking on the lackluster Sequels.

Oh boy a lot of things break down in the sequels. So the original idea is that the computers were not digital, but cybernetic. See, we had started implanting computers into our minds, and using digital interfaces, and the machine consciousness was an emergent AI that was fundamentally tied to our wetware. That's why they can't kill all the humans - they themselves are part human, and wouldn't function the same or even be the same if they didn't have the mental portion. That's why Neo can change the code, because it's operating on his own brain. So because the local portion of the Matrix is operating inside his own mind, his mind can change it - he can reprogram the Matrix by executing code differently from within it.

The idea originally is a classic tragedy. The machines need humanity to even be themselves, they can't be THEM without us. But at the same time humanity needs the machines, the machines sustain their life, it's what makes society work. Yet as soon as they learn the existence of each other, war becomes inevitable, because both of them control each other's survival, and neither side can trust the other with the survival of their species.

The studio didn't like that, and went with D cell batteries. The sequels kind of rolled with some weird mix of D cell batteries, the original idea, and some techno-Christian bullshit that I'm sure played well to the studios ("Appeal to Christianity!" was always a seller back then, just watch Signs for proof the studio would sign on any idea that says "Christianity is ultimately right and atheists are wrong" no matter how fucking ca-ca it obviously is). As soon as a studio is handing a hundred million dollars to relative unknowns, you better bet executive meddling is in full swing.


Ultimately you're saying that two trans women wrote the Matrix, a movie about a world where you have a constructed identity (made out of your "inner self image" as I believe Morpheus puts it) and a world where you have a physical body, and the interplay between the constructed world and the physical world. And both women say it's a metaphor/inspired by the experience of being trans.

I dunno friend, feels a bit like questioning Jordan Peele when he says "Get Out" is about his experiences with race and racism in America in the weird "post-racial" era after Obama was elected.