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Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Podcast
Ever had something you love dismissed because it’s “just” pop culture? What others might deem stupid shit, you know matters. You know it’s worth talking and thinking about. So do we. We're Tracie and Emily, two sisters who think a lot about a lot of things. From Twilight to Ghostbusters, Harry Potter to the Muppets, and wherever pop culture takes us, come overthink with us as we delve into our deep thoughts about stupid shit.
Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Podcast
Deep Thoughts about The Matrix
Only try to realize the truth: There is no spoon.
When Emily brings her deep thoughts about the Wachowski Sisters’ 1999 cinematic masterpiece, The Matrix, the Guy sisters are unable to contain the conversation to under an hour. (We’re not exactly known for our brevity.) This movie, possibly the most popular, successful, and influential piece of art created by trans artists to date, is ripe with symbolism, allegory, and questions about the fundamental nature of reality. As one might expect with a “text” this rich, it resonates with a host of other sources, from anthropologists of religion to Plato, contemporary sociologists to the late George Carlin. With a nuance and complexity that requires (and rewards!) repeat viewing, The Matrix is truly a masterpiece.
We can only show you the pod. You have to listen to it.
Referenced in this episode:
How The Matrix universalized a trans experience — and helped me accept my own by Emily St. James
Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video versions, and early access to Deep Thoughts by visiting us on Patreon.
I'm Emily Guy-Burken and you're listening to Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, because pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head? On today's episode, I will be discussing the 1999 film the Matrix with my sister, Tracy Guy-Decker, and with you. Let's dive in.
Speaker 2:Have you ever had something you love dismissed because it's just pop culture, what others might deem stupid shit? You know matters, you know it's worth talking and thinking about, and so do we. So come overthink with us as we delve into our deep thoughts about stupid shit.
Speaker 1:So, Trace, I know you've seen this film. We've had long conversations about this film. I believe we saw it together multiple times. But tell me what you remember about this film. I believe we saw it together multiple times. But tell me what you remember about the matrix and we're just mostly going to talk about the first movie.
Speaker 2:Yeah, good Cause I I can't. I don't really remember the others, but I really remember the first one. I was surprised just now when you said it was 99. So it was the year, although I don't know why it was. It was the year after I graduated from college year, although I don't know why it was. It was the year after I graduated from college. I loved it so much, like, so much. It, just like there was so much about it that that appealed to me, you know from there was there was something so satisfying about the like hero's journey of it, you know, and the chosen one of it. And they were. I mean, keanu Reeves is just so beautiful and the woman who plays Trinity, carrie Ann Moss, carrie Ann Moss is just so beautiful and you and I both went as Trinity for Halloween that year and many years later, that year I had these cheap PVC pants that made me sweat like oh god crazy, and this like wet look tank top and the sunglasses and I loved that outfit.
Speaker 2:Uh, I mean it wasn't an outfit, it was a freaking costume, but I loved it. I love like I loved it when people were like on Halloween would be like you're dreaming. I had a short hair, the short dark hair, and everything.
Speaker 2:Oh man, I love that movie and there was something just this story beats of it, I think, were just so deeply satisfying as a viewer that it just lit me up as a, you know as a just a piece of cultural media that I just absolutely adored, and I'm sure there were like deeper lessons and stuff. You know about hubris and about technology and what like, and even about like I'm sure we'll get into the red and blue pill, but about like choosing not to know. You know all those things. I wasn't paying attention to any of that stuff. I just thought it was like wicked, cool and sexy and yeah. So it's pretty unexamined. I got to be honest. It's really just about like vinyl clothing and cool martial arts moves. Yeah, in my, in my brain.
Speaker 1:That's what I got.
Speaker 2:That's what I got for you from the Matrix and the. You know the special effects that they kind of invented, that then have now become sort of ubiquitous so that they're in Shrek, you know, with the weird slow-mo sort of a thing, but were mind-blowing in 1999. Yeah, yeah, that's what I got. That's what I got. Why are we talking about it? Why are we talking about the Matrix, em?
Speaker 1:Oh. So, like you, I adored the film. I saw it in the theater multiple times. Like I, I went back multiple times to see it. As for why we're talking about it, there's so much in that film that rewards deep thought and rewards multiple watching or multiple viewings, rewards multiple watching or multiple viewings. So, for instance, one of the things that I really appreciate about the film is they don't explain things until it makes sense for them to be explained. So there are, like the first time you watch it, when Neo wakes up in the pod in the goo, you are going what the hell is happening. But it makes perfect sense once you know what the hell is happening. So, storytelling wise, I think that that is like amazing. It's phenomenal.
Speaker 1:The things that I wished were different about the film when I was watching it as a 20 year old, I just I rewatched it with my 13 year old and my husband to prepare for this that you know. Watching it with my 13 year old, I'm realizing, like you know what I don't have a problem with that Like this is about as perfect. And it was the fact that this movie that has these really deep questions about the nature of reality, about what it means to be human, about whether it is better to be free and in a unpleasant situation. In a unpleasant situation or I don't like the term enslaved but or bound to something that you have no control over, in a relatively pleasant setting. What it has to say about things like gender, because at the time that the film was made, the Wachowski sisters were not out yet as transgender.
Speaker 2:They were the brothers then weren't they?
Speaker 1:They were the brothers, then yes, that's what they referred to themselves as yes, and in fact watching it it was interesting because watching it, at the end it says directed or written and directed by the Wachowski brothers, Like that's how they described themselves.
Speaker 2:But they both use, they're both trans women and they use she, her pronouns and they identify as sisters.
Speaker 1:Now, yes, and they have changed their names they are Lily and Lana Wachowski, and so the film works as a trans allegory very, very well, Very, very well, which the Wachowski sisters will say straight out was not something that they put in intentionally. The things that are in their mind affect the art, even if they're not yet grappling with whatever it is. Then there's the fact that bad actors have taken imagery from this film and use it to mean something that the Wachowski sisters never intended. Specifically, the men's rights activist types talk about being red-pilled as waking up to the fact that the world is set up to prioritize women and that men are the ones who are subjugated.
Speaker 2:They use the red pill to say that there can, yes, yes, they do. I didn't. I'm not sure I actually fully understood that. That's the way they use that metaphor. Okay, all right, ken.
Speaker 1:So this film is nothing less than a masterpiece. It's also, as there's a pop culture journalist Emily St James is her current last name. She previously wrote under Emily Vanderwef, which she changed it because it's a mouthful she points out that this is the most popular piece of pop culture ever that was created by trans artists, and so that is really interesting to think about. And then there's I don't know if you recall, but in the mid 2000s there were a lot of books out there that was like the philosophy of the matrix, psychology of the matrix and things like that, and so and this film has been used in thousands of academic articles and papers, so we're not the only ones overthinking it here.
Speaker 1:Oh gosh, no, no, there is. There is a lot. Everyone's overthinking it here. Oh gosh, no, no, there's a lot. And the structure of the matrix can be used for many, many, many different ways of looking at it. There's, like the philosophical lens of looking at it, there's the Marxist lens, there's looking at it as a trans allegory. It's just a wonderful framework Matrix, shall we say.
Speaker 1:I see what you did there For talking about big ideas, and so because of that I feel a little, um, I'm I'm worried, I'm not up for this challenge of discussing this film. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I am going to need your help. I'll do my best. I will do my best, all right, but before we get there, like remind me what is the surface level plot.
Speaker 1:So we start off. We meet Trinity first thing, where we see that she is being cornered in a motel by police officers who they are famous. Early line is like I think we can handle one little girl. And there are agents who are there who look like you know government, federal agents or something like that, who say, no, your men are already dead. We see her run away and jump and all of that and it's wonderful, it's amazing. And towards the end she is in a phone booth where the phone is ringing and one of the agents has commandeered a truck that runs the phone booth over. It's one of those glass ones, but she seems to have disappeared and the agents talking to each other say like she got away.
Speaker 1:We then meet Neo, who is played by Keanu Reeves. He is like sleeping on his desk in his like really dingy apartment with a search going on for someone named Morpheus when the computer goes blank and tells him to follow the white rabbit. So he has someone who has come to the door, wants some sort of illegal software that Neo has written and he sells it to him. The person at the door has a girlfriend who has a white rabbit tattoo and they invite him to go to a club. So, because of the white rabbit tattoo he does where he meets Trinity, trinity introduces herself and he said oh, I thought you were a guy. And she said most guys do. She says Morpheus is looking for you. You're looking for Morpheus, we'll be in touch.
Speaker 1:Basically the next day at work he receives a FedEx package of a cell phone. Morpheus is calling and telling him you're in trouble, the agents are coming for you. If you follow my directions I'll get you out of here. But that meant he'd have to climb out of the window in the skyscraper where his office is and climb up a scaffold to get to the roof. And he just sees how high it is and he says no, this is ridiculous, I'd rather go in custody and live In the interrogation room. Agent Smith, played by Hugo Weaving, threatens him and then says to him because Neo is saying and Neo's name, when he is not online, is Thomas Anderson. Neo is saying I want my phone call. And Agent Smith says well, how can you make a phone call when you cannot speak? And then his mouth disappears and they grab him and they put some sort of like mechanical bug in his body.
Speaker 1:He is thrashing around and then wakes up in his bedroom and assumes that this was just a dream. He gets a phone call from Morpheus telling him where to meet he is. He ends up meeting there's Trinity and then two other people it's a woman named switch and a man named APOC. They get the bug out of him and then take him to a abandoned it's not clear what it is, but an abandoned building where Morpheus is. Morpheus tells him that you know there's something wrong with the world. It's the matrix. Do you want to know what it is? And he gives him an option, a choice that you know there's something wrong with the world. It's the Matrix. Do you want to know what it is? And he gives him an option, a choice Take the red pill and you find out what the Matrix is. Take the blue pill. You wake up in your own bedroom and believe whatever you want to believe.
Speaker 1:So Neo takes the red pill, he's brought into the next room. There is one other person there. It's a man named Cypher and he's asking, like, what is going on? And they're all saying it's normal. And the next thing you know he is waking up in this pile, in this like egg type thing in goo and he's got something down his throat. He's got wires in his arms. He pulls the one out of his throat. He's completely bald, completely hairless, no eyebrows even, and a drone comes along, disconnects him and he is then kind of flushed out and then picked up by a flying ship. Once he is on the flying ship, morpheus, who is now dressed in kind of ragged clothing instead of the very sharp suit he was wearing, says welcome to the real world.
Speaker 2:And Morpheus is played by Lawrence Fishburne. Lawrence Fishburne, yeah, okay, cowboy Curtis.
Speaker 1:Cowboy Curtis. Cowboy Curtis From Pee Wee's Playhouse, oh.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:They work on basically not nursing him back to health, but making him healthy again. His muscles have atrophied, his eyes hurt because he's never used them, and he is very confused about what's going on. They finally, once he's well enough, they jack him into the system using a port in the back of his head that had been there when he woke up in that goo, and Morpheus explains that, though he thinks it's 1999, it's closer to 2199. Humans created artificial intelligence, the machines took over, and there was this epic battle between the humans and the machines. They don't know much about what happened, but they do know that the humans blacked out the sky because they believed that without solar power, the machines would not be able to find an abundant enough source of power or keep going, and so the machines then started using humans for their source of power. So that's what he was plugged into was um, some sort of like energy harvesting machine, and human beings are no longer born.
Speaker 2:They are grown to serve the matrix I remember clearly there's like a scene in a car before he takes the pill when one of the other people said like chains have gone on him and says shut up copper top or something like that, like calling copper top as a battery reference.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, initially neo refuses to believe it, but he starts to to believe. This is what's going on. There are three other members of the ship. The ship is called the Nebuchadnezzar. There's Maus, who is someone who had been in the Matrix and had been freed, and then there's Dozer and Tank, who are brothers, who are natural born, homegrown humans, so they don't have any ports in their skin. So Tank shows him what they can do now that he's out of the Matrix. Because he still has the port, they can load computer programs into his mind. So in like 10 seconds he learns Kung Fu. Yeah, I remember.
Speaker 2:Keanu Reeves, I know Kung Fu know kung fu, yeah.
Speaker 1:So morpheus says, okay, then show me. And they uh, boot up a fighting program and and spar. And it's amazing, absolutely amazing. One of the things I was telling my, my son, when we were watching this was the typical way of handling fight scenes like that in most Hollywood films at the time was to do long, long shots of stunt doubles, and this is clearly Keanu Reeves and Lawrence Fishburne actually fighting, and so part of what was amazing about this was that they got the actors to commit to months upon months upon months of training so that they could do these fight scenes. It's amazing, absolutely amazing.
Speaker 1:Neo finds he actually really enjoys learning this stuff. We learn that Morpheus believes Neo is the prophesied one who will free all the humans. We also learn that Cypher is a traitor and is meeting with Agent Smith because he wants to be plugged back into the Matrix, because he hates living in the real world. What Agent Smith wants is the codes to Zion, which is the last human city, which is deep underground, where it's still warm, and Cypher can't get those, but he can get him Morpheus who has them. Morpheus explains to Neo that any human being who is still plugged into the Matrix can become an agent because the agents can jump into any person who is there. So that is one of the like if you are running from an agent, you have to be careful that there aren't any other people around, because any of them can become an agent.
Speaker 1:After several days, morpheus says all right, neo, it's time to go into the matrix. We're going to go talk to the Oracle. The Oracle is the person who told Morpheus that he would find the one, and every new recruit goes to see the oracle. He goes into the oracle. Her living room is full of children who are doing impossible things. There's one who is holding spoons and bending them just with his mind. And the boy says to Neo, do not try to bend the spoon, that is impossible. Only try to remember the truth. What is that? There is no spoon.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's all René Magritte.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I don't know. Spoon in French off the top of my head. Neo goes in to see the Oracle. She is played by an actress named Gloria Foster, so she's an older black woman. That is something I want to talk about a little bit, because there's a little bit of and the Wachowskis acknowledge that they kind of fell into the magical Negro trope with Morpheus and the Oracle, although they chose two amazing actors who did an amazing job and I really love those characters. Who tells Neo I'm afraid you're not the one, you've got the gift, but you're waiting for something. And she says that there is a point where Morpheus is going to sacrifice himself to save Neo because he believes he's the one and it's up to neo to decide whether he or morpheus will live so remember that scene very clearly.
Speaker 2:Like I remember the oracle saying don't worry about the vase, and he's like what face. And then he knocks it over like I that the like, the mojo of the oracle, like really with me.
Speaker 1:What's really going to bake your noodle?
Speaker 2:Oh, I didn't remember the bake your noodle. I just remember saying don't worry about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, what's really going to bake your?
Speaker 2:noodle. Was there a vase at all? Is that the punchline?
Speaker 1:No, no no, what's really going to bake your noodle is would you still have broken it if I hadn't said anything?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I remember anything?
Speaker 1:oh yeah, I I remember how that scene made me feel yeah, yeah, yeah, anyway, okay, carry on. So she tells neo like you know, once you leave here, you're gonna feel a lot better because you know you don't believe in this fake crap. So, because they're in the matrix, this was the first opportunity that cypher had to bring the agents to Morpheus. So they go back to their safe house, which is the same place where Morpheus gave Neo the blue or red pill. And right when they get there, they find that they have changed the program so that the building no longer has exits. There's brick walls instead of windows.
Speaker 2:That's the one. There's dejaja Vu right With the cat.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, so Neo sees a cat walk across a doorway and then he turns and looks again and it does the exact same thing and he goes oh weird, deja Vu. And they're like, and everyone stops, like what do you mean, deja Vu? And he explains and they Trinity tells him deja vu is usually a glitch in the matrix, meaning they've changed something. So they had left Mouse there in the safe room. And he realizes the windows are bricked up, the agents storm in. Well, police and agents storm in and he goes down fighting but is killed. We also just. If you are killed in the Matrix, your body dies, because the body cannot live without the mind. So if your mind is convinced that you have died, you've died. So they try to escape through the walls and there gets to be a point where the law enforcement has figured out that they're in the walls and so Morpheus throws himself through the wall into the group of law enforcement and shouts to Trinity get Neo out. And basically sacrificing himself, apoc Switch.
Speaker 1:Trinity and Neo get separated from Cpher intentionally. On his part, he is able to get out. They use the telephones to get in and out. The other four are in an old TV repair shop and they call in for Tank to get them out. Cypher answers he has attacked Tank and Dozer. Cypher answers he has attacked Tank and Dozer. And on the phone with him, trinity is talking to Cypher and he is explaining like I'm getting plugged back in, this is like I hate this shit and she's like, and he's like and I hate Morpheus and she's like but he set us free. He's like no, I have to take orders from him and, like you know, I liked my life better before he kills Apoc and Switch by unplugging them, because that also will kill the person. And just as he's about to unplug Neo, tank gets back up and kills Cyipher. So he had been attacked but had not died. But Dozer, unfortunately, is dead.
Speaker 1:So Neo and Trinity are able to get out. They see that they have not killed Morpheus and they understand that they are trying to break into his brain to get the codes and it's only a matter of time. There is no withstanding this. And just as they're about to pull his plug, neo says please stop, this is exactly what the Oracle said I'm not the one. And Trinity says you must be. He's like no, I'm not. I'm sorry, I'm not that guy, but the Oracle said I'd have to choose between him and me, and this is exactly what she told me was going to happen, and so we have to go in and save him, because the resistance can't survive without him. So Trinity and Neo go back into the matrix. They have that amazing scene where they're shooting all of the people in the lobby of the building where they're holding Morpheus. They are able to commandeer a helicopter that's, I got it.
Speaker 2:I gotta stop you for just a second because like I can hear that scene where they're shooting all the all the bullets. Yeah, like I can hear it, like the music was also like we didn't even name that, like the music was so influential music, yeah, anyway carry on commandeer a helicopter neo askedini can you drive that thing?
Speaker 1:She's like I will be able to and she gets that downloaded so they are able to save Morpheus. Meanwhile, agent Smith has been kind of torturing Morpheus, telling him that he thinks that human beings are actually a virus because they don't react to their environment like mammals do. They react like viruses do, and how much he hates it in the Matrix and he hates the stink of humanity because he is a computer program. They get to a place where there's another telephone. It's a subway station. They send Morpheus back, first because he is injured, and then this scene, it still annoys me. I will say 25 years later the phone's ringing and Trinity's like Neo I have to tell you something. And it's like why now? So there's a homeless man sleeping rough in the subway, so Trinity gets out safely, and then the homeless man turns into an agent and shoots the telephone. So just as Trinity gets out, so Neo cannot get out. Then they had told Neo, if you see an agent run, you cannot fight them. But he stops and he fights with Agent Smith.
Speaker 1:There is a very this thing that really, really stuck with me, and particularly now thinking about this film as a trans allegory Agent Smith continually calls Neo Mr Anderson. And so at one point he has him pinned on the tracks with a car coming, a subway car coming, and Neo manages to get his feet underneath of him and Agent Smith is saying do you hear that, mr Anderson? That is the sound of inevitability, the sound of your death. And so Neo gets his feet under him and like leaps up and like jumps out of the way and goes my name is Neo. And then Agent Smith gets, gets hit, but because he's a computer program, he's fine. He gets the car, the train to stop and he comes out from another body, presumably Chasing, runs into lots of people and so has to be very careful because they keep turning into agents.
Speaker 1:He finally gets to the room where Trinity was at the very beginning in the motel. That's the phone where he's supposed to get back, and unfortunately there must have been someone in there, because when he opens the door Agent Smith is there and shoots him and he falls over dead and he's shot several more times. Meanwhile the Nebuchadnezzar is being menaced by sentinels which are machines working for the computers. They have a way to stop them, the electromagnetic pulse, but they can't use it because it screws with their electronics as well, and so if they were to do that, then Neo would be stranded, but that also means they can't go in to help him. So as he's lying there dead, morpheus is looking completely like devastated Trinity whispers to Neo like look, I'm ready to tell you what the Oracle said. She told me that I would fall in love with a man, and that man would be the one.
Speaker 2:And so I know that you can't be dead because I love you. And then kisses him and then, sorry, she's kissed, she's kissing his body that's not in the matrix like so he's not in the matrix, like unconscious, because it's over in the matrix. Yes, she's talking into the shell's ear. Yes, okay, all right carry on.
Speaker 1:She says all of that and after she kisses him like he starts breathing again and then she goes now get up and shouts at him. He gets up, is able to stop the bullets, the path of the bullets. As the three agents are shooting at him, smith comes to fight him and neo like jumps into him and like breaks him, breaks the. The agent and the other two agents are like, oh crap, I'm getting out of here. Like they look at each other, they look at him and they run. And then the movie ends with neo making a phone call, basically to the computer, saying like we're here, we're not going away, there is a new world coming. And then very 90s music that I still love. It's so good. So I was trying to be concise. I think that was. We're not known for our concision conciseness conciseness, all right.
Speaker 2:All right that that's a hell of a plot. Where do we start?
Speaker 1:where do we start all right. Well, because we we do this every time. Let's talk about gender first, right? So there's some interesting stuff to talk about. That's deeper from what I understood in 1999, but I want to start with what I understood in 1999. So now I didn't know the Bechdel test in 99, but it does pass the Bechdel test, but it's a squeaker.
Speaker 1:Trinity and Switch talk to each other about when that I understood as like 90s era feminists was when Trinity comes to meet Neo at the club and she introduces herself and he's like you're Trinity, I thought you were a guy. And she said most guys do. I took that because that was meaningful to me as a 20-year-old woman. To be like women who accomplish big things like major computer hacking can't possibly be like they didn't really do it. You know it was a guy who did it and Trinity is obviously an androgynous name. I mean it wasn't a name before this. Or, you know, like there are people who claim that the bronte's brother is the one who actually wrote everything they'll say that, oh yeah yeah, I mean I don't think they still do, but it's been said okay yeah, so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that I took as like and and she's the yeah, most guys do it like seems like the kind of like oh, I'm so sick of this that I definitely understand.
Speaker 2:Well, I think that, paired with the, I think we can handle one little girl about her, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, people have made fun of. I think we can handle one little girl as a like over the top. I think I don't know, I'm not sure how, how to describe, but like people think that that's like bad writing. Oh, like it was unrealistic, like cops wouldn't actually say that actually say that yeah, and I love that moment because, like she proves them wrong immediately and is such a badass and well, I think there's also something really power to me.
Speaker 2:There actually is something powerful about the bad guy saying no, your men are already dead. Like yes, the bigger villain, yes, okay yeah, not underestimating her there's. I do think there's something interesting in that, yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's meaningful that the first scene is Carrie-Anne Moss's scene, that she gets to be the badass that we are introduced to of the freed humans. We don't start with Morpheus and we don't see much of like. We don't see much of the fighting of Cypher or APOC or Switch. Even Carrie Ann Moss gets to be front and center. Now I have seen people talk about like and it's frustrating because like she's then sidelined as a love interest and, with the exception of the like talking while the phone's ringing, I don't think she is it's certainly not for neo, because when the oracle's like, I see why she likes you and he's like who she's like not very bright though.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which, oh which, oh my God, that tickled my 13-year-old so much. She thought that was so funny. Yeah, like that was amazing. That was a really, truly amazing moment, and there's a reason. You and I both went as Trinity for Halloween.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm. I think that's incredible when is Trinity for Halloween.
Speaker 1:I think that's incredible and I don't feel qualified really to talk about this, but I'm going to lean on some of what I read in Emily St James's writing about the experience of watching this film as a trans woman.
Speaker 2:I didn't realize Emily's a trans woman. I didn't realize that Sorry.
Speaker 1:Okay, yes, so Emily was not yet out when the movie came out and she was obsessed with it, so she was living as a man when the movie came out. Okay, and something that she talked about that hadn't occurred to me is that the film, particularly like in the late 90s, early 2000s, was describing the experience of being trans, where you can be more your real self online. So she was presenting as a woman when she was signing on to the internet. She was presenting as a woman when she was signing on to the Internet and finding like minded people. I don't know if she was going by Emily online at the time, but she was going by a female name online on the internet than she did in the real world, which it's kind of um back to front in the matrix, because the matrix is like the internet and the real world is, is um, is on the Nebuchadnezzar.
Speaker 2:Right, but there is something like yeah, it's, it's mirrored, because I I remember distinctly like you look, how you think you look in the. Matrix. Residual self-image yeah, and so the fact that you can be more yourself. That's how you see yourself.
Speaker 1:That's powerful for Switch to present as a woman in the Matrix and a man on the Nebuchadnezzar, and the industry executives nixed that wouldn't allow it, which also makes the name Switch make sense. So that to me, is really fascinating the scene when Agent Smith is interrogating Neo and keeps calling him Thomas Anderson and is looking at the file. It seems that you live two lives In one. You work at a computer software firm and you pay your taxes and you help your landlady take out her garbage, but on the in the other, you're this criminal named Neo who does terrible things online, and that kind of bifurcated life resonates with people who are not yet ready to come out.
Speaker 1:So that is fascinating. The other thing that Emily St James said that I think is fascinating is and this I knew. So someone who is trans, who has not yet come out, is often referred to as an egg in the community. Oh, interesting. And it's because when you are in an egg, you know that this isn't all of life. There's a sense that there's something else going on out there. It's constricting, but it's also in some ways kind of comfortable and warm and safe and safe it seems safe.
Speaker 1:It feels safe, yes, and the act of hatching is both and safe. It seems safe Like you can hatch on your own, but there are also ways where an exterior force can force you, which is kind of what happened with I think it was Lily Wachowski. Lana came out first in 2010. And then in 2016,. Lily and I might have gotten it backwards, but I believe it was. Lily was not ready to come out yet, but there were news cycles it was going to, so she came out to get ahead of it.
Speaker 1:So that would be like someone cracking the egg from outside, yeah, which makes the visual of Neo waking up in that pod really resonant, really resonant. And the line when, like Mr Anderson, my name is Neo, also, like I had remembered that and I was like, am I remembering that correctly? Is that in there? And yes, it's in there, and that's like insisting on the chosen name rather than the dead name, and how empowering that is, because he always, prior to that, never corrected Agent Smith, never really answered to Mr Anderson, but like didn't correct him, didn't, like not answer to it either. It just, it just was. But saying like no, I am who I am, I, I refuse to allow you to define me by who I used to be. Um, is also just phenomenally empowering and interesting and and just beautiful, particularly knowing that the wachowski sisters weren't, particularly knowing that the Wachowski sisters hadn't cracked their eggs yet. Right, yeah, wow, okay.
Speaker 2:So that's gender and trans allegory, like cisgender, binary genders and then trans allegory. What else is on this long list of deep thoughts about the matrix?
Speaker 1:So do you know um Plato's allegory of the cave?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, but remind me and our listeners Okay.
Speaker 1:So Plato has this thought experiment Allegory of the Cave where imagine there are, he says, men? There are people who are in a cave and chained there so they can't see anything but the wall in front of them and people behind them are projecting like shadows. So all they can see are the shadows and because they've lived in this cave their entire lives, they believe the shadows are real. They believe this is the real world. And one of these people living in the cave is freed and goes out to see the real world and realizes there is so much more out there. You know there's some things that look familiar because you know they were used to create the shadows, but they are so much more. They're more beautiful, they're bigger, they're all of these things than what he thought was real. And when he comes back to the cave to try to free his comrades they don't want to be freed they tell him he is full of it, that he's a raving madman, that this is the real world. So it is fascinating to me that the idea that what we have to do to think about like AI and virtual reality, like we actually have things that are indistinguishable from the real world, not indistinguishable, harder to distinguish from the real world, but the nature of reality as something that we question is part of the human experience, clearly. So that's an intentional philosophical question within the film. Now, the difference between the Allegory of the Cave and the Matrix is that the real world in the Allegory of the Cave is indubitably good there is no downside to being freed from the cave Whereas the real world in the Matrix, you can have some sympathy for Cypher wanting to be plugged back in. And that got me thinking about the way that we approach reality, and even like the fact that the men's rights activists have taken the red pill to mean something that the Wachowskis did not intend and is not even remotely real what they think it is, and that is that truth and reality should not be subjective in a perfect world.
Speaker 1:But there is some subjectivity to truth and reality, and reality ends up being something that we all agree on in some ways. So in my day job I write about money. One of the things I talk about a lot is that money doesn't really exist. Job I write about money. One of the things I talk about a lot is that money doesn't really exist. It's a delusion we all share, and so that is something where we have collectively decided that money is worth something and so, because of that, that is both real and not real at the same time. It's the same thing with like gender we have collectively decided that pink is for girls and blue is for boys, and pushing against that thing. That is not real reality. But it is real reality because there's pushback if you decide to reject it. So the subjectivity of reality is really this fascinating aspect of being human. There's a similar thing with, you know, race doesn't actually exist, you know there are no differences biologically in race, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Speaker 2:Right? Well, because racism certainly does.
Speaker 1:Yes, and so race exists, because racism does. I mean because we have collectively decided that this is how we treat people, yeah, and because it's collective, an individual cannot change it. And that is one other really interesting thing about the Matrix. Emily St James unapologetically loves the second and third movie in the trilogy. Most people were dissatisfied with them.
Speaker 1:Now, some of it had to do with, I think, like with how big and how wonderful the Matrix is. There was no meeting the expectations. But one of the things that she points out is that in the first film it's about finding the one, and that is a very comforting story. That is a very comforting story because if there is a Messiah, one who is going to fix everything is not all of it. There is collective action that needs to be done, and St James makes it clear that she thinks audiences don't like seeing that we want to see like I don't have to worry about it, because that she thinks audiences don't like seeing that we want to see like I don't have to worry about it, cause that guy's got it.
Speaker 2:I think I expect there is that. She's right. That is a part of it. I think it's also the case that in Western culture we have been conditioned to find the messianic story satisfying Because we've been told it so many times.
Speaker 1:We know what to expect.
Speaker 1:Well, one of the things that I've been thinking about as I've been doing research for this Is how it describes what we've seen politically over the past eight years or 10 years or even longer, in that people don't want to give up their comfortable illusions, like Cypher, and they are willing to sacrifice things that they otherwise would never have given up or otherwise claim to care about, just so that they can hold on to those comfortable illusions.
Speaker 1:So, for example, cypher talks about how he thought he was in love with Trinity for years. Cypher talks about how he thought he was in love with Trinity for years, and he is basically I mean, he saves her for last to kill, but he's torturing her. And for you know someone who believed that he was in love with this woman like what a horrible thing to do. But his comfortable illusions are more important. And so we see that, with any number of people who cling to political beliefs that are no longer Serving their interest yes, no longer serving their interest, no longer relevant and cost them relationships, cost them jobs cost them freedom A lot yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's because of how hard it is for us to let go of a comforting illusion, and that, I think, is really fascinating. And then the fact that the film has been used by people who are clinging to the illusion that the world benefits women. I think that they actually have seen the light.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's really interesting. I mean, you brought race up too and you're making me think of the research in the book Dying of Whiteness, where the researchers showed that poor white folks, you know, vote and act against their own best interests so that they don't help black and brown folks with those votes and actions. I mean, racial superiority is certainly a comfortable illusion for some folks.
Speaker 1:Yes, the film makes it clear that it's better to know the truth, even if the truth is uncomfortable, but it also makes no bones about how tough it is to know the truth.
Speaker 2:But it also makes no bones about how tough it is to know the truth. I think there's also I wonder how we are meant to think like if Cypher had been able to just plug himself back in without hurting other people, would we have judged him? And that's actually I don't need you to give me an answer.
Speaker 2:But I feel like that is an important question to your statement. The film says it's better to know, even if it's uncomfortable. Because I we do have some sympathy for cypher, even as he's like morally bankrupt, like it's the moral bankruptcy actually, um, but like that he misses steak, says the vegan. Um, like that that piece of it like doesn't feel like.
Speaker 1:The reason I'm judging him it's that he sold out his companions for steak what this brings up for me is I don't know if we've talked about it on this podcast, I think it was probably on Lightbringers. So when I first learned that there were Sandy Hook deniers, yeah, my first thought was I felt sympathy for them because if I could live in a headspace in a world where that couldn't actually happen, yeah, yeah, I would choose that happen, yeah, I would choose that. And I think what the film is saying is that it's not possible to just plug yourself back in without harming others when you do know the truth. Because once I learned what these Sandy Hook deniers did, they didn't just quietly believe this is, this is not real, it's a false flag. Whatever they believe, they sent death threats. Yeah, to the parent, to grieving parents yeah, yeah, they hurt people and I think that this movie is saying something very profound.
Speaker 1:That like, if you quietly believe that the earth is flat and don't do anything about it, quietly believe that the earth is flat and don't do anything about it, have at it, enjoy similarly, like there's, there's a lot of religious imagery, I mean trinity, is the name of the of one of the characters and oh yeah, and nebuchadnezzar and zion.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah and neo I mean the chosen one is clearly christ yes, so you will get like militant atheists who are like angry about people having faith. I can remember George Carlin saying that religion is like a lift in your shoe. You know, if it helps you walk taller for a little while, improves your posture and your balance, have at it, enjoy. But don't go around to other people and start nailing lifts onto their feet Right. And so, considering the fact that this is a movie with lots of religious imagery and the way that militant atheists talk about, all religion, like all religion, is toxic. All religion is awful and it's all people being cipher. They're doing horrible things because they want this comforting illusion. When religion could be just plugging yourself back into the matrix, you know, if you believe that it's false, quietly, not harming anyone. Similarly, being an atheist could just be quietly plugging yourself back into the matrix, believing whatever it is you want to believe, and not harming anyone.
Speaker 2:But either one of those could be pulling a cipher. Yeah, you know, it's interesting. My first year in graduate school, listeners, I have a master's degree in religious studies and so I was taking these anthropology of religion courses my first year and I read this anthropologist of religion named Clifford Geertz and I don't remember anything. This dude said, except one thing that has stayed with me these like 25 years. He said when he was trying to define what religion is. He said I, religion is a question of suffering, because life is suffering and therefore religion is what makes life sufferable. I'm paraphrasing, but that idea that religion is what allows us to continue going with the reality that life is full of suffering has always stayed with me, because there's nothing inherently good or ill about something that makes life sufferable and, as you're pointing out, like it can be turned to cause additional suffering. And and the devout atheists who are hurting people through their you know militantism are following a religion. So I think that's yeah.
Speaker 1:What makes life sufferable for them is is the feeling intelligent and even superior, for them is, is the the feeling intelligent and even superior and superior.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah. So I thought that that has stayed with me for all these years and it comes up every now and then. Anyway, that's what, that's what I'm. I'm thinking about, and and your point too, about like bringing Carlin in, bringing George Carlin in about like that obviously has benefits, like the date, the data's in, people who pray on the regular are calmer and have lower blood pressure, and like, just like meditation, and also some people who pray on the regular uh, pray also pray on the regular, pray, uh, people who are not like them.
Speaker 1:So yeah, when Trinity and Cypher are talking, she says you can't go back and he says oh, no, no, no, the agents can put me back in. Now the thing is, do we have any like? Does Cypher have any um reason to believe the agents aren't lying to him?
Speaker 1:right, and they'll just kill him once they get what they want? Yeah, yeah, like, even the like, the idea of being able to get back in is a comforting illusion. Yeah, yeah. And that that he is willing to sell out not only his crewmates but all of humanity? Yeah, because that's what they want. They want to be able to destroy Zion, right, right, and that's why he is a villain.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, just wanting to be able to enjoy life again does not make him a villain. Finding that he could not enjoy life on the outside of the cave, that does not make him a villain. And that, I think, is also resonant with our current political climate. Yeah, in that sometimes there are no choices, sometimes you are stuck in an untenable situation, and that's that's just what it is. And so whatever you do to try to improve things is going to like try to improve things to get them where they used to be, is going to be destructive and painful and hurt other people, whereas accepting where you are. So if he had just said to Morpheus this is not the life I thought it was going to be, can I just live quietly in Zion? He could have found some peace. You know, like I'm not for command structure, I don't want to take orders. Can I just, you know, live quietly in Zion? Yeah?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That would have been reasonable. Not everyone is made for resistance. Yeah, all right. As I said, I, before we started recording, I was like we might need to do multiple episodes on the Matrix, because I haven't even gotten to Gnosticism and like messianic imagery. We talked a little bit about it. I mean, there is so much in here. I mentioned briefly the criticism that Lawrence Fishburne and Gloria Foster are kind of magical Negroes and what that means. I haven't talked about names, like every single name is meaningful. Yeah, yeah, it's just this. This is a. This is a rich text. Yeah, yeah, skis are brilliant and I love them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so maybe we will schedule like a second, a second episode to get into some of that, and we also haven't talked about some of. I mean I mentioned that just in what I remembered, like some of the ways in which the tech and the special effects were innovative and have become you know have been referenced and and influenced so so much.
Speaker 1:But but we didn't, we barely got into that and and uh, the references to, like alice in wonderland, wizard of oz.
Speaker 1:There's several references to other pop culture besides the bible besides the bible, and then also when I was, uh, teaching actually when I was a student teacher I talked to the kids about understanding symbols and I set one set of kids with like water and one with doors and for them to start coming. I'll come up with every single thing that those could mean. Then I showed them the scene that begins with Neo receiving the phone the FedEx phone from Morpheus and refusing to go go off the ledge all the way through to when he takes the pill, and I asked the kids to like the water kids pay attention to every time you see water and the door kids pay attention to every time you see a door like what? Okay, so what is it? What are we getting? What are the symbols in these scenes Like? It's just, it's a masterclass. This film is unutterably amazing.
Speaker 2:All right, I'm going to try and I actually took notes this time. I don't usually, but I actually took some notes. I'm going to try and reflect back to you some of the things that we did talk about and you can correct me, nuance, whatever. So we started, as we often do, talking about gender, as in sexism so, and we talked about the ways in which this film sort of, in some ways perpetuates. I mean, we have so few female characters it barely barely squeaks by on the Bechtel test. Trinity's a badass and yet she's kind of just a love interest, but that's not fair, but kind of like it's. It's messy, but you know she's not the star, she is not the protagonist.
Speaker 2:And then we talked about gender, as in this film is a trans, a trans allegory.
Speaker 2:In particular, there are a couple of beats that make it fit that, one being, as Emily St James pointed out, the ways in which, when one, a trans person, is still an egg and not yet kind of out, it may be the case that they can be more fully themselves online, where there's a degree of anonymity and so sort of being more fully oneself or the way that one thinks of oneself in the matrix kind of reflects that there's also the bifurcated life that we hear that Neo is experiencing, where you know he pays his taxes and he helps his neighbor take out her trash, but he's also this cyber criminal on the dark webs and he has two different names.
Speaker 2:And the name thing also very clearly becomes a strong, empowering moment of trans allegory when Agent Smith is continually deadnaming Neo. Empowering moment of trans allegory when agent Smith is continually dead naming Neo and Neo finally stops taking it and says my name is Neo as he pulls off a remarkable escape. Some of the deep, deep things that are pretty amazing about this are the ways in which this film actually asks us to think about the nature of reality and, in so doing, the subjective nature of reality, which, in your words, I'm paraphrasing in an ideal world, reality shouldn't be subjective, but in truth it is. It is subjective because we live in a world with other people, and so our collective agreements about different things become truth, in a sense, because we have to push back about them, and this is true of things like gender and race and money, I would argue time.
Speaker 1:Countries, I mean like nations, nations, states.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, exactly countries in like nations states.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah exactly, yeah, exactly and I mean hell, even stuff like iq and what we, what we consider to be intelligence. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:So corollary to that or sort of maybe not corollary, maybe actually like dependent, dependent, maybe sort of dependent on this sort of nature of reality thing, is this commentary about the morality of choosing a comfortable illusion over reality, over reality.
Speaker 2:And this question of morality from this film is actually very nuanced because, as we took up quite a bit actually of airtime to talk about, you know, the wanting to hold on to one's comfortable illusion is not in and of itself inherently evil, but hurting other people in order to do so obviously is.
Speaker 2:And that's what we get in the human villain in this film, in Cypher so not the AI agent Smith and the other agents, but Cypher, who's willing to sell out the human race in order to taste steak again. And the desire to want steak is not in and of itself evil. So there's something like really interesting about that that becomes iteratively relevant when we apply it to other comfortable illusions, whether they are as kind of very site specific, site and time specific as the Sandy Hook deniers or, you know, much broader, I won't say universal, but with like much broader swath of history and populations in thinking about different religions over the years. You finally were making a point about the fact that sometimes in life, there aren't any good choices, and so we are forced to try and make our way, accepting things as they are and making the best that we can of it, which you were actually, I think, relating directly to partisan politics. I think that's where you were going with it um in in our contemporary moment.
Speaker 2:So those are some of like the big things I'll also like in the very beginning. Some of the things that you named about this film are that it's just a masterpiece of storytelling, that it rewards repeat viewing, which you didn't say today, but we have noted in the past that stories, films that re, that reward repeat consumption, are very neurodivergent friendly. Because it is off, it is so often, sometimes I'm not sure what word to use in terms of frequency, but common, it is common, thank you, for neuro neurodivergent people to want to consume something over and over and over and over again and to sort of get the comfort in the, in the, in the repetition. And so if that repetition is not just comfortable for its own sake but also rewards with new information and insight, it becomes all the more neurodivergent friendly. So you didn't name that this time, but I think that's worth naming here.
Speaker 2:Uh, about this film in particular, which, because it has so much depth, which with, for instance, the symbols that you named it as a student teacher you had your kids, your students look to water and doors and the pills and names and, um, the you know, we can look at the storytelling, the different tropes, of how this does and doesn't fit with joseph campbell's hero's journey, like there's so many layers to this that that the repeat viewing isn't just like nice, it actually becomes essential to fully understand it. So, so I think there's something really deeply affirming about that If we're thinking about a culture that is made up of folks with a whole wide range of ways brains work. So those are the things I took notes on. What did I miss? That you want to make sure that you say again, or say for the first time just that.
Speaker 1:I think what emily saint james pointed out at the like level of influence this, this uh piece of media has and the fact that it is the most popular pop culture created by trans artists is, I think, really significant and important to recognize and the pervasiveness of it through culture. It cannot be understated. Now, some of it is kind of obvious. Like you mentioned, shrek did the bullet time thing and you know every movie did. For a while that became like a parody, but you know the nature of what it means to interact with the world. There's just so many things that it has affected and in fact, as we were watching my son was saying like oh, that's where that comes from. About a couple of different things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, a couple of different things. Yeah, yeah, I mean I feel I can, just off the top of my head, I can think of like there was a car insurance commercial that referenced it a couple of years ago. And then there was, I mean, even Barbie, the Barbie movie, when Weird Barbie says you can have the high heel or the Birkenstock and if you take the high heel, you can go back to your comfortable existence. Yes, and Barbie says I want the high heel, and Weird Barbie says I want the high heel and we are. Barbie says you can't have it. I was trying to make you think you had a choice, but you don't have a choice. So, but even that was a reference back to the matrix.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, that is just amazing. It's amazing that they were able to do that. And then the so many different ways of looking at the, at the world and looking at this piece of media. So I didn't even talk about like Marxism, because that's another way that people look at this film as as like getting free of the matrix is getting free of capitalism, and so that, I think, is it shows what geniuses the Wachowskis are, that they were able to do all of this in a digestible way.
Speaker 1:Now I can remember talking to people who were like I didn't like the movie. I was confused, I didn't know when they were in the Matrix and when they weren't. And these are people who weren't likely to watch more than once because there were things that confused me the first time I watched it, but I didn't care because it was so cool. And then you know watching it multiple times, like I ended up figuring it out. You know the stuff that I didn't quite catch the first time around, like switch calling Keanu or Neo copper top, like did not get that the first time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're not supposed to. There were definitely clues if you knew what you were looking for.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and that, to me, is it's the, the vision that they they had, the technical skills that they brought to it, it's the level of commitment and skill that they brought to it, the level of commitment and skill that they had the actors bring to it with the martial arts training, the number of layers that they thought about and put into it intentionally there are some that were unintentional, I'm sure, but you know the the religious symbolism was intentional yeah, all of these things that they, they were able to do all of that together, and they were relatively unknown filmmakers. They had made one film prior to this, a film in 1996 called bound, uh, starring jennifer tilly and gina gershon. That, as I understand it, is amazing, but it was a small budget film. It's nothing short of miraculous.
Speaker 2:And I am so grateful that they were able to do this. Yeah, so listeners.
Speaker 1:we liked it Generally fond so all right. Well, please rewatch it if you haven't seen it recently, or if you for any reason missed it because you weren't born yet, or whatever. Please watch this film, it's so good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and let us know what we missed, because we know we missed stuff and we've named a few things. But what else? And what are your thoughts? What are your deep thoughts about our deep thoughts? We really do want to know. You can send us a text message from wherever you listen to your pods. Just hit the button that says send a text message. It's really that simple, it really is. Or send us an email at guygirlsmedia at gmailcom.
Speaker 1:Awesome. So, trace, you're up next. What are you bringing to me?
Speaker 2:next time. So next time, em, I'm going to bring you my deep thoughts about another John Hughes movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
Speaker 1:That's exciting. I have fond memories of that movie. I do hope they'll last.
Speaker 2:We shall see.
Speaker 1:We shall see All right. Well, until then I shall see.
Speaker 2:All right, well, until then, I'll see you then. Do you like stickers? Sure, we all do. If you head over to guygirlsmediacom, slash, sign up and share your address with us, we'll send you a sticker. It really is that easy. But don't wait, there's a limited quantity. Thanks for listening. Our theme music is Professor Umlaut by Kevin MacLeod from Incompetechcom. Find full music credits in the show notes. Until next time, remember pop culture is still culture. And shouldn't you know what's in your head?