>Odd script but worth seeing. Consumers living fantasy
>lives in their pods. Works as a metaphor about
>capitalism. The script is odd because the straight
>play on capitalism/reality contortions etc.
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I was talked into seeing The Matrix the other night and found it a good candidate for a Marxist reading or something that would make a good subject for Zizek. The story takes place sometime in the 22nd or 23rd century, after humanity had made the techonological breakthrough of creating AI (artificial intelligence). Something went wrong, the AI machines rebelled or made a power grab, and total war ensued. Humanity's leaders thought that the AI beings were mainly powered by solar panels, so in a desperate attempt they set off an apocalypse which permanently filled the sky with cloud cover. The AI survived this, won the war and enslaved humanity. Technically, "enslave" isn't the correct word. The AI kept humans alive in pods, used their bodies as batteries and plugged their brains into a virtual reality program -- The Matrix. Although people spend their lives in pods from the day they're born, they believe they're leading their lives in 1999.
I immediately saw the metaphor of capitalism which Greg suggested. I'm not sure about people being consumers, though. Humanity creates the AI species (Capitalism) which is at first good in a number of ways, then becomes a Frankenstein monster which turns on its creators and "enslaves" them, using their electrical (labor) power to sustain itself.
(An obvious theme is the anti-technology one which the writers may have borrowed from Kurt Vonnegut. "Breakfast of Champions" is mentioned and an AI unit describes humanity as a virus - using up its ecosystem and continually expanding, something Vonnegut has repeatedly said.)
The AIs haven't won completely. Some people have "awakened" from their cyber-dream, escaped their pods, and created a city, hidden from the AI. The movie centers on a ship of rebel humans who - by plugging in - can enter The Matrix (of 1999, where all of the pod dwellers are living) and enter it for the purpose of finding the One who, it is fortold by an oracle, will save humanity.
Returning to the metaphor of Capitalism and taking an old-fashioned view of ideology, you could say the people living in the Matrix are caught up in a false consciousness, while the rebels can see through it. (Or the people in the Matrix are depoliticized, unaware of their masters, the AI.) One of them finds he really doesn't like living in reality, a dismal post-apocalyptic world where humans are continually hunted and the food sucks, and wants to "go back to sleep," back in the Matrix. Maybe he's uncomfortable constantly facing the fact that humanity is enslaved and most folks are essentially living a lie. Maybe Zizek would say something about the Real here.
The ship's crew is a fairly diverse bunch, as Rakesh said. Three black men, one Hispanic, two women with short haircuts in long pants, a young, goofy white guy (probably a skateboarder with a penchant for bong hits before he "awoke") and a middle-aged white guy, the one who wants to go back to blissful ignorance in the Matrix and who turns out to be a snitch, sell-out and collaborator. In the Matrix, three AIs hunt the rebels in the form of young, white men in suits - one could argue they look like Wall Streeters.
The leader of the crew is Morpheus, Laurence Fishburne, and he thinks Neo, Keanu Reaves, the hacker is the One. (As Zizek says in 'You May!', "hacker has, of course, subversive/marginal/anti-establishment connotations.") Neo doesn't know about the Matrix or the pods (he just thinks he's living in '99) and when Morpheus asks him if he's always had a strange feeling that something's not right, Neo's answer is affirmative. When the AI suits try to get Neo to rat out Morpheus, he gives them the finger. Finally, Morphues gives Neo a pill while they are both in the Matrix. After taking it, Neo wakes up in a pod bald, naked, and hooked up to a bunch of wires. He faces the horror of his alienation, the Real. Another brick in the wall. The rebels rehabilitate him and he trains to fight the AI.
So the false consciousness metaphor is interesting, but the story is basically one of the "alternative" and diverse Prada models vs. the suits. One could code it where the rebels are "authentic" and everyone else is conformist and the AIs are trying to stamp out "authenticity."