"Matrix" movie

[Peter Kilander]

Greg Nowell wrote:

>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.
[clip]

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."