The trans metaphor is glaringly obvious if you're in the know and completely invisible when you're not. It's honestly a masterwork of subtle queer coding. Originally, they wanted to introduce a character who has different genders inside and outside of the matrix, but the producers shut that down. What the producers missed is that the red pill looks exactly like estrogen pills looked back then, that there's entire scenes that are nothing but very clear metaphors for getting your egg cracked, experiencing gender euphoria or practicing resistance against misgendering and deadnaming, that the entire romance between Trinity and always smoothly shaved Neo used the stereotypical visual grammar of lesbian romance cinema with all these lingering shots of well-toned women's shoulders, oh and also that Lily Wachowsky was already out to her wife and hormonally transitioning back then.
It's honestly hillarious that chuds do not only completely miss all of that, but call each other estrogen pilled as a compliment every single day. :trans-uno:
It was all over philosophy classes back then, and it doesn't surprise me. I was deep in my egg back then, i didn't understand any of this stuff as the Wachowskys intended it. The trans stuff is written in a way that you only get when you've been through those phases of coming out yourself, or when you've been told what it means. Because it doesn't use any of the usual trans metaphors that would be about physical metamorphosis and shapeshifting, about becoming somebody else or being seen as somebody else or always having been somebody else and then physically changing into that true self. Instead, it's probably the first trans story that sticks entirely to the mental aspect of transitioning, to how that means to free yourself from lies you've been told all your life and realize what's actually going on. And when you talk about transness like that, when you keep it just to these moments of self-realization and cracking the code and finally shaking off false consciousness and seeing through the bs, that translates so well to other things that people have no problem reading all kinds of stuff into it. And it works perfectly well as a musing on philosophy, it works perfectly well as a story about revolution, it works perfectly well as the beats of an action flick, it just also happens to completely capture the mood of discovering you're trans, moving out of your eggshell and to start experimenting. Because that is a deeply revolutionary act as well.
The studio executives changing the humans into batteries is still one of the goofiest changes. At least in the recent sequel they've updated that part.
There's a theory that the traitor is supposed to be Buck Angel, who outed Lily Wachoswky against her will and is just a general truscum piece of shit and persona non grata in the trans community. And he does look kinda like Buck Angel, but the film was made before he outed Lily.
The trans metaphor is glaringly obvious if you're in the know and completely invisible when you're not. It's honestly a masterwork of subtle queer coding. Originally, they wanted to introduce a character who has different genders inside and outside of the matrix, but the producers shut that down. What the producers missed is that the red pill looks exactly like estrogen pills looked back then, that there's entire scenes that are nothing but very clear metaphors for getting your egg cracked, experiencing gender euphoria or practicing resistance against misgendering and deadnaming, that the entire romance between Trinity and always smoothly shaved Neo used the stereotypical visual grammar of lesbian romance cinema with all these lingering shots of well-toned women's shoulders, oh and also that Lily Wachowsky was already out to her wife and hormonally transitioning back then.
It's honestly hillarious that chuds do not only completely miss all of that, but call each other estrogen pilled as a compliment every single day. :trans-uno:
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
It was all over philosophy classes back then, and it doesn't surprise me. I was deep in my egg back then, i didn't understand any of this stuff as the Wachowskys intended it. The trans stuff is written in a way that you only get when you've been through those phases of coming out yourself, or when you've been told what it means. Because it doesn't use any of the usual trans metaphors that would be about physical metamorphosis and shapeshifting, about becoming somebody else or being seen as somebody else or always having been somebody else and then physically changing into that true self. Instead, it's probably the first trans story that sticks entirely to the mental aspect of transitioning, to how that means to free yourself from lies you've been told all your life and realize what's actually going on. And when you talk about transness like that, when you keep it just to these moments of self-realization and cracking the code and finally shaking off false consciousness and seeing through the bs, that translates so well to other things that people have no problem reading all kinds of stuff into it. And it works perfectly well as a musing on philosophy, it works perfectly well as a story about revolution, it works perfectly well as the beats of an action flick, it just also happens to completely capture the mood of discovering you're trans, moving out of your eggshell and to start experimenting. Because that is a deeply revolutionary act as well.
:based-department: I love the movie, even more so now that I know all this about it, so cool.
Is it just me or was 90s and early 2000s action cinema all about women with toned back and shoulder muscles?
I'm not complaining :crush:
I want to see a George Lucas-style director's cut with this and the robots using human brains for computing power.
The studio executives changing the humans into batteries is still one of the goofiest changes. At least in the recent sequel they've updated that part.
I like how almost everyone in the shipcrew isn't a cishet white dude and the token cishet white dude turned out to be the traitor lol
There's a theory that the traitor is supposed to be Buck Angel, who outed Lily Wachoswky against her will and is just a general truscum piece of shit and persona non grata in the trans community. And he does look kinda like Buck Angel, but the film was made before he outed Lily.
Damn, he does look like Buck Angel. I guess it's an unfortunate case of life imitating art.