English 201
December 7, 1999
Essay #4/Draft 2
The Matrix
If
you have ever had a dream that felt as real as life, then you already know the
premise of this sci-fi thriller. With
the creation of the Matrix, the Wachowski brothers have made a movie that
defies the usual disbelief and borderline stupidity that typically accompanies
the sci-fi genre. In addition, the
craziness of the plot allows the viewer to not be horrified by all the people
who get killed, because they are just mere robots/ batteries of the artificial
intelligence that dominates the world the Wachowski brothers have created. The Matrix is where most of the action of
the movie takes place so it is aptly titled.
Even though everything about the movie seems to be original and very
high-tech, there is a fundamental political theme which has been around since
the beginning of our country that the movie plays on.
As
I watched this movie, I almost couldn’t help thinking it was sort of a modern
day version of a famous George Orwell book titled 1984. The comparison starts with both of the main
characters/actors delve into a search of the true meaning of the world they
live. Both have a feeling that
something is just not right.
It
continues when you look at how Neo and Winston both end up fighting against a
type of control. For Winston, the
control consisted of a totalitarian government which did not even allow free
thoughts. For Neo, the control was in
the entire system itself from which he had to separate himself from. Although
the Matrix and 1984 have two very different endings, the comparisons
throughout are valid.
Representations
of this political theme in art are not just present in 1984, they are present
almost everywhere you look. Have you
ever noticed that James Bond is the defender of laissez faire, the free world,
and capitalism? In the end, he never loses, and I have yet to seen him fight on
the side of communism or totalitarian dictators.
Where
this cultural fear of political or ideological control come from is anyone’s
guess, with possibilities ranging from the cause of the revolutionary war and
our country’s beginnings to the hard won cold war against communism, to our
problems with certain dictators like
Saddam Hussein and Slobodon Milosevich.
Throughout the movie, there are a
number of political statements being made, some more subtle than others. The movie plays on people’s hatred and fear
of oppressive government by making the main heroes former computer hackers who
do not play by the normal rules of society.
The twist of the movie is how the heroes must escape the entire system
in order to win. So, the movie is
inside out in a way and need to destroy the entire system to win not just
change it like other movies.
The creators of the Matrix brought
this fear out in many ways, primarily by showing the complete dominance of
artificial intelligence over humans with particularly disgusting detail. Any person’s response is bound to be
appalling to some of the scenes in the movie where it shows how humans are
grown and fed the remains of the dead intravenously. In so doing, the Wachowski brothers have created the perfect
enemy and a perfect place to play out the battle. Machines have no feelings therefore violence activists can’t
point out that the movie is harmful to their rights. But best of all, instead of fighting the machines one on one,
they get to fight them as humans in a modern day context which is completely in
our world while the action looks out of this world.