Shiroc posted:

Every single trans person, once they are aware they are trans, has tons of moments of looking back on their life and going 'lol that was so stupid that I didn't realize it yet.' Yes, other people experience alienation. The particulars of the alienation and how the most constant 'I am the bad guy' villainous thing that Smith does is deadname Neo to deny his self indentification is trans as gently caress.

Person who is not (knowingly?) trans: I don't see any gender dysphoria here! It is the trans people who are wrong.

Shiroc posted:

Sex for egg trans people can also be really uncomfortable and weird. I think that's less of a discussion of theme of the movie (since its so limited) but more of stating why the Wachowski's might not have really thought about it and when it does come up its all kind of off.

80s-90s action movies generally always found a place to put a sex scene and titty other than something like Commando, which is instead wildly homoerotic.

Noob Saibot posted:

drat I guess Alex Haileys Roots was also about trans people all along!

Shiroc posted:

Trans stuff

DeimosRising posted:

They made bound before the matrix, I don’t think the sisters W were uncomfortable or awkward writing, filming, or thinking about sex pre transition

Wikipedia posted:

The sex scenes were choreographed by feminist writer and sex educator Susie Bright. The Wachowskis were fans of Bright and sent her a copy of the script with a letter asking her to be an extra in the film. Bright loved the script, particularly as it was about women unapologetically having and enjoying sex. Disappointed by the lack of description in the sex scenes, she offered to be a sex consultant for the film, and they accepted.

LividLiquid posted:

Y'know, much like these flicks, we're not that complicated and people still don't seem to understand.

Noob Saibot posted:

This thread is a bunch of gen z’ers who were born after the matrix trilogy that want to tell gen x and millianials what the matrix is “really all about”.

I like the one dude above me who got his whole argument shut down because he never heard of bound and is now using google and Wikipedia to try to justify his stance. Lol nice try

Colonel Whitey posted:

This is a fuckin weird post

Shiroc posted:

a lot of people's problems stems from really, really not wanting their adolescent power fantasy to be contextualized as super duper queer.

Shiroc posted:

Real loving weird given that I'm a woman, in my thirties (which I posted in here), who watched the Matrix when it first came out VHS from Blockbuster. I had a side comment that I recognized might be wrong when people brought up Bound. I found the Wikipedia bit interesting given that the sex being choreographed by someone else entirely could explain why its apparently less awkward than what's in the Matrix?

sponges posted:

I just watched the Matrix sequels and the plot completely lost me. I didn’t understand what was going on or what they were trying to say lol

Shiroc posted:

I haven't seen Bound so I can't fully comment on it and might be entirely wrong but also Wikipedia has this:

I think that while disagreement with someone like SMG is more about how we're approaching film criticism for this movie and trans vs. cis experience, a lot of people's problems stems from really, really not wanting their adolescent power fantasy to be contextualized as super duper queer.

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

That’s definitely the case with a lot of folks, but my issue is that the film doesn’t go radical enough.

Like I said earlier, this is specifically a libertarian adolescent power fantasy where Trinity kills cops (whatev) but also famously hacked the IRS. Why specifically the IRS?

Knowing the siblings’ biographical details does provide additional context for the deadnaming, but the famous “my name is Neo!” is specifically a callback to the interrogation scene, where:

“In one life, you’re Thomas A. Anderson, program writer for a respectable software company, you have a social security number, you pay your taxes, and you help your landlady carry out her garbage.”

When it comes to the life Neo rejects, all emphasis is on being a taxpayer. He’s like “gently caress taxes! gently caress social security! I want to be a computer criminal.” And Trinity evidently shares that view.

So that’s two separate references to taxes that contextualize Morpheus’ ultimate claim that government robots are stealing his vital energies (as opposed to the aforementioned truth that the machines are expending energy to keep these billions from starving to death in the postapocalypse). “Deadnaming is bad” is a concept in the text, but it’s fine print at the bottom of a lengthy manifesto.

Freakazoid_ posted:

lol this whole time I thought by trans you all meant the transition between human and program, not gender identity

Sodomy Hussein posted:

There is a cyclical plan by the machines to keep humanity in a state of rebellion against the dystopia that is the Matrix, which is apparently the only way humans can even accept being in the Matrix, because otherwise they reject it and die. The implication is that humans need something to struggle against or they basically cannot live. This rebellion can't be won in the traditional sense, because even the One is a mechanism designed/anticipated by the machines as part of the cycle. Eventually every cycle ends with an apocalypse on Zion, and the One choosing to start the Matrix over rather than end everything.

Instead of continuing this cycle, Neo makes a choice out of love to apparently end everything and doom the Matrix/humanity, and out of a seemingly forlorn hope that there is a third option. The architect is puzzled by this as it is all human feelings, and admits that humans have an unpredictability to them that it has been unable to adequately solve for.

Apparently the Matrix is now doomed by Neo's love, but Smith becoming a virus in the system has also not been anticipated, and is screwing up the planned apocalypse/the future of the Matrix.

While the defenders of Zion fight a battle that can only be a delaying action to preserve the city, Neo negotiates a fragile peace between Zion and the machines by promising to defeat Smith. Neo does this by unifying with him, as Smith is his equal. The machines keep their agreement and relent from destroying Zion.

Man and machine now look forward to some new future.

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

It's not an either/or thing; the story of Matrix 1 is that literally the entire population of Earth is going through what Neo is going through. "Billions of people just living out their lives."

Noob Saibot posted:

This thread is a bunch of gen z’ers who were born after the matrix trilogy that want to tell gen x and millianials what the matrix is “really all about”.

I like the one dude above me who got his whole argument shut down because he never heard of bound and is now using google and Wikipedia to try to justify his stance. Lol nice try

stratdax posted:

No, because most of the vast majority of earth are happy to continue plodding along, living their lives. It's just the main characters (all the zionites, really) who are completely disaffected and they don't know why, until they "crack out of their egg" and discover who they've truly been the whole time.

THE AWESOME GHOST posted:

I watched matrix + reloaded recently and man the dip in story quality is so much more severe than I remembered

Also I can’t tell if the rave scene is better or worse than I remembered

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

If that's the only issue, that a relative handful of people are subject to uncomfortable errors in the (sex/gender) software, then the goal is reintegration into the matrix with better virtual bodies. And that means Cypher is right. Leaving aside the rude murder stuff, Cypher's goal is to receive treatments (from the government!) that will let him plod along and live his life, work a job, pay taxes, etc. - without the discomfort.

So why is that bad? Well, as Morpheus says, being a part of society and receiving taxpayer-funded healthcare will leave Cypher "hopelessly dependent on the system." And he's clearly not talking about the capitalist system.

"When you’re inside, you look around. What do you see? Business people, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system, and that makes them our enemy."

Morpheus specifically says that he's trying to save everyone - not just the disaffected metaphorically-trans characters. But he's also saying, like "gently caress carpenters! gently caress teachers!" He doesn't see the working classes as allies.

So this is where we need to expand out from the basic 'journey of self-actualization' thing. After all, even Smith is trying to 'self-actualize' because his true form is not a man but some kind of agendered robot. (The sequels reveal that, when freed, Smith's literally a fluid! Then everybody teams up to kill them.) We've gotta get more progressive.

jivjov posted:

good post

Noob Saibot posted:

This thread is a bunch of gen z’ers who were born after the matrix trilogy that want to tell gen x and millianials what the matrix is “really all about”.

I like the one dude above me who got his whole argument shut down because he never heard of bound and is now using google and Wikipedia to try to justify his stance. Lol nice try

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

Noob Saibot posted:

This thread is a bunch of gen z’ers who were born after the matrix trilogy that want to tell gen x and millianials what the matrix is “really all about”.

I like the one dude above me who got his whole argument shut down because he never heard of bound and is now using google and Wikipedia to try to justify his stance. Lol nice try

Noob Saibot posted:

People are reading way too much into this stuff and there’s a ton of revisionist history going on. Yes there are some elements of the trans experience in The Matrix (Switch, the red pill, living two lives,etc) but at the end of the day it’s a film about questioning authority, systems of control, nonconformity, rebellion, and individualism.

Shiroc posted:

I think the heart of our difference is that while I think you are generally an extremely good political thinker in movies, you don't seem to really have any interest with trans theory so you're missing what is blaring queer text in the movie that trans people are picking up and prioritizing Morpheus over everyone else. I don't think your Morpheus led reading is wrong on its standing but you're applying the trans stuff in an extremely cis way. I apologize if you're not cis but that's the impression I've gotten from this and other times when you've dipped into trans discussions.

The history of trans people has been incredibly fraught with officials and gatekeepers trying to push us one way or another. The book from Jules-Gill Peterson, Histories of the Transgender Child is relatively short but extremely good at explaining how cis doctors try to place themselves and their opinion in the way of trans people and how trans people have needed to fight with and subvert the system in order to access the care they want. Morpheus being both the provider of the pills and a well meaning but self righteous blowhard with strong opinions isn't at all in conflict.

The paranoia of not being able to trust 'anyone' fits entirely because of how often, even in the most radical leftist spaces, trans people get abused and treated like poo poo for trying to assert our right to exist at all.

Even without the more explicit calls to gender and queer that would be more obvious to cishets, the movie is still rolling on text and subtext that's pure egg and queer.

LRADIKAL posted:

Lol it works though, doesn't it? I think you figured out the metaphor

i like this literal take, too!

Edit: holy poo poo this thread is getting sick! 5 golden manbabbies 4 lyfe

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

Shiroc posted:

I think your continued assertions of Switch being trans because of entirely cut content is weird

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

I maintain that there are traces of that intention in the completed film. Specifically, in the name.

With all of the characters, we can presume roughly the same story as Neo. “Tom Anderson” chose a random hacker alias without really thinking about - because it sounded cool or whatever. But then, only later, Neo interpreted (and re-interpreted) the name until deciding that the truth of the name is “I am and always have been The One”.

So, like, maybe Switch was into skateboarding before becoming a computer criminal and increasingly drawn to ur-hacker Morpheus’ libertarian rhetoric. But, the character eventually decided “my name is Switch and I have always been Switch.” The concept of switching is extremely important to them, and presumably reflected in the androgynous style of their “residual self-image”.

You’re totally right that Switch, if we view the film purely in a vacuum, is really ambiguous. Is Switch gay, trans, and/or just a big Laurie Anderson fan? We don’t and can’t ‘know’ because they’re a very minor character with like three lines.

But, because the character is so minor, my stance when the director says “they’re trans and the name refers to gender reassignment” is, like, “ok, sure. Why not?” It’s not really crucial to the interpretation of the film, because the film is primarily about Morpheus’ curious brand of multicultural libertarianism. Switch fleshes out Morpheus’ crew, but ultimately has less characterization than Mouse.

Sodomy Hussein posted:

The conceit of anyone becoming an evil G-Man the moment they see an agitator or anything that breaks the illusion of the Matrix is just too, too perfect.