Jeremy’s Tophunder №36: The Matrix

7 min readMay 21, 2020

When the Matrix was released 21 years ago, it became an overnight sensation for two very valid reasons. First, it’s groundbreaking special effects popularized the now-ubiquitous “bullet time,” and it would go on to win Best Visual Effects and Best Editing at the 2000 Oscars. Second, it stood out for it’s off-beat, but captivating premise — what if the world we know is not real, and actually a computer simulation?

Both of these reasons for praise still hold up today. The special effects are only barely dated, and the conceit of the movie still rings as genuine. And yet, these two reasons aren’t anywhere close to why I think The Matrix remains an absolutely fascinating movie to study in 2020.

I think The Matrix is an exploration of gender identity and the transgender experience.

Now, whether or not these themes were intentional, I have no idea. If anything, I’d probably hazard a guess that they aren’t. But I find it really, really hard to watch The Matrix in 2020 and not connect the allegorical dots in my head. It’s just too on the nose, given what we know now.

For those of you who don’t know, The Matrix (and its sequels) are credited as being written and directed by “The Wachowski Brothers,” Larry and Andy Wachowski. That’s how they were credited prior to 2010. In 2010, Larry Wachowski transitioned from male to female, and now goes by Lana. In 2016, Andy Wachowski also came out as transgender, and now goes by Lilly. With both sisters being prominent members of the transgender community, some of their previous works have been re-interpreted, leading to the discovery of transgender themes in The Matrix.

Think about it — a vaguely successful computer programmer has an alter ego (Neo) through which he is a hacker-for-hire, trying to learn as much as he can about a mysterious man named Morpheus and an entity of unknown details called “The Matrix.” Morpheus presents him with two options — one that reveals the truth, and one that will return him to the life he knows. Neo opts to learn the truth, and his entire world changes — he is re-born in his new reality, discovering that the world he thought he knew and the identity he thought he had is actually not real.

The parallels just seem so clear to me. The name “Neo” was originally supposed to be an anagram of “One,” but it also means “new.” The person that presents Neo with the truth is named “Morpheus,” named for the Roman god of dreams (he wakes people up to their new reality), and Captain Obvious would also tell you that he has the word “morph” (to change or transform) right there in his name. The people in the Matrix don’t realize their world isn’t real, but it also seems like most of them don’t care — they’re happy with their life and there’s no need to look for anything else. But a select few of them realize the truth — that they don’t belong in this world, and their sole focus becomes breaking into the real world and into the person they truly are.

There are a number of other small details that certainly don’t seem intentional, but still support the idea, like the woman in the red dress (a paragon of classical beauty designed to distract from the harsh threats of the Matrix), the Agents (they work for The System to prevent people in the real world from converting people from the Matrix), Neo assuming that Trinity was a guy (self-explanatory), the costumes (becoming androgynous when “freed” people upload themselves into the Matrix), and the general idea that one’s body is limited only by what the brain believes it can do (again, rather self-explanatory).

There is also one Easter Egg that didn’t come to fruition. In the original script of the movie, Switch (again, the names) was planned to be female in the Matrix but male in the real world. The character was designed to be an outlet for the Wachowski’s own struggles with gender expression and identity (Lana didn’t transition until 2010, but reading more on the subject suggests it was something she was contemplating for many years prior). Warner Bros. ultimately nixed the idea because they were concerned that audiences would be confused.

On the other side of the coin, however, is the symbolism of the second half of the movie, where Neo becomes about as obvious of a messianic figure as we’ve seen in the last few decades. It’s actually kind of funny to see some parts of the movie claimed with equal vigor by both groups on the far left (the transgender movement) and groups on the far right (conservative Christians). When Neo is “re-born,” obviously one group is going to equate that to coming out in some manner, while the other group are going to see it as allegorical to the birth of Christ or being born again in the Holy Spirit. When Neo begins to harness his power inside the Matrix, one group is going to connect it to a trans person becoming more comfortable with their true self and asserting their identity to the world, while the other is going to connect it to a Christ-like figure harnessing the power of God.

And both sides are equally right. The religious iconography in The Matrix seems so pervasive and heavy-handed at times that I can only assume it was intentional. Not to say that I think the Wachowskis were endorsing any specific religion, I see it more as them taking advantage of some low-hanging fruit. I also don’t think the gender identity themes were “intentional,” just that more elements of the Wachowski’s internal struggle subconsciously worked their way into the story than they realized or intended.

Regardless of whether or not you buy into the gender identity themes, the more surface-level story of (non-gender) identity, fate, and the nature of reality is enough to keep you interested, even 20 years later. One of my favorite recurring elements in the movie is it’s use of mirrors and reflections, often popping up at key moments along Neo’s journey towards becoming The One. At it’s core, the movie is about a person realizing their own limitless potential, and it uses mirrors to drive home the point that, for the majority of people, the only thing standing in our way of achieving our hopes and dreams is our own perceived limitations.

The sets and costumes are still spectacular, as is the color aesthetic of the movie. Scenes taking place in the Matrix are washed with green tint (mirroring the green text of the Matrix’s code), while scenes in the real world are washed with a blue tint as extra contrast. (If I were involved with the movie at the time, I would have recommended swapping the meaning of the Red Pill and the Blue Pill, making the Blue Pill the True Pill, then the color-wash blue could mirror the Blue Pill that brought everyone to the real world. But that’s just me.)

I feel like I don’t need to offer effusive praise of the visual effects, as that’s rather well-tread territory over the last 20 years, but it bears repeating that basically every action movie in the five years that followed The Matrix borrowed heavily from the visual style set up by the Wachowskis, cinematographer Bill Pope, and visual effects supervisor John Gaeta. The bullet time shots were revolutionary, and the rest of the martial arts sequences were incredibly well choreographed. Perhaps the most impressive is that the lobby shootout scene was done without any CGI.

The scene took 10 days to shoot, as the mini-explosions to simulate bullets hitting the paneled pillars and walls were all practical effects, and the set took hours to re-set after shooting each day. The scene in the crawl space in the walls when the team is trying to escape from the Agents was also done practically, with a set about three stories tall to mimic the space between the walls, and the actors hanging on wires.

Overall, The Matrix was a truly groundbreaking movie, and one of the first movies I had ever seen that genuinely made me wonder about the nature of my reality. Granted, I was only 10 years old when I saw it, but seeing this movie at that age is guaranteed to leave an impression. There were points in my life that it would have landed in my Top 10 favorite movies, and while it’s obviously fallen over the years, every time I watch it, I’m reminded of how impactful it was the first time around.

(For a refresher on the project, I introduced it in a Facebook Post on Day 1)

Here’s our progress on the list so far:

2. A Few Good Men

3. The Social Network

4. Dazed and Confused

6. The Fugitive

7. The Dark Knight

9. Saving Private Ryan

11. The Big Short

12. The Prestige

13. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

15. Skyfall