If You’ve Seen The Matrix, You Might Catch the Queer

The Matrix, 1999, directed by Lilly and Lana Wachowski. $171,000,000 at the box office. I want you to think about that for a moment. I want you to think about the fact that a story that was explicitly acknowledged in a recent interview as being about being transgender made a hundred and seventy million bucks. That’s a lot of cash, and the sequel made more despite critical panning.

When I watch an Alfred Hitchcock film, I am seeing the world through his lecherous, gynophilic eyes, as Laura Mulvey famously proved with her essay on the male gaze. So when you watch a Wachowski film -’even that cool one with black leather, or the other cool one where Hugo Weaving wears a mask and talks a lot — you are seeing a world from the eyes of a trans person.

Now, I saw The Matrix at 14. I didn’t get the trans subtext because the biblical subtext was so obvious. I’m trans myself. This is sort of the point. You’re seeing a trans person’s view of the world — and it’s not that different from yours.