this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2024
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Basically, the Wachowskis (directors) are trans. The trans aspect was only one part of the film, but the idea is basically that your body in the real world (sex) is separate from your identity in the matrix (gender) and the character Switch (who has a male body but is a woman in the matrix) is maybe the clearest example.
The Wachowskis themselves both say that there is a strong trans element in the Matrix while Lilly Wachowski also says she doesn't know "how present my transness was in the background of my brain as we were writing".
https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-53692435
Switch is a woman outside of the Matrix in the final cut. Early scripts called for Switch to be male in the Real World, but studio censors thought that was a little too daring.
Too bad, that would have been some brilliant storytelling but I never heard about this narrative before. I always thought the matrix was a dystopian view on technology and society
There's also a ton to the whole "Mr.Andresonnnnnn" "My name is Neo" recurring bit. While you could read it as anyone asserting a chosen identity over a given one in a broad sense, it was written by two trans folks. It's meant to be dead naming.
It's really well done. Teenage cis me (still cis, no longer teenage), picked up on precisely zero of that. Like Lilly said, some people, the people struggling with that, definitely did which is awesome. I think media like this can go a long way in cutting through some of the shitty narrative and "othering" that goes on in favor of the more universal truth: an individual is the one with final say in who and what they are. I'll never really understand being trans, I've never felt out of place in my given assignment, but your damn right I can understand being pissed about being forced to call myself something I know I'm not.
It always seemed that simple to me. I'm also really glad folks got a power fantasy with this coding. Sure, a grounded character drama might help some people feel seen, and that's cool. But you know whats cooler? Fucking kung-fu mastery and godamn flying.