What is the Matrix?
The only reason why I am not a huge fan of THE MATRIX, is that, the week before I saw it, I saw another film that had much the same themes, (what if life was not what it seemed, merely a huge deception?) only without the glaring plot-holes called DARK CITY. The contrast was too sharp for me, so the minor flaws in THE MATRIX seemed major. But despite that, I recognize it was a Way Cool movie with a look to it, a camera technique, that everyone remembers and every action film copied, including WATCHMEN.
Now I read a rather, uh, interesting take on THE MATRIX by someone called The Last Psychiatrist. His analysis: the popularity of the film was due to the daydream appeal of discovering that you, too, may secretly one day be the superman! He seems to think this is a new idea, rather than the oldest daydream in comics and science fiction. When John Carter, clean-limbed fighting man of Virginia is teleported at death to the planet Mars, and finds himself not only telepathic, but stronger than any native Martian, I am sure it is a daydream shared by every disappointed Southern planter after the Civil War, who went out West to hunt gold and fight Indians.
Here is a quote from the Last Psychiatrist:
With every passing day, you realize you will not fight bad guys, not join the CIA, not be in a band, not throw the winning touchdown.
You will not know kung fu.
Your body sickeningly, boringly confirms it. You breathe harder when you run. You don’t run anyway. Hair missing, appearing.
Women your age are better looking than men your age. Wait, wait, what?
Hopes and dreams are now only dreams. You start to care about office politics because nothing else is happening. Clothes matter more because very little else does.
Drinking helps. You don’t know why, you aren’t an alcoholic, but you need it.
“I will never be in love.” You love the sister you’ve married, but there’s no hunger, no need. There never really was. This was supposed to be temporary until… she came along. The woman with the dark hair tied loosely in a bun, wearing a scarf, glasses, stunningly beautiful (no one had noticed her but you, of course)– lost– needing to be saved—
But wait, you’re still young. Ish. You still have some time– something could still happen.
What modern middle aged narcissist wants is to find a way to put one foot in reality and keep one foot in fantasy. A solution that lets him keep fighting the traffic twice a day. Providing just enough lack of self-awareness that he doesn’t reach for a bazooka and blow his brains out. (If only he had even energy for that.) To have just enough hope that one day the fantasies could come true that he keeps on going. That a 30 something year old man could suddenly know kung fu.
Fortunately, we find ourselves at the tenth anniversary of just such a solution.
The Matrix: the natural, necessary end to the action movie generation, temporarily postponing a tripling of the suicide rate.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
