less trans than i hoped tbh, but i definitely saw it and felt it
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The original is so fucking trans omg I cried on a recent viewing
in the screenplay Switch was one gender inside the Matrix and another gender outside it
The name makes a lot more sense that way!
Yeah i recently rewatched it for the first time since my egg cracked and the trans allegories are literally in every single scene. Cis people just don’t notice because they lack the context and because all of it functions on more than just the trans level, like the looking glass referencing both Alice in Wonderland and those realizations a freshly hatching trans person has in front of the mirror.
I’m sorry if this is a stupid question, I’m here to learn. Has Alice in Wonderland anything to do with trans themes? I read it as an adult but still a while ago. From what I remember, Through the Looking Glass explores more mathematical themed stuff since the author was a mathematician. Is it of significance in the trans community?
I just mentioned it because Matrix brings it up several times. And to be clear, i did so as an example of the stuff that’s not a trans allegory, but one of the other layers the Matrix movies have. Besides having very clear representations of trans experiences like egg cracking, medical transition, feeling trans joy and empowerment for the first time, being deadnamed, being attacked by assimilationist elements from within your own community, finding your first transbian crush etc., they absolutely work as a metaphor for developing a revolutionary mindset and ridding yourself of false consciousness, for queer community outside of expressly trans spaces, for philosophical musings and for expanding your consciousness. And the latter is where Alice comes in, which has been cited over and over again as a metaphor for psychedelic experiences since the days of the beatnicks at the very least.
I could totally see how Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass can be perceived as trans metaphors, too. It’s not like the Matrix movies, were we know they were made by two unouted trans women who intended it to be a trans allegory among a bunch of other stuff, but it’s one of these cases were media has what Tolkien referred to as applicability - something that has not a 1:1 allegorical dimension that maps exactly and consistently towards another subject that is not explicitly mentioned in the medium, but always there as a foil to it. But that, instead, can be transferred to all kinds of subject matters in some ways, that has these nuances and parallels without being 100% a stand-in for a certain thing.
Thanks for clarification! I reread your comment and I misunderstood it the first time, now it makes more sense.
No problem!
BTW if anybody wants to get deeper into the subject of the Matrix movies from a trans perspective, both Aranock and Sophie from Mars have taken this topic apart more thoroughly than i could ever hope to do here.
I found YouTube links in your comment. Here are links to the same videos on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Link 1:
Link 2:
Alice in wonderland is about math actually
Yeah I’m cis and definitely didn’t pick up on any of that the first few times I watched it. Of course, part of that is because I was 12 and just thought the fight scenes and computer shit was cool, I hadn’t really started considering movies through an allegorical lens. But I still don’t think I would have figured it out until trans issues became more mainstream and I had the right framing.
Of course once it all made sense to me I loved the movie even more. I really appreciate hearing people talk about what it’s meant to them and how they felt watching it. It’s such a great movie.
Yeah, it just works on all these levels. It does a great job at being a late 90s silly action film, it works as a “what if we’re all like, uh, brains in a jar?” stoner philosophy diatribe, it makes you want to fight back against the system when that track by RATM comes on and then you come back to the movie 20 years later, after you’ve figured out you’re trans, and realize you know that exact mood when Neo looks up at Trinity and says “I know Kung Fu!” because that’s just exactly what the really empowering kind of gender euphoria feels like. That sensation of everything being possible just because you’ve figured out the biggest secret in your life.
yeah! (to your point about cis people not noticing) this is something referred to in media studies as a “textual wink,” usually in the context of queer analysis; when the author of the media includes something that looks benign to most audiences but not to a smaller (usually queer) audience it signals for them to pay attention to those aspects of the film and that there’s something else going on thematically, like trinity’s bit about “where that road ends” and morpheus’s “splinter in your mind” etc etc
oh i loved it, i can’t imagine how it would have been if i hadn’t known it was trans going in. i just expected more somehow
Hmm I had the opposite experience ig, having seen it as a kid before being aware of the gender fuckery, and then revisiting it after.
It’s a solid action flick that has some real queer vibes throughout
Damn really? I need to watch it again then. Fantastic movie
I keep thinking about that Kurt Cobain thread that asked what if the Wachowskis had died before they came out? There were already trans people trying to claim the Matrix before they did. It’s a series that resonates with a lot of trans people. But cis people would be fully insisting that it was disrespectful to try and make that claim posthumously or that people were just projecting themselves into the text; that the text is by default Not Queer and has no reason to be analyzed that way.
I really liked that post too. that author has a good voice and was persuasive. Not sure i believe it, but i don’t hate the idea. Just wish Kurt could have been happy.
l’ve been reading this one webcomic for years, goblins. (Are webcomics popular? Have you heard of it?) The author is currently going through transition but was an egg at the start of the story. Rereading the comic after her coming out is amazing, with so many parallels to the wachowskis matrix about ‘choice’ and identity that only became obvious (to me) afterwards.
This just tells me who you are will break down the doors and declare itself regardless of one’s will, so you might as well make friends with yourself before it does.
It also makes me think about how the dev who made Celeste was an egg at the time. But when she came out she was like “yeah this was about me being trans, I just didn’t realize at the time I wrote it”
The color scheme alone gives it away!
i hadn’t thought about goblins in years, until a week ago with this post which just hammered me over the head with all the shit i was reading in high school
didn’t know that about goblins, that’s cool
Thanks for that link, that was a trip. I read (and dropped) a lot of these old gems
yeah, it really resonated with me in ways i know for a fact would never be recognized if the wachowskis hadn’t come out. queer reads of anything that isn’t explicitly and unarguably queer (and even things that are!!! i had someone try to wokely argue to me that utena was a completely cishet show on this website!!!) are at best tolerated, but usually shouted down for being
i had someone try to wokely argue to me that utena was a completely cishet show on this website!!!
Excuse me???
i was flabbergasted, it was wild
What next, did they also think Yuri On Ice was straight?
i don’t know, probably! there’s more onscreen gay kisses in utena (the show) than there are in yuri on ice!
God I’m so curious to know what their reasoning was
Tbf, Utena is ambiguous before the movie. It’s got a lot of gay vibes going on but literally no one ever expresses any attraction toward anyone of the same sex at any point. The gay stuff is all in the vibes, symbolism and whatnot.
when you say stuff like this, you give people the wrong idea about the show and then they go watch it and end up being really disappointed. That’s my experience
Thank you, Wachowski sisters
2022+: Hundreds of boys and girls and enbies queuing up to join The Matrix 😏
Very true.
matrix 4 was fucking great. easily the most heartfelt blockbuster of the last decade. it’d be foolish to disagree
the movie sucked so bad idk what you’re talking about
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dialectics
a lot of it was not very good but also it was a movie with the moral being that only the power of trans lesbians can defeat conservatives and also gay people can fly and i think that’s pretty cool
I actually haven’t watched The Matrix since long before I found out I was trans, I should do that
I am sorry but Matrix 2 and 3 made it so I will never watch another Matrix movie now. Some movies should not have sequels.
Also, I only like to crossdress.
If you want to give it a second chance, Sophie from mars made a great video why the sequels are good actually. But you’re obviously free to dislike them anyway and it’s a long video, so no pressure. Take it or leave it.
There are some slightly deranged takes in that mostly-good video…
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Huh? There are no matrix sequels wdym
It’s super messed up that after the blockbuster success of the Matrix the wachowski sisters were never allowed to make another movie.
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Speaking of the Wachowskis, their first movie, Bound, is a lesbian crime thriller that like. After watching it I don’t understand how anyone ever thought they were men. I know one of the Wachowskis is straight but like. This movie was the most Seen a movie ever made me feel as a lesbian
I’m still the same gender as in 1999 and this movie still fucking rocks. Pacing, writing, sfx, messaging, soundtrack all crush it. Keanu reeves is a bit of a stoner doofus sometimes but it works fine for his character so who cares. I can’t wait until my child is old enough for us to watch it together.
The Matrix aged incredibly well. I remember seeing it in the early 2000’s during the height of the 9/11 hysteria. The messages of questioning society and waking up to the truth resonated hard with me at the time. A lot of people I knew interpreted the Matrix as a message of realizing how rotten the status quo is and how it controls our lives. Most choose to be liberals or conservatives dutifully fulfilling whatever needs to get done in order to finish the day. Never really questioning anything and going along with what the state tells them.
The few that choose to think outside of that are awakened in another world where the powers that be do everything they can to keep them down out of fear that society will follow their lead and begin to question authority. Growing up in both a post-dictator country and the US during the Bush years really shaped how I viewed the Matrix.
The sequels are kind of okay. The remake is awful.
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The Red Pill they don’t tell you about.
They don’t want you to know!!
