(special thanks to Catherine Spooner for allowing me to wax lyrical on this one)
The Matrix
some useful definitions:
Cyberspace
The term coined by science fiction writer William Gibson, referring to the virtual world that exists within the marriage of computers, telecommunication networks and digital media.
Internet
A co-operatively run global collection of computer networks with a common addressing scheme.
The Web
The World Wide Web or www. Graphic and text documents published on the Internet that are interconnected through clickable ‘hypertext’ links.
The Matrix
Perception: The everyday world is real. Reality: The world is a hoax.
Introduction:
The evolution of black holes to rabbit holes
“One reason why the Apollo moon-landings failed to touch our imagination is that science fiction got there first, just as it has anticipated so much of our lives, effectively taking all the fun and surprise out of existence.”
J.G. Ballard, Back to the Heady Future
“So Hiro’s not actually here at all. He’s in a computer-generated universe that his computer is drawing onto his goggles and pumping into his earphones. In the lingo, the imaginary place is known as the Metaverse. Hiro spends a lot of time in the Metaverse. It beats the shit out of the U-Stor-It.”
Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash
“I imagine, right now, you must be feeling a bit like Alice, tumbling down the rabbit hole?”
Morpheus, The Matrix
In the original draft of the screenplay for The Matrix (1) there is a speech of Neo’s that never made it into the final cut. This is a pity as it seems to go some way to reveal what The Matrix is trying to say to its audience. “…to be free, truly free, you cannot change your cage. You have to change yourself”. At its core the film is more about perception than technology but it is the dynamic between the two that enables it to rise above the trappings of a ‘Hollywood blockbuster’ and yet still retain that title. That The Matrix offers much more than bullets and special effects is easy to miss but hidden amongst the testosterone and flo-motion is the latest example of how science-fiction dulls the shock of things to come.
In 1957 America was stunned to find itself second place in the fledgling space race, while science-fiction had already conquered the universe for America with Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, the Soviet Union had gone one better and launched Sputnik. While the country could easily believe in an attack from Mars (2) or be thrilled at the idea of an alien fighting for truth, justice and the American way (3), they were not prepared for the reality of technology. Determined not to be beaten again (although they were when cosmonaut Yury Gagarin orbited the earth in 1961) the United States formed the Advanced Projects Agency, which by 1969 had produced ARPAnet signalling the birth of the Internet. Fast forward thirty years and over one hundred million individuals are ‘connected’ to the Internet.
As the Internet has evolved, science-fiction writers have kept a close eye on it but it was only in 1984 that William Gibson coined a new phrase and changed the future as readers of science-fiction knew it;
“Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination (4) experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts… A graphical representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the non-space of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding…” (5)
Gibson was referring to a virtual world, one that existed only in the connections between computers, networks and the digital media that users employ to perceive it. His novel Neuromancer had set the pace for a phenomenon that would come to be known as cyberpunk and in the following fifteen years other authors would choose to turn their backs on outerspace, aliens and spaceships in order to loose their protagonists in Gibson’s footsteps. Many would simply take more conventional genres and spin them off into the mostly uncharted literary territory of cyberspace; Gibson’s own protagonist, Case, in many ways is simply a Sam Spade or Phillip Marlowe updated for the digital age. A few later authors, like Neal Stephenson, would use cyberspace to actually explore the ‘world’ of the hacker and more importantly their psychology but in the beginning the look and feel of cyberspace seemed to be more important. This is not surprising as Gibson at the time of writing Neuromancer knew relatively little about computers and those individuals that actually used them on a daily basis. By simply inventing the sections that he knew nothing about Gibson had a unique effect on the culture he had used as his inspiration – hackers and other computer users took the novel to their hearts and set about attempting to recreate its feel and image amongst themselves. Suddenly the ‘nerds’ were cool and new buzz-words began to flit through the media, at the forefront cyberpunk.
It seems relevant at this point to give a quick definition of what a hacker actually is and for this I turn your attention to The New Hacker’s Dictionary: (6)
hacker n.
[originally, someone who makes furniture with an axe] 1. A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary. 2. One who programs enthusiastically (even obsessively) or who enjoys programming rather than just theorising about programming. 3. A person capable of appreciating hack value. 4. A person who is good at programming quickly. 5. An expert at a particular program, or one who frequently does work using it or on it; as in `a Unix hacker’. (Definitions 1 through 5 are correlated, and people who fit them congregate.) 6. An expert or enthusiast of any kind. One might be an astronomy hacker, for example. 7. One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations. 8. [deprecated] A malicious meddler who tries to discover sensitive information by poking around. Hence `password hacker’, `network hacker’. The correct term for this sense is cracker.
Rave New World
Those not involved in the expanding sphere of cyberspace attempted to interpret it through the more recognisable medium of television with the enjoyable Max Headroom (7) whilst others more directly connected to the subgenre began to explore links with other fringe societies, especially the techno and rave scene.
Hacker wannabes now began to appear on the club circuit seemingly more interested in fashion statements than computer code – the more commercial aspect of this can be found at www.kipling.com which offers a range of ‘hacker’ fashion items (see opposite). The real world of cyberspace sighed heavily and reverted again to those who actually lived in it rather than those watching it. As a result ‘cy-fi’ was in danger of either becoming stale or again becoming nothing more than an elitist group estranged from the rest of society, but then in 1992 Snow Crash was published.
Neal Stevenson’s novel was the first to give a real insight into the what and more importantly the why of hackerdom and online life. Snow Crash although full of Gibsonesque jargon has a totally different feel to it, in part thanks to its humour, the novel gives an insight into just how much fun hacking and escaping reality can be.
As cyberpunk evolved so too did the technology and by the time Snow Crash appeared home computer systems were becoming more sophisticated and cheaper to buy. More and more people were now able to experience first hand a little of what Hiro Protagonist was seeing. Inevitably Hollywood slowly moved its heavy gaze towards cyberspace.
Hollywood’s Distorted looking Glass
The American film industry has always had a love / hate relationship with science-fiction, tending to love big money-making franchises such as Star Wars and Star Trek but not really knowing what to do with more modernist texts such as 2001: A Space Odyssey. In attempting to bring Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? to the screen, director Ridley Scott took an inspired leap into cyberpunk and created Blade Runner – the one movie above all others up until the release of The Matrix to have a direct effect on the ‘perception’ of cyberspace and hackers, but at the time of its release was sadly ignored.
The stunning visuals however did not go unnoticed and have formed the standard ‘visualisation’ of the online world, i.e. very crowded, very dark and very oriental.
Critics and audiences were left perplexed (even more so a year later with the release of War Games – Mathew Broderick almost starting a nuclear war by hacking into America’s nuclear defence system from his bedroom). Another kid’s movie, Walt Disney’s Tron (1982) had faired better at showing the world inside a computer game but it wasn’t until 1992 that Hollywood really returned to the world of hackers but rather than dwell on the space between the computers it was content to have Robert Redford and a band of misfits outwit both bad guys and government alike with their codebreaking skills in Sneakers (strictly speaking both Sneakers and Hackers were involved with the art of cracking rather than hacking). Next came a spate of internet inspired movies, the better ones sticking to standard thriller territory like The Net (8) but unfortunately leaving utter nonsense such as The Lawnmower Man (not once but twice!) and Johnny Mnemonic (9) to attempt a cinematic journey into cyberspace. This was a time when big chunky brightly coloured graphics were seen as the best way to perceive virtual reality and audiences were treated to a big chunky brightly coloured virtual Keanu Reeves acting his ‘real’ counterpart off the screen. Thankfully Reeves did not allow Johnny Moronic as it had become known to put him off the realm of cyberspace and in 1999 everyone’s perception was changed again.
Love what you fear and vice versa
“They’re coming for you, Neo.”
The majority of users hooked up to the internet today see it as a tool for consumerism; whether it be research, shopping or sexual gratification, what you want is now literally only a click away. There is however an ever-growing group of individuals online, some of whom have been here since the beginning, who see the Internet and Web not as a glorified library, shopping mall or brothel, but rather as somewhere to exist. Estranged from the rest of society this group have their own set of rules, their own language, their own media – they have carved a new home in a virtual world that has spawned its own mythology, its own heroes and of course its own monsters.
Paranoia reigns high online, not surprising since the Internet was first deployed and then maintained for 21 years by the American military. The Wachowski brothers’ film The Matrixhas a healthy dose of paranoia. This can be placed at the feet of pre-millennium anxiety but the anxiety present here is slightly different from the driving force of The X Files; at its core The Matrix is an anti-establishment movie and while Scully and Mulder have a kind of ‘golden ticket’ being FBI agents, there position in the system ultimately makes them part of the problem. The hackers in The Matrix represent the ultimate anarchist group and as such are opposed by the ultimate symbol of authority – the Agents of the Matrix rather than a federal authority.
The Sentinel’s ability to morph into any individual plugged into the Matrix makes them a much more worthy adversary than the usual shadowy men-in-black type stereotypes that we see in most conspiracy fare. (10)
“The Matrix is a system, Neo, and that system is our enemy. But when you are inside and look around, what do you see; businessman, lawyers, teachers, carpenters. The minds of the very people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of the system and that makes them our enemy.”
Morpheus’ speech here is an interesting one; on one level it excuses the carnage that later follows and Trinity’s killing of the police officers in the opening of the movie but this is still a morally grey area. The people killed in the Matrix die in the real world and the heroes’ ideals stating that those people aren’t actually ‘living’ is perhaps not as strong an argument as it first seems. Secondly, look at the list of people that Morpheus cites; he categorises them by occupation rather than gender or age – these are not children, men or women getting in his way but tools of the system. It could be argued that he is providing a list of occupations that represent the achievements humanity can reach; the ability to pass on our knowledge to others through teaching but success in business equalling capitalism and lawyers is the other end of the spectrum. It seems more likely that these are seen as pawns of the system and as such something to be avoided at all costs. The inclusion of ‘carpenters’ at first seems an odd one – perhaps a nod to an older way of creating rather than the technological nightmare of the Matrix, but it could also be seen as a religious reference.
Subcultures seem to allow for a heady mix of non-mainstream religions – Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for example – it is rare to find Christianity portrayed in a positive way. In The Matrix Neo soon reinvents himself in his own image and becomes the hope for mankind ‘The One’. That he has to ‘die’ before he can save us (11) and is ultimately ‘reborn’ is very interesting; but also is the fact that other religions and some supernatural abilities are revealed to be the works of individuals more in ‘tune’ with the Matrix – a technological trapping rather than a spiritual one.
Decoding The Matrix
“Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.”
Brothers Andy and Larry Wachowski unleashed a movie that finally dragged science-fiction cinema into Gibson and Stephenson’s arena while at the same time putting their own derivative stamp on cyberspace. The Matrix not only redefined action cinema but also served as a looking glass for the individuals who would most identify themselves and be identified with the film’s characters and situations. The appeal of the film was not simply felt by those hooked to their computers for a great portion of the day but just about anyone who had spent any sustained amount of time online recognised the world that The Matrix was exploring. That the Wachowski’s had also made their film violent, sexy and fun also helped at the box office. By analysing basic aspects of The Matrix it is possible to bring into sharp focus the look of the online subculture and its psychology.
The Importance of Re-invention
“My name is Neo!”
Neo, The Matrix.
The character of Neo played by Keanu Reeves in The Matrix is caught between two very different states of existence even before he has been ‘recruited’ by Morpheus. Just so we are clear on this Hugo Weaving’s Agent Smith underlines it both for Neo and the audience;
AGENT SMITH
It seems that you have been living two lives. In one life, you are Thomas A. Anderson, program writer for a respectable software company. You have a social security number, you pay your taxes and you help your landlady carry out her garbage.
The pages continue to turn.
AGENT SMITH
The other life is lived in computers were you go by the hacker alias Neo, and are guilty of virtually every computer crime we have a law for.
In his role as a microserf for Meta Cortechs (12) Neo obviously fails to fit in because of his unwillingness to conform as his employer points out;
RHINEHEART
You have a problem with authority, Mr Anderson. You believe that you are special, that somehow the rules do not apply to you. Obviously, you are mistaken.
Throughout the dressing down by Rhineheart Neo keeps his head down, cowed by the system and his dependency on it, it is only later once his alias has been discovered that Neo finds the courage to give ‘the finger’ to the system. The brief glimpse we get of Neo at work and the night before interacting with the clubbers show a very introspective personality, ill at ease when interacting with others face to face. “Hackers often have poor person to person communication skills… they are often better at writing than talking” (13) Neo simply does not function well as ‘Kevin Anderson’, that is not who he wants to be. During the interrogation scene and all their subsequent meetings Agent Smith insists on using Neo’s ‘real’ name as if it were a weapon used to beat him into submission.
The Agents as representatives of the system, of the Matrix, have nondescript surnames and no Christian names at all; Smith, Brown and Jones – conservative names to match their appearance, monikers to underline their normality and authority. The hackers of the film as in our reality reject such names, choosing new ones that better reflect who they are and what they want to appear to be. Neo is derived from the Greek, Neoptolemus, meaning ‘New Warrior’. In Greek mythology Neoptolemus was the son of Achilles; it was prophesised to the Achaeans that Troy would never fall without the aid of Neoptolemus (14). When writing their movie the Wachowski brothers were obviously aware of the importance that a screen-name not only has to sound good but for it to have a deeper meaning upon inspection. The leader of the hackers, Morpheus, for example also has a name derived from ancient Greek, this time relating to ‘form’, in mythology Morpheus had the ability to change his shape at will in order to reveal himself through people’s dreams – a fitting name for a character dedicated to awakening an entire race from a delusion. This level of writing in The Matrix does seem to exceed usual Hollywood standards (compare this script to The Phantom Menace for example).
Not only hackers recreate themselves online. As soon as a computer system is purchased the owner begins to undergo a series of reinventions through e mail addresses, domain names, website names, screen-names, avatars and Sims. By simply attaching a mascot to the top of the monitor you are customising the system to yourself but many find themselves totally immersed in the virtual world and allow the experience to customise them. Hiro in Snow Crash prefers the virtual reality of the ‘Street’ to the reality of living in a storage unit and delivering pizza for the Mafia, while Neo, according to the script, is “a man who knows more about living inside a computer than outside one” but every user begins to build an online identity no matter how far removed they may be from the worlds of Hiro and Neo as soon as they begin the simplest computer related procedure; setting up an email address.
It is possible to allow your online identity to closely resemble or even mimic your real life identity; John or Jane Doe with minimum effort and imagination can create the email address jdoe@whatever.com. Many though see this as simply the first chance to be a little creative and give life to a side of themselves that may not get a chance to be seen in the real world. This is more clearly seen in the use of screen-names on such services as America Online and ICQ. Obtaining an original and creative screen persona on an oversubscribed service like AOL can be a feat in itself, but most users think well worth the effort (Who wants to be Andy467 or Louise845 when you can be N4Sir or Firebrand(15)).
The name we have on our birth certificate, the name we use day in and day out in the real world is (in most cases) the one we were given at birth by our parents. Assigning ourselves a new moniker then is something akin to an act of rebellion and also a re-branding by the user – coming of age in the virtual world usually means a new name and one that suits your personality in a way that the name that your parents conceived for you can never do.
The power of this process is shown literally in a scene towards the end of The Matrix. Neo is held in front of an approaching subway train by Smith and again the representative of the system uses the power of a name to taunt and label;”Do you hear that Mr. Anderson? That is the sound of inevitability. It is the sound of your death. Good-bye Mr. Anderson.” In the context of the film Neo is no more ‘Mr. Anderson’ than the oncoming train is actually a ‘train’ – the world here is a subterfuge, the Matrix is a lie, his name is a lie. It is through direct confrontation with that lie that Neo finds it possible to tap into more hidden strength, to tap directly into the truth and re-establish his place in it. “My name is Neo!” (16) is the cry that restates his real identity and gives him the ability to deftly flip out of danger in flo-mo leaving the train to temporarily despatch the Sentinel.
Image is everything
“It’s what we call residual self image. The mental projection of your electronic self. Wild, isn’t it?”
Morpheus, The Matrix
Take a look at some of the publicity material for The Matrix and you immediately sense that style is incredibly important in this movie. Keanu Reeves is a little more toned than usual, slimmed down while Carrie-Anne Moss could be his female double; both dressed in figure hugging black leather (Ms Moss of course showing a little more flesh) and then there is Lawrence Fishburne, resplendent in his Hong Kong-action style long jacket and everyone of course wears designer shades. As a fashion statement its eye-catching, on camera it looks fantastic and it’s a million miles away from the early eighties stereotypical thought that those involved in the world of computers were nothing more than bespectacled nerds.
The Matrix owes again something to Snow Crash whose characters also dressed to impress:
“The Deliverator’s uniform is black as activated charcoal, filtering the light out of the air. A bullet will bounce off its aracnofiber weave like a wren hitting a patio door, but excess perspiration wafts through it like a breeze through a fleshly napalmed forest.” (17)
Style then is everything and the colour (as in most subcultures) seems to be black. The script however does not neglect to address Neo’s image before he is ‘rescued’ by Morpheus – as The New Hacker’s Dictionary points out, those in Neo’s line of work are generally “Intelligent. Scruffy. Intense. Abstracted… tans are rare.” The leader of the clubbers, Choi, comments to Neo “You look a little whiter than usual” after his first contact with Morpheus’ group. Neo at this point dresses for comfort rather than style and it is obvious how ill at ease he is wearing a suit the following morning. Suits after all represent authority and conformity hence the Sentinels’ impeccable dress code. Once Neo is freed from the constraints of society’s expectations he is free to reinvent himself and like his fellow freedom fighters his self image seems to verge on the fetishistic. It is worthy to note that although the sunglasses that everyone wears are definitely stylish there is in the script a need for them;
“The door opens and for the first time since his release, Neo steps back into the Matrix. He squints at the sun which seems unnaturally bright. He is the only one without sunglasses.”
The clubbers although only featured briefly in the movie are another subculture represented in the movie, seeking their own escape from the system not only through the techno/rave scene but also through drug use, “…the only way to fly.” By the end of the movie however, Neo has found a new way. The clubbers are tattooed and pierced and when we see them in their own environment the place seems to have a heavy S&M atmosphere – yet more ways to rebel from the oppressive ‘norm’ of society are nodded to here.
What The Matrix does that is very interesting is suggest that even the most subversive of cultures here are still nothing more than another aspect of the very system that its members are rejecting. The only true subversives (literally so in that they spend the majority of their lives below the ruins of civilisation) in the film are the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar – the other subcultures such as the clubbers are nothing more than batteries for the system despite their rebellious fantasy trappings.
One of the questions raised in the film is why would the system allow the introduction of hackers into itself if they as a group pose the greatest threat? The comic-books that have grown around the myths of The Matrix (18) go someway to explain this as on occasion it seems that individuals with computer orientated skills are recruited by the Sentinels to do work they themselves cannot.
Gender
“I just thought… you were a guy.”
There is of course one character in The Matrix who dares to be different in their dress style – Belinda McClory playing Switch gets to stand out from the crowd wearing white leather as opposed to the uniform black. It seems even with the most subversive of cultures divisions remain. The screenplay refers to Switch as a “beautiful androgyne” and it seems the Wachowski brothers intend her character to represent those genderless or anti-gender segments of the online world.
Gender issues are focussed on briefly in some of the internet based novels that sprung up towards the end of the century;
“The real world seems more lonely than before. Sitting here at my screen in England I feel like a one-woman species.” (19)
But perhaps the finest example of online gender-twisting can be found in the novel Nearly Roadkill, in which two gender swapping online misfits become symbolic of the individuals distrust of ‘policing’ the Internet. In both this novel and The Matrix it is the flesh that is always vulnerable – just as the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar are vulnerable while their consciousness is hooked up so to does the body provide the weakness for Nearly Roadkill’s Eyes (The all too human equivalent of The Matrix’s Agents (20)). Winc and Scratch distract an Eye by means of seduction and thereby escape detection and capture. For all of the Eye’s online image they are still linked back to a real body and it is here that Scratch directs the ‘attack’, first by reducing the Eye to a real person, Marie, and then by having cybersex with her, enabling her partner Winc to escape. As Scratch first flirts with and then has sex with the Eye, the reader sees what the Eye cannot – the hidden IMs (21) between Scratch and Winc:
Scratch:
I believe I got a Sapphist here, friend, and she thinks I’m one too..
Winc:
Go for it, if it gets us by, but hang on I’ve found some really cool stuff!.
Scratch:
Send it on pal. I’ll distract her, if I can, and I’ll let you know when its all clear..
Winc:
Oh, the sacrifices you make for li’l ol’ me. Heehee.. (22)
At their very first meeting Neo says something very revealing to Trinity about the nature of cyberspace, “I just thought… you were a guy.” Trinity’s reply reveals just as much “Most guys do.” In Neo’s subcultural world of hackers the name Trinity is almost as mythical as that of Morpheus, “Trinity? The Trinity? The Trinity that cracked the IRS d-base?” All the resistance fighters (save for Tank and Dozer who were born outside of the Matrix) had been recruited as a direct result of their skills as hack and crack experts. For Trinity to be revealed as female comes as something of a shock to Neo who like the world that the film is playing to has the preconception that an individual so immersed in the world of cyberspace must be male. “Hackerdom is still predominantly male. However, the percentage of women is clearly higher than the low-single-digit range typical for technical professions, and female hackers are generally respected and dealt with as equals” (23). Despite this refreshing attitude online sexist stereotyping in cyberspace does exist (as do ageist and racist ones). Unless a person’s screen name or e mail address specifically says otherwise most of those online are assumed to be young white males.
Looking at the computer and console software industry provides a clue as to why this is; most games are marketed towards young male consumers – blood and violence abound (Quake) while any female representation seems to be limited to objects of male pubescent desire. Female intelligence is rarely a factor in computer-gaming and while the Tomb Raider franchise’s Lara Croft does have the brains to match her ‘beauty’, much more is made of her bra size and tight shorts rather than the ability she has to think her way out of dangerous situations (but when her back is up against a wall Lara seems to like nothing better than to let rip with a pair of Uzi’s).
Nearly Roadkill uses its own non-gender-specific pronouns to help conceal the gender of its protagonists – this is not an invention of the authors but something that in certain sections of cyberspace is adhered to quite strongly “e.g. The cop sat at hir computer and typed…Ze cop sat at the computer and typed.” (24) We can hope that the Wachowski brothers will examine the use of gender in cyberspace through the next Matrix movies – after their initial outing in Bound (1996) it is obvious that they are interested in reversing ‘normal’ gender roles.
Skins and shirts
In his essay, Back to the heady future, JG Ballard goes on to say that the movie Star Wars by revealing technology that was so advanced that it was already in decline ruined the prospect of such technology taking shape in reality, as our expectations as an audience and as consumers grew larger. This is still true today when consumers become so frustrated at download times, bemoaning the time it takes to download say an MP3 file when only a year ago the alternative would have been to await music releases the ‘old fashioned’ way.
After viewing a movie as visually stunning as The Matrix the process of logging on can seem dull, hence the various online ‘worlds’ and communities that now offer a visual interface. www.virtualzones.co.uk for example offers users the chance to create their own online ‘skins’ to match online persona – how closely this resembles their real identity is entirely up to the user. This is achieved by manipulating a scanned image of yourself or indeed anyone and uploading it into the virtual world – a more basic system is provided through the use of Microsoft Chat found free on the majority of PCs. Now just as in the online gaming rooms of say AOL, communities have become overpopulated with muscle-bound ‘hero’ types and overly-buxom ‘heroines’ but now we are able to see how each ‘roomie’ perceives themselves or at least how they wish to be perceived.
The crucial thing about the perceived world of The Matrix is that it mimics our own world closely enough to contain poverty, drug use and violence but also has the tedium of the workplace. It is only the likes of Trinity and Neo who get to play the ‘game’ with guns, kung-fu and helicopters – everyone else is scenery. One of the best-selling PC games of the year has been The Sims in which the player’s objective is to look after an artificial (semi) intelligent individual or family; feed them, wash them, clothe them, find them not only jobs but careers, have them socialise, marry and raise children. No monsters, no guns, no explosions (the odd kitchen fire instead). Players now interact online and trade various real-life and fantasy skins for their creations, so that users can now watch such ‘people’ as Britney Spears or Spiderman wash up or microwave a pizza. The users Sims also have computers too, so it is now possible to relax after work by sitting at your PC watching your Sim relax after work by sitting at his or her PC. Whether the game is imitating life or vice versa is hard to judge. Naturally, you can download Matrix skins and sit back to enjoy Trinity and Neo having a domestic.
Rage Against the Machine
The soundtrack to The Matrix speaks volumes about the movie’s content – the film finishes with Neo literally soaring above the heads of the masses with the cinema shaking to the shouts of Wake Up by Rage Against the Machine. The rest of the soundtrack is as follows:
Dissolved Girl ~ Massive Attack
Dragula ~ Rob Zombie
I’m beginning to see the Light ~ Duke Ellington
Mindfields ~ Prodigy
Leave You Far Behind ~ Lunatic Calm
Prime Audio Soup ~ Meat Beat Manifesto
Clubbed to Death ~ Rob D
Minor Swing ~ Django Reinhardt
Spybreak ~ Propellerheads
Rock is Dead ~ Marilyn Manson
Begin the Run ~ Jimmie Haskel (25)
All you need is love
The Matrix ends with the ultimate in wish fulfilment – the computer nerd not only ‘kills’ the badguy and gets the girl but also manages to cause the ultimate system crash. That this anarchy is achieved through the fairytale convention of a kiss bringing Neo back from the dead finally cements the relationship between technology and humanity. The Sentinels have all the technology but no humanity and in the end that technology is brought down by love:
“Trinity whispers in Neo’s ear..
TRINITY
Neo, please, listen to me. I promised to tell you the rest. The Oracle, she told me that I’d fall in love and that man, the man I loved would be the One. You see? You can’t be dead, Neo, you can’t be because I love you. You hear me I love you!
.Her eyes close and she kisses him, believing in all her heart that he will feel her lips and know that she speaks the truth.”
It is not surprising that at the time of writing not one but two sequels are currently shooting to The Matrix. We can always hope that rather than concentrating on creating a money-spinning franchise to rival Star Wars that the film-makers and producers produce a body of work that continues in the same vein as the original- yes we do expect to see the next generation of special effects and a monsoon of ammunition but hopefully somewhere in that mix will be a reflection of our own virtual selves.
NOTES:
(1) The Matrix (1999) written and directed by Andy and Larry Wachowski. All references to and quotes taken from the Warner Brothers film The Matrix are based on the 1999 DVD-ROM (Region 2) version of the movie.
(2) In a way America was attacked from Mars in 1938 when Orson Welles terrorised parts of the country with his Mercury Theater radio version of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds. (see http://www.bway.net/~nipper/index.html for further details.)
(3) Superman was a popular TV series in the fifties as well as a comic book.
(4) This defines the difference between Gibsonian cyberspace and the Wachowskian Matrix; the overwhelming majority of Matrix users are unaware that they are a part of it.
(5) Gibson, William Neuromancer 1984 Voyager P67
(6) The full New Hacker’s Dictionary can be browsed or downloaded from here
(7) The original show is not to be confused with the later ‘chat show’ hosted by ‘Max’ himself, ironically the only member of the cast to further his career after the original show’s cancellation.
(8) It has to be said that Hackers attempted to go the route of the thriller and failed miserably – it is to hackerdom what Gleaming the Cube is to skateboarders.
(9) Johnny Mnemoic, ironically was based on a story by none other than William Gibson.
(10) Towards the end of the film Neo is pursued by Agents who morph into other people around the city – as he crashes through one apartment if you watch very carefully you get a flash of The Prisoner television show playing on the TV set – the ultimate version of man trapped in a false world refusing to conform; “I am not a number! I am a free man!”
(11) In this reading Cypher becomes, of course, the Judas figure.
(12) Meta Cortechs or if you prefer meta-cortex; beyond the brain.
(13) The Hackers’ New Dictionary.
(14) It is interesting to note that Hollywood seems to like the use of mythology in its action films at the moment – In John Woo’s Face/Off the two villain brothers were named Castor and Pollox Troy.
(15) The act of renaming is not of course localised only to those who use computers – other subcultures such as street art or underground music feature renaming on a large scale.
(16) This is derivative of other such scenes in film and literature where the hero restates his title or name in order to re-establish himself at a key moment. Hamlet at Ophelia’s graveside for example.
(17) Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash, Penguin 1992, p1
(18) The best of which can be seen online at http://whatisthematrix.warnerbros.com/ or on the DVD release of the movie.
(19) Melanie McGrath, Hard, Soft & Wet: the digital generation comes of age, Harper Collins 1997, p57.
(20) The Eyes here actually have more in common with the ‘Guides’ of AOL
(21) Instant Messages – the usual way that those online talk to one another in ‘real time’ rather than via e mail.
(22) Caitlin Sullivan & Kate Bornstein, Nearly Roadkill: An Infobahn Erotic Adventure, High Risk Books 1996, p170
(23) The New Hacker’s Dictionary
(24) Caitlin Sullivan & Kate Bornstein, Nearly Roadkill: An Infobahn Erotic Adventure, High Risk Books 1996, pp383-5.
(25) This track is taken from the 1972 horror movie, Night of the Lepus, about giant rabbits and starring Deforest Kelley (Star Trek‘s ‘Bones’ McCoy)! A scene of which can be seen playing in the Oracle’s apartment.