On March 21, 1999, The Matrix was released in the United States. Directed by the famous duo, The Wachowskis, The Matrix took home four Oscars for Best Film Editing (Zach Staenberg), Best Sound (John T. Reitz, Gregg Rudloff, David E. Campbell, David Lee), Best Effects - Sound Effects Editing (Dane A. Davis), Best Effects - Visual Effects (John Gaeta, Janek Sirrs, Steve Courtley, Jon Thum). It received an additional 38 awards, amounting to 42 awards total between 1999 and 2021. Known collectively as The Wachowskis, the sisters worked together as a writing and directing team throughout the majority of their careers. Their directing debut was in 1996 with Bound, which propelled the fame and advertisement of their second film, The Matrix, a box office hit for which they won the Saturn Award for Best Director. They took inspiration from the book Neuromancer by William Gibson, the iconic cyberpunk novel that gave rise to the "matrix." The sisters also mentioned that they took inspiration from Japanese anime for the other-worldly fight sequences and used ideas from religion and philosophy to drive their story.
Starring Keanu Reeves as Thomas Anderson/Neo, The Matrix includes the supporting cast of Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, and Joe Pantoliano. The Matrix grossed over $460 million worldwide and received largely positive reviews from critics, praising its visual effects, action sequences, and creative cinematography. The movie is considered one of the best sci-fi films, added to the National Film Registry for preservation in 2012. The film was primarily shot in Sydney (either in the Fox Studios or around the city itself); however, the major landmarks were not included to preserve the impression of a generic American city. Principal photography took 118 days, beginning in March 1998 and ending in August. The movie depicts a dystopian future in which humanity is trapped inside a simulated reality. When computer programmer Thomas Anderson, under the alias "Neo," uncovers the truth, he is drawn into a rebellion along with other people who have been freed from the Matrix. After The Wachowski sisters both came out as transgender women, how can we see the trans allegory play throughout the movie?
The brilliance of the sci-fi genre is its ability to sneak in political ideals past its unknowing audience. Cinema is the communication of human experience, no matter its genre, but audiences who think they're being preached tend to be defensive of the message. When people see sci-fi, they only comprehend what they see, not looking for a deeper meaning behind the words. This allows the writers to avoid the audience's prejudices and engage them in a unique experience that they would not have considered if they knew what it was about in the first place. The Matrix functions as an allegory for trans people trying to live in a society that wants to get rid of them. Neo is an archetypal trans woman. Every day he goes to an office and tries to fit in, but he can't. He has friends in other areas, but he doesn't connect with them either. As Morpheus puts it, he has a "splinter in his mind." The red pill that frees Neo from the matrix is the spitting image of spironolactone, the most common testosterone suppressant used by trans women. Neo then (literally) rebuilds his body, goes through the blunt "rebirth," and officially changes his name from Thomas Anderson to Neo. His allies all call him by his chosen name, but Mr. Smith deliberately calls him Mr. Anderson, with a strong emphasis on the male pronoun.
AGENT SMITH: You hear that, Mr. Anderson? That is the sound of inevitability. It is the sound of your death. Goodbye, Mr. Anderson.
NEO: My name is Neo.
Neo's defeat of Smith in a subway is particularly noteworthy. In the Human Rights Campaign visibility award acceptance speech, Lana Wachowski described almost having committed suicide in her youth over her gender identity by stepping in front of a Chicago L train. Agent Smith is the human embodiment of the causes of disproportionate suicide among trans youth. He is the physical manifestation of the pressure to conform to society's traditional ideals of gender, no matter the consequences. The other Agents even show the "ideal American man," with square jaws and athletic builds. However, Smith doesn't even fit in with the other Agents! This makes me believe that Agent Smith is a projection of Neo if he were to join the Agents instead of the rebels. Smith's character lies in a valley of sorts, desperately trying to project the "ideal" masculinity but never truly embodying it himself. He represents Neo's resistance to embracing who he is, that there is no future with the way he wants to live, that he must conform to what society demands. So when Neo destroys Smith on that train platform, he obliterates all the past insecurities and embraces who he is—leaving only himself standing where Smith once was.
After watching The Matrix through this lens, I love it. Something I wasn't fond of in Hollywood movies was its inherent conservativeness since producers and studios essentially want to make the film open for all audiences of all political and social standings. Even if the concept seems revolutionary, like Rent, The Hunger Games, or even Les Miserables, it always shows the struggle of the minority groups and fails to celebrate the happier times. I'm not saying that the situations of the people in the movies I mentioned were awful. They absolutely were. I'm saying that struggle and hardship weren't the only things that oppressed minorities experienced. They experienced little joys too. Why is it so hard to show that? Before watching The Matrix, I didn't know about the allegory; I genuinely wouldn't even know that it was about the coming out of a transgender person in our current society. The Matrix is a cleverly written and directed movie, concealing the struggles of a minority (often swept under the rug) within a cyberpunk action movie.
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