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Apologies if you've seen this before,
Jan. 30th, 2025 02:06 pmAnd I feel like I should have figured this out before, if I haven't already. My time on this journal seems to include repeating cycles where I have an epiphany about something, go "why hadn't this occurred to me before?" And then something causes me to check previous entries from years ago, and it turns out that it had occurred to me, I just forgot.
It was the first or second time this happened that caused me to start to migrate back to journaling, vs other forms of social media in the late 2010s.
In this case, the reason why the initial audience reaction to the Matrix sequels was so negative. Not because they're "bad movies," But because the fans wanted the sequel they imagined in their heads where Neo was going to "teach everyone else still stuck in the Matrix how to do what he did."
They especially didn't want anything to create doubt about The Prophesy or The One. They wanted a sequel about a Prophetic Savior, and they wanted him to beat the Machines and liberate all of humanity. This is an aspect of the Fandom Displeasure that I have already gone over at length.
Here's the thing. Of course people wanted that imaginary sequel to awe them and shake up their brains the way that the first one had. But I also think that in 2003, a lot of fans maybe wanted the sequels to essentially be something that would turn out to be a roadmap out of the increasingly shitty situation that was developing in the real world. Something they could actually believe in, something which would contain the strategic or symbolic or metaphorical tools to fight back against the "Machines" or their real-world equivalent - in real time - and restore the world to the way it had been back in the 90s (or specifically, the way it was before September 11, 2001.)
I mean, I know there were people who wanted an Actual Redpill, like it was a Hogwarts Letter. I know this on a personal basis. But in a sense, Neo-ism had low-key become a religion to some of these people, and Neo was a god to them. And for the Sisters to claim "No, it was all a trick by The Machines" was tantamount to the Sisters telling these people that their god wasn't real. And I think maybe the chuds going around calling themselves "Red Pills" are fighting for their idea of what "the Matrix was supposed to be, before it was ruined," on some level, trying to "reclaim" a movie and its symbolset for what their idea of masculinity is. A movie created by two trans women.
All of this is similar to an idea I had about why interest in the X Files TV show eventually fizzled out, as well; and it wasn't just because David Duchovny left the show. It may have to do with the unspoken belief amongst some fans that Chris Carter at one point was trying to communicate THE REAL TRUTH as he saw it to the TV viewing audience. But that also would mean that whatever Mulder and Scully eventually found would have to be THE REAL TRUTH about alien/ufo abductions as well, and that maybe Chris Carter either wasn't willing or wasn't able to commit fully to the bit, as it were.
I mean, he claims to have been visited by the actual FBI at one point and questioned about what he knew, because something he put in the show was "too similar to the truth," but they wouldn't tell him which thing. But yeah. X Files enraptured and excited audiences the same way that The Matrix did in many ways, and for some viewers I think that part of that excitement came from the idea that they were maybe getting tidbits of actual "truth." From a TV show.
But there are reasons why the sequels couldn't have been made the way a lot of fans might have wanted. The first being that maybe the Sisters were probably not trying to spark a revolution, they were maybe just trying to create a cool work of art containing influences from, and tributes to, different books, film, TV, and anime they liked, like a lot of creators do. A work of art that contained a subtextual, autobiograhical undercurrent of their experiences of being Transgender, and of Queer rebellion.
Second: Rage against which Machines? Would any two people in 2003 have agreed who or what "The Machines" or "The System" was?
I know that in 1999, a lot of us young working class American Gen X/Millennial cuspers had this vague idea of "The System" being "The Man." And "The Man" wanted us all to conform, and get steady jobs, and exchange our youthful ideals for lives of empty but comfortable materialism. There were already some ideological lines in the sand.
For example: if, like me, you were a young white Queer person at the turn of the century, your ideals were probably Left of center, and you idea of "The Man" definitely included conservative authority figures like Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr, cops, your mean boss at work who made you cover your tattoos and take out your piercings, and also noted hatemongers like Rush Limbaugh, Pat Robertson, Jesse Helms and Fred Phelps. Your idea of "The Man" probably differed a lot from those whose politics were more towards the Center or Right, but you could still go to Dennys with those people and hang out. Peer groups tended to be more politically diverse back then - but that may have just been my experience as someone living in the suburb of a big city. Someone's experience growing up in a small town was probably very different.
But by 2003, it seemed we'd split into ideological Left or Liberal vs Conservative (or really, Neoconservative) lines, based on your opinion of George W. Bush and the war in Iraq. And this divide just kept growing, thanks a lot to the Bush administration's divisive binary, black-and-white, "you're either with us or against us" wartime propaganda and rhetoric. The emergence of algorithm-driven social media (and a lot of the bad actors who use it) made that divide all but irreconcilable, because the web 2.0 social media algorithm is an "engagement" vampire that feeds on conflict. What this means is, you have two or more ideologically opposed groups, each of whom are convinced that their adversaries are "The Machines," and need to be defeated.
Third, and this is probably the most important: The Suits(tm) weren't, and aren't going to give people the tools or the roadmap they need to Actually Dismantle The System. They're not going to let this happen with any entertainment franchise. I think Speed Racer and Sense8 are probably as close as we are going to be able get from the Wachowski Sisters? Any "revolutionary" themed entertainment that does get out to us is generally intended to be a cathartic safety release valve so we don't actually revolt. It's escapism for people to disappear into while the world burns, or is stripped for parts.
HOWEVER: Another problem is that I think the Sisters maybe underestimated how much The Matrix already had radicalized some people, and the fact that those people were going to the Sequels hoping to be radicalized again. Or that the language and symbolism of the film would seep into the pop culture language of revolution and radicalization.
Or that it could all fall into the wrong hands, and be used by bad actors to influence people to believe and to do bad things. Someone was eventually going to misappropriate that symbolset, and that is exactly what they did.
But what would it have looked like, if the Wachowski Sisters themselves had provided such a roadmap? Well, if they had (and I know this is kind of a controversial subject) it might resemble the one in Grant Morrison's comic book series The Invisibles.
There have been all sorts of rumors about the influence that the comic supposedly had on the first film, that issues of the comic were being passed around on the set, etc. I heard these rumors for the first time in 2005, but I didn't actually sit down and read the comic until 2013. I do see the parallels. I've also seen what happens when the same idea emerges from the collective subconscious and approaches different sets of creators at around the same time: because it was time for that particular idea to be disseminated.
It does makes me wonder what an Invisibles movie or series would look like. And if one of the reasons why The Matrix took off and Invisibles has remained more or less in the comic medium is the fact that the Matrix distills those ideas down to something that can be experienced and assimilated in one sitting.
Anyway, go read The Invisibles!
Current Mood.
It was the first or second time this happened that caused me to start to migrate back to journaling, vs other forms of social media in the late 2010s.
In this case, the reason why the initial audience reaction to the Matrix sequels was so negative. Not because they're "bad movies," But because the fans wanted the sequel they imagined in their heads where Neo was going to "teach everyone else still stuck in the Matrix how to do what he did."
They especially didn't want anything to create doubt about The Prophesy or The One. They wanted a sequel about a Prophetic Savior, and they wanted him to beat the Machines and liberate all of humanity. This is an aspect of the Fandom Displeasure that I have already gone over at length.
Here's the thing. Of course people wanted that imaginary sequel to awe them and shake up their brains the way that the first one had. But I also think that in 2003, a lot of fans maybe wanted the sequels to essentially be something that would turn out to be a roadmap out of the increasingly shitty situation that was developing in the real world. Something they could actually believe in, something which would contain the strategic or symbolic or metaphorical tools to fight back against the "Machines" or their real-world equivalent - in real time - and restore the world to the way it had been back in the 90s (or specifically, the way it was before September 11, 2001.)
I mean, I know there were people who wanted an Actual Redpill, like it was a Hogwarts Letter. I know this on a personal basis. But in a sense, Neo-ism had low-key become a religion to some of these people, and Neo was a god to them. And for the Sisters to claim "No, it was all a trick by The Machines" was tantamount to the Sisters telling these people that their god wasn't real. And I think maybe the chuds going around calling themselves "Red Pills" are fighting for their idea of what "the Matrix was supposed to be, before it was ruined," on some level, trying to "reclaim" a movie and its symbolset for what their idea of masculinity is. A movie created by two trans women.
All of this is similar to an idea I had about why interest in the X Files TV show eventually fizzled out, as well; and it wasn't just because David Duchovny left the show. It may have to do with the unspoken belief amongst some fans that Chris Carter at one point was trying to communicate THE REAL TRUTH as he saw it to the TV viewing audience. But that also would mean that whatever Mulder and Scully eventually found would have to be THE REAL TRUTH about alien/ufo abductions as well, and that maybe Chris Carter either wasn't willing or wasn't able to commit fully to the bit, as it were.
I mean, he claims to have been visited by the actual FBI at one point and questioned about what he knew, because something he put in the show was "too similar to the truth," but they wouldn't tell him which thing. But yeah. X Files enraptured and excited audiences the same way that The Matrix did in many ways, and for some viewers I think that part of that excitement came from the idea that they were maybe getting tidbits of actual "truth." From a TV show.
But there are reasons why the sequels couldn't have been made the way a lot of fans might have wanted. The first being that maybe the Sisters were probably not trying to spark a revolution, they were maybe just trying to create a cool work of art containing influences from, and tributes to, different books, film, TV, and anime they liked, like a lot of creators do. A work of art that contained a subtextual, autobiograhical undercurrent of their experiences of being Transgender, and of Queer rebellion.
Second: Rage against which Machines? Would any two people in 2003 have agreed who or what "The Machines" or "The System" was?
I know that in 1999, a lot of us young working class American Gen X/Millennial cuspers had this vague idea of "The System" being "The Man." And "The Man" wanted us all to conform, and get steady jobs, and exchange our youthful ideals for lives of empty but comfortable materialism. There were already some ideological lines in the sand.
For example: if, like me, you were a young white Queer person at the turn of the century, your ideals were probably Left of center, and you idea of "The Man" definitely included conservative authority figures like Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr, cops, your mean boss at work who made you cover your tattoos and take out your piercings, and also noted hatemongers like Rush Limbaugh, Pat Robertson, Jesse Helms and Fred Phelps. Your idea of "The Man" probably differed a lot from those whose politics were more towards the Center or Right, but you could still go to Dennys with those people and hang out. Peer groups tended to be more politically diverse back then - but that may have just been my experience as someone living in the suburb of a big city. Someone's experience growing up in a small town was probably very different.
But by 2003, it seemed we'd split into ideological Left or Liberal vs Conservative (or really, Neoconservative) lines, based on your opinion of George W. Bush and the war in Iraq. And this divide just kept growing, thanks a lot to the Bush administration's divisive binary, black-and-white, "you're either with us or against us" wartime propaganda and rhetoric. The emergence of algorithm-driven social media (and a lot of the bad actors who use it) made that divide all but irreconcilable, because the web 2.0 social media algorithm is an "engagement" vampire that feeds on conflict. What this means is, you have two or more ideologically opposed groups, each of whom are convinced that their adversaries are "The Machines," and need to be defeated.
Third, and this is probably the most important: The Suits(tm) weren't, and aren't going to give people the tools or the roadmap they need to Actually Dismantle The System. They're not going to let this happen with any entertainment franchise. I think Speed Racer and Sense8 are probably as close as we are going to be able get from the Wachowski Sisters? Any "revolutionary" themed entertainment that does get out to us is generally intended to be a cathartic safety release valve so we don't actually revolt. It's escapism for people to disappear into while the world burns, or is stripped for parts.
HOWEVER: Another problem is that I think the Sisters maybe underestimated how much The Matrix already had radicalized some people, and the fact that those people were going to the Sequels hoping to be radicalized again. Or that the language and symbolism of the film would seep into the pop culture language of revolution and radicalization.
Or that it could all fall into the wrong hands, and be used by bad actors to influence people to believe and to do bad things. Someone was eventually going to misappropriate that symbolset, and that is exactly what they did.
But what would it have looked like, if the Wachowski Sisters themselves had provided such a roadmap? Well, if they had (and I know this is kind of a controversial subject) it might resemble the one in Grant Morrison's comic book series The Invisibles.
There have been all sorts of rumors about the influence that the comic supposedly had on the first film, that issues of the comic were being passed around on the set, etc. I heard these rumors for the first time in 2005, but I didn't actually sit down and read the comic until 2013. I do see the parallels. I've also seen what happens when the same idea emerges from the collective subconscious and approaches different sets of creators at around the same time: because it was time for that particular idea to be disseminated.
It does makes me wonder what an Invisibles movie or series would look like. And if one of the reasons why The Matrix took off and Invisibles has remained more or less in the comic medium is the fact that the Matrix distills those ideas down to something that can be experienced and assimilated in one sitting.
Anyway, go read The Invisibles!
Current Mood.
