Old Ideas, New Visions

By Penny Nichols

I believe Matrix Revolutions surpassed the original Matrix trilogy, but only because the twins surpassed themselves. They have spent enough time among the levers of power in the Hollywood-capitalist complex to gain a better understanding of how society controls us. The first movie was rather vague, referring to a system of control and then showing a lot of violence, then came two more movies escalating the stakes and the violence, but not so much the theme. The majority of ways society controls people are non-violent, otherwise it would less of a society and more of a labor camp.

Matrix Revolutions talks about balancing hope and despair to keep us working for the “man,” keeping our dreams just out of reach but close enough we keep reaching and about how we care more about feelings than facts, both of which are pervasive elements of TV and movies. The media keeps defining heroes as people who never give up against the odds, incidentally encouraging so many people to become artists that mass media companies can treat us as disposable. The art world isn’t like school, where everyone who works hard gets a good grade, it’s like the Olympics, where working hard can make you good at what you do, but no matter how hard everyone works, there are only three spots on the podium (and only so much shelf space in bookstores).

The movie talks briefly about the downsides of narrative psychology; we maintain an image of our selves by writing our own internal biographies, sometimes disregarding our own actions that contradict our self-image, which the villain of the movie calls “fiction,” and sometimes it is. I like to think of myself as an intellectual person, but I feel the lure of exciting movies; I like to think of myself as a mature person, but feel hormonal temptations like anyone else.

Through the meta-discussion of making another Matrix video game, it mocks the very reasons for making a new Matrix movie. It is all too easy to read the discussion about how to make another Matrix game as the brainstorming sessions about making another Matrix movie. As predicted by the Matrix game discussion, I think the main flaw of this Matrix movie was the excessive violence at the end; at least ten minutes could have easily been cut.

Our hero Neo experiences a great many forms of social control: peer pressure, contractual obligations, market surveys, bratty children, the hamster wheel of our work ethic, therapists telling us to accept socially constructed reality (my therapist and I are both liberals living in a “red state,” so when we talk politics we share bitter laughs), and the brute force violence movies prefer to use as metaphors for resistance because it is easier to win a fistfight than it is to swim upstream every day against sexism, racism, and economic elitism. He also wallows in the swamp of artistic despair as the priorities of capitalism turn his feelings, philosophy, and artistic triumph (yes, I will apply that label to a video game) into grist for the mill.  Capitalism turns all qualities into quantities, which is why it is such an uncomfortable fit with artists. A book filled with lies and a book filled with truth cost the same to manufacture, market, and distribute, so the only reason for publisher to produce books of truth is to remember their human integrity, which should worry more of you than it will comfort in a system that legally requires corporations to maximize their profits. At least when the Church was the main artistic patron, both sides cared about the qualities.