"There Is No Spoon" : Revisiting the Problem of the "Real" in The Matrix

Tembo, Kwasu (2023) "There Is No Spoon" : Revisiting the Problem of the "Real" in The Matrix. Americana: THE JOURNAL OF AMERICAN POPULAR CULTURE 1900 TO PRESENT, 22 (2). ISSN 1553-8931

Abstract

In this paper, I argue that The Matrix franchise – the first three films written and directed by the Wachowski siblings, the fourth directed by Lana Wachowski and written by David Mitchell and Aleksander Lemon – are fin de siècle texts. The turn of the twenty-first century was marked by a consistent and pervasive sense of dread mixed with hope in the Occidental world as humans faced the encroachment of technology. Many scholars have argued that the eye-catching nature of the films' action sequences, special effects, general tone, or style pale in the face of the theoretical ideas with which the filmmakers engage. But, as Neo (Keanu Reeves) and his band of humanist rebels fight for the salvation of the human race against their machine overlords on both sides of an onto-existential divide known diegetically as The Matrix, the philosophical underpinnings give way. The franchise falls back on the comforting notion that there is a threshold to be found and breached, beyond which lies an objective reality that may be experienced and is, indeed, real, regardless of how arid, desolate, or apocalyptic that space may be. The films ultimately argue that something remains that is worth fighting and even dying for. Thus, the series is not as transcendent as it may first appear.