For years now, far-right people have been using the red pill/blue pill moment from the Wachowskis’ “The Matrix” in a number of memes and negative, toxic trolling. This is especially troubling given the fact that the film franchise is the brainchild of two trans women filmmakers. Alas, the reality is that “The Matrix” is just as discussed now as it was two decades ago when it hit theaters. And according to Hugo Weaving, one of the stars of “The Matrix” and its sequels, this negative reading of the symbolism and metaphor in the story is troubling and confusing.
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“I am befuddled by it,” admitted Weaving in an interview with The Daily Beast. “It just goes to show how people don’t read below surfaces. They don’t read between the lines. They will take something that they think is cool and they will repurpose it to fit themselves when the original intention or meaning of that thing was quite the opposite.”
He continued, “I’d say the same thing about the ‘V for Vendetta’ mask. There was a group at the Black Lives Matter protest that were up against [the BLM protesters] with their guns, and two or three of those guys were wearing ‘V for Vendetta’ masks, and I was like, ‘Wow, man. That couldn’t be more the opposite of what it stands for!’ The original V was based on Guy Fawkes, and these guys were trying to blow up the House of Parliament. They were young Catholic protesters who were being persecuted by their government, trying to rebel against that, and taking very violent course of action to make their cause. To me, that mask has always represented questioning the government. And somehow now it’s guys who are generally unhappy with what’s going on, or guys who think they look cool.”
Recently, “The Matrix” has been brought back into the discourse because of alt-right groups using the imagery for their own memes. But there’s also been discussion about the true meaning behind the franchise, as told by one of the filmmakers responsible for the films, Lilly Wachowski. She talked about how the film is really an allegory for the trans experience, which would seemingly go against the recent co-opting of the film.
This is something that Weaving also discussed because he worries that pop culture is at fault with only a “shallow reading” of a film, twisting it for selfish reasons.
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“There was something to do with looking cool in black with a gun, and then you can go into a school and shoot people and somehow you’re immune from the consequences of that because you feel like you’re cool—you feel like you’re V, or you feel like you’re Neo or something,” Weaving added. “It’s a very, very shallow reading of the intention of a film. That’s a problem with popular culture: these films are profoundly thought through, but it’s too easy to look cool, have a cool haircut, and have a gun, and you think that’s all you need to do in life. But you haven’t thought about what that gun is for, and what that haircut is for, and what those black clothes are meant to be.”
Weaving recently also explained why he’s not involved in the forthcoming ‘Matrix’ sequel, which is restarting production now. That film is expected to arrive in April 2022.
