The Matrix Creator Lilly Wachowski Claims The Film’s Original Intention Was A Transgender Allegory
John F. Trent
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The Matrix creator Lilly Wachowski, who made The Matrix under the name Andy Wachowski, recently claimed that The Matrix films’ original intention was as a transgender allegory.
Wachowski’s statements came in a recent YouTube upload titled “Why The Matrix Is A Trans Story According to Lilly Wachowski” from Netflix Film Club promoting their documentary Disclosure.
As report by Society Reviews, Wachowski begins the video saying, “I’m glad that people are talking about the movies, The Matrix movies with a trans narrative.”
The director continued, “I love how meaningful those films are to trans people and the way that they come up to me and say, ‘These movies save my life.’ Because when you talk about transformation, specifically in the world of science fiction, which is just about imagination and world building and the idea of the seemingly impossible becoming possible I think that’s why it speaks to them so much.”
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Wachowski added, “And I’m grateful that I can be a part of throwing them a rope to help them along their journey.”
Wachowski would then answer the question, “What do you think of fans discussing The Matrix’s trans allegory?”
The Matrix creator stated, “I’m glad that it has gotten out that, you know, that was the original intention but the world wasn’t quite ready yet. The corporate world wasn’t ready for it.”
The Disclosure cast member continued, “When you make movies and it’s this public art form, I think any kind of art that you put into the universe, there’s a letting go process. Because it is entering into public dialogue. I like that. There’s an evolution process that we as human beings engage in art in a non-linear way that we can always like talk about something in new ways and in new light.”
Wachowski then discussed the original vision of the character Switch. The director explained, “The Matrix stuff was all about the desire for transformation, but it was all coming from a closeted point of view. And so we had the character of Switch, who was like a character who would be a man in the real world and then a woman in the Matrix, both were where our headspaces were.”
The director then was asked, “Did your identity inform writing and directing The Matrix at the time?”
Lilly Wachowski responded, “I don’t know how present my transness was in the background of my brain as we were writing it. But it all came from the same sort of fire that I’m talking about.”
Wachowski continued, “Because trans people exist in this…especially for me and Lana we were existing in this space where the words didn’t exist so we were always living in a world of imagination. It’s why I gravitated towards science fiction and fantasy and played Dungeons & Dragons. It was all about creating worlds and so I think it freed us up as filmmakers because we were able to imagine stuff at that time that you didn’t necessarily see on screen. ”
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Lilly elaborated, “Or even the idea of how we can exist in as many genres as possible. One of the things we really enjoyed doing was sort of genre bending, where you would have stuff that felt like Kung-Fu movies, and anime, and westerns.”
Wachowski then stated, “And we always loved this scene that Ned Beatty would do in this movie Network, where he would talk about the way the world was, and it was always from this corporate hierarchical, overlord structure.
Finally, Wachowski concluded the video stating, “I think in our transness and queerness we were always trying to incorporate as many things as possible. It’s just like trying to visualize within a much larger infinite scope of the imagination.”
Related: Lilly Wachowski Claims The Matrix Was Born Out Of “Rage At Capitalism”
Wachowski also recently told The Hollywood Reporter that the film could be viewed through a lens of transness.
The Matrix director explained, “Now that I’m out and a living example of someone who can grow old being a trans woman, [trans people] can see those films through the lens of my transness and their transness.”
“They’re able to go, ‘Oh my God, these films were such an important part of my coming out and my own journey.’ I’m extraordinarily grateful that I could offer that to people,” Wachowski added.
Lilly then detailed that the film was “born out of a lot of anger and a lot of rage, and it’s rage at capitalism and corporatized structure and forms of oppression.”
Wachwoski also detailed that the “bubbling, seething rage within me was about my own oppression, that I [was forcing] myself to remain in the closet.”
As we reported back in June, these recent comments contradict what Lana Wachowski, who directed The Matrix under the name Larry Wachowski, had previously stated about The Matrix.
In an interview with Ken Wilber, Lana Wachowski stated, “You make a work of art and you want it to be provocative. You want people to dialogue about it. You don’t want them to rely on somebody to tell them what it is. The whole nature of the movie is exactly that.”
Lana elaborated, “It seems hypocritical for us to go out and tell everybody what it is supposed to be about or what you are supposed to think about.”
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Lana then added, “And even if I was to do it, or Andy was to do it in the gentlest of terms and try to contextualize it as what it means to us, it’s because by the very nature of us being the creators of it, it becomes the law. It becomes the interpretation. And anyone else’s interpretation is just some crazy individual that really doesn’t get it.”
Wachowski concluded, “I don’t want to devalue anyone’s opinion of it. I think that is one of the reasons why art is a worthwhile experience.”
The Matrix 4 is being co-written and directed by Lana Wachowski. It is expected to release on April 1, 2022.
What do you make of Lilly Wachowski’s recent comments about The Matrix and that it is a transgender allegory?
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