Lilly Wachowski Unimpressed By Trump Admin’s ‘The Matrix’ Obsession: “Right-Wing Ideology Appropriates Absolutely Everything”
While the United States’ current Reddit Occupied Government has a particular and almost overbearing ‘appreciation’ for The Matrix, in particular its ‘blue pill/red pill’ metaphor, series co-creator Lilly Wachowski views their fanaticism as yet another textbook example of how “right-wing ideology appropriates absolutely everything.
A heavy favorite of top Trump admin officials including FBI director Kash Patel, FBI deputy director Dan Bongino, vice president JD Vance, and failed DOGE director Elon Musk (whose agency closed last week roughly 8 months ahead of schedule and with little to show for their wanton abuse of American citizen’s private information), said metaphor is usually used in reference to one ‘taking the red pill’ and thus waking up to the ‘truth’ of the world, as based on Morpheus’ iconic declaration to Neo in the first The Matrix film:
“You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”
However, despite The Matrix‘s co-option by right-wing ideologies, Wachowski says she’s had to come to terms with the idea that any given piece of media will inevitably take on a life of its own, regardless of its creators original intent or opinions.
Discussing her general creative process during a recent appearance on the So True with Caleb Hearon podcast, Wachowski explained, “I want my work to have a level of catharsis for myself, and so to do that, I need to put myself into my work. And if people want to read into it, you’ve just go to let go. People are going to interpret it however they interpret it.”
“Look at, you know, all the crazy mutant theories and right-wing ideologies that the Matrix films helped create. I’m just like, ‘What are you doing? No, that’s wrong.’ But I have to let it go to some extent or else I’m engaging in…You’re never going to be able to make absolutely every single person believe what you initially intended.”
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From there specifically pressed by Hearon as to “how you’ve dealt with these loser freaks co-opting this thing to make it something [it’s not]”, Wachowski again chose patience and declared, “I have no idea.”
“I don’t make stuff anymore with the idea that I want it to reach as many people as possible. I make to make, right? It’s like, you just finished Trash Mountain [an upcoming comedy film starring Hearon for which Wachowski originally signed on to direct but has since handed off her duties to fledgling director Kris Swanberg], that experience is the reason you’re there. Not what comes after. So I try to be as present as possible.”
“Now, this isn’t what I always did. It’s taken me a while to get to this point of view. I want to be present and relish every single day of the ‘making’ that I have, because the beauty of film making is that you get to come together in this community, all these different artists and bring this thing that is in your brain into this new form. And that new form is a collective art piece. And so when I think about The Matrix and the success it had, that’s something that I think artists or filmmakers, or any artist really, they place too much emphasis on those kinds of successes, and I don’t think that’s necessarily a success.
“It’s like…right-wing ideology appropriates absolutely everything. They appropriate left-wing points of view and they mutate them for their own propaganda. To obfuscate what the real message is, that is what fascism does. So, of course it’s going to happen. They do it with absolutely everything.
“I mean, look at ‘Make America Healthy Again’. This idea of putting ‘scientific gender’ in the words of – [laughs] Where are they even putting this? – to say there are only two biological genders [a reference to President Trump’s January executive order regarding “gender ideology extremism“. They’re calling ‘science’ but it’s not science. And that is what fascism does. It takes these things, these ideas that are generally acknowledged as questions or investigations or truisms about humanity and life and they turn them into something else, they remove the weight of what those things represent. “
At present, Wachowski has no confirmed projects on her upcoming schedule.
She most recently served as an executive producer for Dolls, a short-film retelling of The Stepford Wives with an all-transgender cast, which is currently making its premiere on the independent film festival circuit.
