Matrix Essay

How is Matrix Post Modern?

The matrix is post modern in many different ways. Firstly the narrative structure is about the show of a dystopian view of the future by exploring Neo’s relationship with a machine and the human race is being controlled by a network of machines and their existence is virtual, masking reality. The theme is post modern because it distrusts the idea of the ‘regular world’. It also looks at the relationship between humans and technology, and in the film there is a lot of ‘hacking’ which references the cyber punks. The relationship between human and technology also looks at Baudrillards philosophy and the matrix is an allegory of the lives we are living and how it is heavily commercialised in a media driven society.

The sequence ‘Bullet time’ which has a strong use of CGI  shows things becoming really slow and Neo is given the ability to stop things that in reality would be inevitable, shows the irony and is hyperreal. Bricolage is also evident as it resembles a video game as there is text on the screen as the ‘baddies’ become on screen and information is being given to the protagonist. This is also referential to the director Wachowski’s other graphic novels.

There is also a genetic hybrid as it features a blend of technophobic science fiction, through its extensive use of machinery and futuristic devises. Such as the machines that plug into the individual heads and space ships that seem to be fighting off gigantic metallic virus shaped robotics. This is also referential as biological viruses are also shaped with a pointy head and several sprouting legs. Hong Kong Kung Fu movies are also featured a lot in the film which is most evident in the training sequences when the walls become traditional Chinese bamboo walls and it is the story of master and the person who is learning. There are a lot of combat and traditional sequences used.

There is also direct intertexuality towards Baudrillards book ‘Simulacra and Simulation (1981)’ which is a cultural and philosophical text. This is shown near the beginning of the film where Neo opens a metal and ancient looking book which happens to be the Simulacra and Simulation, where he takes a disk out. There is a second referencing to the book when Morpheus describes the burned Chicago as, ‘'desert of the real”. Morpheus shows Neo what Chicago actually looks like, burned and destroyed, and tells him that he has been "living inside Baudrillard's vision, inside the map, not the territory". This refers to Baudrillard's theory that "the territory no longer precedes the map, nor survives it. Henceforth, it is the map that precedes the territory - precession of simulacra - it is the map that engenders the territory". In other words, the real no longer exists because everything becomes simulated.