Might be true but Vanity Fair is a rag. To "Red pill" isnt a conservative meme or intended to be red team v. blue team. Its about seeing the world for what it is, not the illusion we were sold.

A good example of this marriage and divorce. Unsuspecting men are told to marry and have a happy wife with 2.3 kids, build wealth etc. Except when you work 10 hrs a day and your wife starts sleeping around and divorces you, she takes the kids, assets and part of your paycheck. The red pill in that scenario is knowing that family law favors the wife, marriage contracts are a legal partnership that are a huge financial gambles.

I remember when Hollywood put out movies that you could take at face value and enjoy. Now everything has to have some secret woke meaning.

I just want a movie about machines versus humans, Keanu Reeves kicking a bunch of ass, and a hot chick in leather. Don't take that away from me.

The Debt said:

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Might be true but Vanity Fair is a rag. To "Red pill" isnt a conservative meme or intended to be red team v. blue team. Its about seeing the world for what it is, not the illusion we were sold.

A good example of this marriage and divorce. Unsuspecting men are told to marry and have a happy wife with 2.3 kids, build wealth etc. Except when you work 10 hrs a day and your wife starts sleeping around and divorces you, she takes the kids, assets and part of your paycheck. The red pill in that scenario is knowing that family law favors the wife, marriage contracts are a legal partnership that are a huge financial gambles.

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You, uh... you ok, man?

Does this mean that Speed Racer was about being Pan sexual?

Average Joe said:

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I remember when Hollywood put out movies that you could take at face value and enjoy. Now everything has to have some secret woke meaning.

I just want a movie about machines versus humans, Keanu Reeves kicking a bunch of ass, and a hot chick in leather. Don't take that away from me.

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I have no dog in this hunt, and to me there's only one Matrix film, but a secret trans allegory sounds a lot more original than punching robots and women in leather suits. There are plenty of those movies still that can be taken at face value.

Average Joe said:

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I remember when Hollywood put out movies that you could take at face value and enjoy. Now everything has to have some secret woke meaning.

I just want a movie about machines versus humans, Keanu Reeves kicking a bunch of ass, and a hot chick in leather. Don't take that away from me.

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What's the meaning of Rosebud in Citizen Kane? Was The Wizard of Oz an allegory of political and social events of the late 1800's in America, or just a silly story about a girl having a crazy dream after getting knocked unconscious during a tornado?

Do you want art, or mindless drivel?

It's not a matter of "might be true". This isn't a theory put out by Vanity Fair. It's coming from the writers of the story.

You have to admit that it's funny how the alt-right nutters latched onto "red pill" imagery that was created as a trans allegory.

....just a spoon full of sugar makes the insane leftist bull**** go dowwwwn, bull**** go dowwwwn,

PacifistAg said:

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Do you want art, or mindless drivel?

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Mindless drivel.

But seriously, I had no idea they were both trans; I thought only one of them was.

I really don't care what an artist is trying to say with something, if it's not pounded into my skull. Say a movie is about whatever the hell you want it to be about. If I don't feel preached at, I can enjoy it.

PacifistAg said:

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Average Joe said:

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I remember when Hollywood put out movies that you could take at face value and enjoy. Now everything has to have some secret woke meaning.

I just want a movie about machines versus humans, Keanu Reeves kicking a bunch of ass, and a hot chick in leather. Don't take that away from me.

---

What's the meaning of Rosebud in Citizen Kane? Was The Wizard of Oz an allegory of political and social events of the late 1800's in America, or just a silly story about a girl having a crazy dream after getting knocked unconscious during a tornado?

Do you want art, or mindless drivel?

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Those are the only two choices?

I'm not saying that movies can't have meanings, themes, or symbolism. But to come back 21 years after the release of one of the most complex trilogies ever and say it was about something completely different that didn't happen until years later just sounds like a cry for attention.

The Matrix trilogy already had so many themes and hidden meanings related to humans and technology, the Bible, choice and free will, and huge philosophical themes. Now it's all of the sudden a trans allegory?

It should be obvious that it's about being trans because other than the 3 seconds of the woman in red, Keneau Reeves is the best looking chick in the whole movie.

It's not "all of a sudden". They simply couldn't be open about it until now. They were trans when they wrote it, albeit closeted. This isn't like TERF JK Rowling declaring Dumbledore gay years later.

Talk of this being a trans allegory began when the Wachowskis came out because it's pretty clear once you know that about them.

Average Joe said:

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PacifistAg said:

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Average Joe said:

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I remember when Hollywood put out movies that you could take at face value and enjoy. Now everything has to have some secret woke meaning.

I just want a movie about machines versus humans, Keanu Reeves kicking a bunch of ass, and a hot chick in leather. Don't take that away from me.

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What's the meaning of Rosebud in Citizen Kane? Was The Wizard of Oz an allegory of political and social events of the late 1800's in America, or just a silly story about a girl having a crazy dream after getting knocked unconscious during a tornado?

Do you want art, or mindless drivel?

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Those are the only two choices?

I'm not saying that movies can't have meanings, themes, or symbolism. But to come back 21 years after the release of one of the most complex trilogies ever and say it was about something completely different that didn't happen until years later just sounds like a cry for attention.

The Matrix trilogy already had so many themes and hidden meanings related to humans and technology, the Bible, choice and free will, and huge philosophical themes. Now it's all of the sudden a trans allegory?

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Also, you now talk about all the themes and hidden meanings in The Matrix, which seems to go against your earlier statement:

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I remember when Hollywood put out movies that you could take at face value and enjoy. Now everything has to have some secret woke meaning.

I just want a movie about machines versus humans, Keanu Reeves kicking a bunch of ass, and a hot chick in leather. Don't take that away from me.

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By your own admission, The Matrix was never a "face value" movie. It seems like your issue isn't its depth, but what its true meaning is.

I always thought he took the wrong pill. I didn't see anything wrong with life in the simulated world while living as a brain dead organic battery. Does that confirm my straightness?

DallasTeleAg said:

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PacifistAg said:

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Do you want art, or mindless drivel?

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Mindless drivel.

But seriously, I had no idea they were both trans; I thought only one of them was.

I really don't care what an artist is trying to say with something, if it's not pounded into my skull. Say a movie is about whatever the hell you want it to be about. If I don't feel preached at, I can enjoy it.

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My theory is that true allegory has almost been abandoned in favor of straight up speeches and hamfisted messages over the last 20 years or so.

The fact that the Wachowskis were writing about trans stuff isn't super overt, which lets people get a lot of messages out of it but all within the general theme of self actualization, seeing reality for what it is, and so on. That's why it's perfectly valid for "red pilled" to mean different things to different people.

Let's take another franchise that stretched over the decades and compare how it handled social messaging.

The original Star Wars was, in part, an allegory for the Vietnam war with America as the evil empire and modeled Palpatine on Richard Nixon. That's in Lucas's own words, so the point isn't whether he was doing a smart/accurate thing, it's about his intention. Now obviously there were a lot of other layers of allegory (like The Matrix), and the basic structure was the hero's journey (like The Matrix). That meant you could watch the movie from a lot of different perspectives and enjoy it for a lot of different reasons (like The Matrix).

Fast forward 30 years or so to the early/mid-2000s. The references to Bush and the war on terror in the PT were more obvious, and the actors and people involved in the movie made sure to confirm that impression while the movie was still in theaters.

Now fast forward to the ST. TLJ in particular was really blunt with its social messages. A literal purple-haired woman lecturing about toxic masculinity right when that was all over the headlines. A speech about how rich people only get that way through violence and exploitation. The examples go on, but the point was that the movie didn't leave people room to interpret things or lean on broad human themes.

Some of Hollywood believes they have a duty to use their art to spread a specific message in a specific context. Thats fine, but it may not make as good of a movie, it definitely turns off a lot of viewers and it might not even be as effective as good allegory.

The worst was that Robin Hood movie with the guy from Kingsmen that managed to cover the Iraq war and pretty bluntly borrowed phrases from 20th and 21st century progressive activists. Robin Hood has obviously had a populist / anti-wealthy theme for a long time (IIRC it was still changing until around the 16th century when it settled into the form we recognize today). But again, when you overtly adopt positions from the current political landscape, you make it much harder for big pieces of the audience to identify with the movie and the protagonists. I also can't help wondering if it takes something away from the people who agree with the message. Is it fun to think about Abu Ghraib instead of a historical epic?

Lol. No it wasn't. Nice woke revisionist history. Don't care if the creator says it was. It wasn't.

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Once again, why can't it just be taken a face value without now having yet another underlying meaning to it?

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It can be. It's totally a film that can just be enjoyed as a great action flick with a cool scifi premise if that's what you prefer.

It's also a film that, from the very beginning, has had tons of philosophy and other meanings layered into the story as you acknowledged. I mean, they had Cornell West do a commentary track (who is fascinating to listen to for the record).

Like any art, there's an intent from the creator and then how the piece is taken by the viewer. Neither of those are necessarily "correct", not to mention a creator's intent doesn't always come through in the final piece.

Average Joe said:

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I remember when Hollywood put out movies that you could take at face value and enjoy. Now everything has to have some secret woke meaning.

I just want a movie about machines versus humans, Keanu Reeves kicking a bunch of ass, and a hot chick in leather. Don't take that away from me.

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This comment reminds me so much of all the people that just recently realized Rage Against the Machine's music is political.

Instances like this indicate that the author/director in question has abandoned the principles of art in favor of religion.

To paraphrase Umberto Eco, a piece of art is a machine for generating interpretations. This means that when the author declares post hoc a certain interpretation to be correct, the reader has two options.

1) Accept the author's post hoc interpretation by fiat as correct and stop making his or her own, i.e. stop the machine

2) Accept the author's interpretation as one of many possible interpretations, and continue making his or her own, i.e. let the machine keep running

Great pieces of art have long shelf lives precisely because of their ambiguity. When multiple interpretations are possible based on the reader/viewer's life experiences, the art is working. For example, Inception would not be as highly regarded today if the question of whether the top had kept spinning or fallen was revealed to the viewer. People still talk about Inception, or Citizen Kane, or the last episode of the Sopranos, because the room for debate exists. The machine is still running.

When the meaning is too overt, ham-fisted, clumsy, or preachy, the debate around the meaning of the piece dies, which means that the piece's life as art dies. The machine stops running. This is what Tolkien was referring to in his famous quote about allegory:

"I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history true or feigned with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author."

Works that give the reader freedom to apply and interpret survive, and works that funnel the reader into the author's pigeonhole die. To state it a different way, generating multiple interpretations is art, and imposing a single interpretation is religion. The reason so many modern movies and shows rub so many people the wrong way is not because they have a message. Having a message is fine. But when the message of your piece is so overwhelmingly blunt, ham-fisted, tacky, preachy, and condescending, or is imposed by the author without the reader's participation, your piece ceases to be art and begins to be evangelism.

Why are 'Christian' movies so bad? Because they have a predetermined moral that they're determined to beat into your skull, with no room for debate. The purpose of art is NOT to reinforce your moral preconceptions, therefore movies that try to do so are bad art. The poster above mentioned that some folks in Hollywood feel compelled to use their platform to spread a particular message, and more power to them, regardless of whether I like the message or not. But once you do it, you have changed jobs from artist to missionary. This to me is one of the proofs that the Hollywood crowd has adopted certain political beliefs as their religion. Tolkien was unashamedly Catholic, but he still understood the laziness of adding his faith to his work through allegory by fiat. Bluntly and ham-fistedly spreading a political message, whether on the right or the left, does not make a movie deep, or thoughtful, or praiseworthy. It is bad art, and the people who do it are bad artists.

Therefore, the active reader's correct response to the Wachowskis' declaration that the Matrix is a trans allegory is option 2: 'I recognize that that is one possible interpretation, and I reserve the right to reject it and continue to make my own interpretations.'

One person's "trans" story is another person's story about "change." There's no one way to view The Matrix. For some, it's a religious movie. For others, a meditation on Descartes' "I think therefore I am" axiom. It's classical philosophy, too. The story of Socrates visiting the Oracle in Delphi is retold almost exactly. The whole first 2 acts of the original is essentially Plato's Cave from The Republic.

Anyway, there's a million things to read into those movies, and no "right" way. That's why it's such an incredible work. The Wachowskis can have what they intended to create, and the message they wanted to send, but the meaning in a work of art - and movies can most definitely be works of art - will always belong to the person appreciating it, not the one who created it.

And if you don't care about any of that, it's still a badass movie.

Science Fiction has always been used as a way to comment on, protest, or criticize society. The Science Fiction genre, more than any other genre, almost always has some double meaning and statement about the world of today. The examples are pretty endless.

Ron Swanson FTW, as always.

Great post.

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"I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history true or feigned with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author."
-Tolkien

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Even worse, a lot of movies now aren't even using bad allegory. They are setting aside screen time to verbally explain the correct position on a topical political or social issue. Having one character tell another character is about one micron better than breaking the fourth wall and addressing the viewer directly.

I don't mind so much when it's a protest movie and you go in knowing that you're going to hear some preaching; it's easy to avoid Gasland. I don't even mind that much when it's a franchise that has a history of obvious advocacy like pre-Abrams Star Trek. But there are artists who seem to be using movies primarily as Trojan horses for political messages. The speeches are rarely organic to the characters and plot... you could even call them Achilles heels, to continue the Mycenaean metaphor.