Today’s media landscape especially with the advent of social media and the rise of smartphones has lent itself to a reading of the world that is a sort of mediated reality. There is a clear difference between what a person choses to project as their online persona as opposed to their actual personality. This process where the so-called real world and peoples projections of their own reality to a simulated, virtual reality. Bears a lot of resemblance to the point that The Matrix was making about the nature of reality. The Wachowskis proved prescient about how the digital world would swallow the physical one. Millennials have been inundated with so much technology and forms of self-expression that they have chosen to use these technologies to create their own personal matrices or simulations of their lives. The Wachowski’s argue portray a world where people are slaves to the matrix but today Millennials use these to forge their own meaning from a complex and confusing world.
More and more in this age dominated by the ubiquity of mass media and especially new forces within that landscape the importance of the discourses portrayed in our media is a very trenchant topic of discussion. The population more and more often seems to identify themselves not only as an individual but as a part of different yet intersecting subcultures called fandoms. These subgroups are largely utilized by fans as a way to “congregate online as a method for creating a space wherein they can cheaply consume, create, and share their culture.” (Wiatrowski 2). Online fandom communities are very much a part of how Millennials interact with each other and with the media they are consuming. The way that groups that enjoy different kinds of media relate with each other matter and can influence how that media is discussed and its meaning interpreted. As a matter of fact the study of fandom led to an advancement in the the field of media studies by broaching the subject that fans themselves are the ones that draw meaning from texts and they are an “active audience (Pearson and Simpson 232). The process of meaning-making by fans is a key part of the rhetorical process and is something should not be ignored because as something outside of the text and not integral to the process of finding rhetorical value in pieces of media.
The Wachowskis position The Matrix as the quintessential postmodern work. The film itself questions the very construct of objectivity and of reality in favor of something much more complex. They do this by including in one of the movie’s first shots a picture of Jean Baudrillard’s book Simulacra and Simulation (The Matrix). Baudrillard himself was characterized as the “high priest of postmodernism." (Baudrillard). Baudrillard is best known for his study of media theory and how the world is partly a simulation and the movie is able to effectively link the theory to “to developments in new media technologies and their possible future path, using Baudrillard to draw out the epistemological implications of developments in the simulation of experience and consciousness.” (Merrin 1) Jean Baudrillard’s work in media theory and the ideological content of The Matrix both make points about the nature of reality and to what extent all media is a simulation of reality. This gives two different levels at which we can explore the movie’s meaning. The first, what these implications mean for the movie universe and second, what it means for those who are attempting to analyze it.
The Wachowskis in The Matrix create a universe wherein a computer simulation creates a “hyperreality” to borrow a term from Baudrillard himself. (Merrrin 5). Although it is a hyper-real simulation in the end it remains nothing more than that and as such it can’t possibly be completely faithful to the real world that it’s trying to copy. This is demonstrated in the breakfast scene where Mouse asks a question:
Did you ever eat Tasty Wheat?" As Tasty Wheat exists only in the matrix it is pointed out that no-one has actually eaten this. "That's exactly my point. Exactly", Mouse replies. "Because you have to wonder now, how did the machines know what Tasty Wheat tasted like, huh? Maybe they got it wrong; maybe what I think Tasty Wheat tasted like actually tasted like er oatmeal or tunafish. (The Matrix)
The importance of that question is in its value to interrogate the meaning of the computer simulation and how acts like a simulation of the real world as well as “hyperreal simulation of everyday reality, and as a hyperreal experience that eclipses that reality.” (Merrin 5) The movie in this sense posits a world where reality is mediated by technology but in this case the humans are slaves and the simulation only exists as a way of hiding the truth of the real world.
In contrast the reality in which Millennials live today is one in which reality is mediated through technology but unlike in The Matrix individuals are using technology to redefine the world in their own image. The dissemination of technology into the culture in the internet age has quickly changed the way that people interact with the real world and other individuals. The trend towards ever greater connectivity has created a world where the most traditional boundaries for communication have completely broken down and the world has been built more and more as a world community. The issue about the nature of reality, simulation and hyperreality posited in The Matrix has value in the real world but in a slightly different manner. Where does the line between reality and simulation lie but as N. Katherine Hayles argues “there are no essential differences or absolute demarcations between bodily existence and computer simulation.” (Gordon 87) This lack of clarity between reality and computer simulation is what will determine much of our relationship with virtual reality and technologies like social media in the short to medium term future.
The Matrix in many ways has proven to be somewhat prescient about how the relationship between man and technology would develop through the course of the first decades of the twenty-first century. The movie was released in 1999 when the internet still wasn’t as ubiquitous as it is today but it definitely incorporates some of those concerns into its plot. As it is said “art imitates life, not technology” and our social, cultural and political concerns and worries. (Monaco 13) If the Wachowskis were about how technology and the internet would impact our lives back 1999 imagine how different of a movie The Matrix would be if it was made today. Although there are downsides to how technology impacts our lives for a particular sector of the population those who wore raised in the internet age it is the only way that they know how to interact with the world around them.
If there is a step between the themes posited by The Matrix through the work of Baudrillard established as “hyperreality” and actual reality is the concept of augmented reality. Although not in the literal technological term but as something that is a mediated version of a person’s sensory reality. Take the example of a person’s Instagram feed, where they post only the pictures of the things, people and events that will give them the perception of what kind of person they project themselves to be. Add to that the fact that there are literal filters that can be employed by users that adds yet another layer of projection and a sense of augmented reality. In this case both the creator and the viewer of the post are engaging in the process of creating augmented reality it is not a one way street but quite the opposite a dialectical process of meaning creation. It is not quite the same as a computer simulation but is a simulacrum of reality mediated by several layers of meaning. We take that kind of ability to create meaning for granted nowadays but it is something that wasn’t so easily available to everyone.
The Matrix is a piece of media which argues that technology is not a benevolent force and that something that humans should fear. The implication is that the world as it existed 1999 and even more so today was too dependent on technology and that humans were willingly giving themselves up to these powers. This view does not represent Millennial’s view about the role of technology in their lives; in contrast they believe that it is something that they can use to make their lives easier and most importantly to create meaning in a world where it is harder and harder to find. In The Matrix, the Wachowskis have created a piece of media that at once interrogates the weaknesses and downsides of how people deal with machines while positing a reality that is not that different from our own although viewed from a different lens.
The Matrix is a powerful metaphor and a very good platform from which we can learn about representation, the role of technology, the construction of technology, and the diffusion of postmodern thought into popular culture. Ultimately, the Wachowskis made one of the rarest things that exist in the world a Hollywood blockbuster movie which deals with the anxieties of the time while projecting how those issues would matter into the future. I admire any piece of media that has the courage to be different things to different people and be so intricately layered and Matrix roundly succeeds in doing so.
Works Cited
Andrew Gordon in Gerrold, David. Taking the Red Pill: Science, Philosophy and the Religion in the Matrix. Ed. Glenn Yeffeth. BenBella Books, Inc., 2003.
Baudrillard, Jean. "The anorexic ruins." Looking Back on the End of the World 29 (1989).
Merrin, William. "‘Did You Ever Eat Tasty Wheat?’: Baudrillard and The Matrix." Scope: An Online Journal of Film Studies (2003).
Monaco, James. How to read a film: the world of movies, media, and multimedia: language, history, theory. Oxford University Press, USA, 2000.
Pearson, Roberta, and Philip Simpson, eds. Critical dictionary of film and television theory. Routledge, 2005.
The Matrix. Dir. Andy Wachowski and Larry Wachowski. Warner Bros. Pictures, 1999. DVD.
Wiatrowski, Myc. "The Dynamics of Fandom: Exploring Fan Communities in Online Spaces." Retrieved May 31 (2012): 2014.
