At the movies, it’s easy to save the world. Threats arise, heroes unite, and the evil is defeated. When there’s a sequel a villain may return but it’s usually after an era of peace. All was well under our hero’s watch — until the Bad Guy struck again.
It’s a satisfying narrative. It’s obviously bullshit.
When the Transgender Tipping Point was announced in Time Magazine, 16 years after the first entry in The Matrix trilogy was released, it promised an era of peace. The article — written by a cis person — began with fetishistic descriptions of trans bodies and ended with something like bafflement that a trans kid’s gender assigned at birth was undetectable. And in between these anecdotes, the article outlined the numerous ways trans people were still persecuted. But, it posited, now that gay marriage was legal and trans people were on TV, it was only a matter of time until this next wave of progress was achieved.
It was a satisfying narrative. It’s obviously bullshit.
With visibility comes a new kind of persecution. With progress comes backlash. The Matrix Resurrections comes out with Lana Wachowski’s real name in the credits and a wide understanding of the original’s trans subtext — it also comes out in a world where more anti-trans legislation is being introduced than ever before and online fascists have co-opted the film’s central metaphor of red pills. This is the real narrative. Good and bad all at once, progress and regression all at once, lines blurred between heroes and villains.
When I first heard Lana Wachowski was returning to The Matrix, I wondered what a 2021 Matrix might look like. Would the passing years allow the subtext to be text? Or would the queerness reflect your average franchise film more than the Wachowskis’ own Sense8? Would it find the sleek perfection of the original or the delightful imagination of the other sequels? With all of the Wachowskis’ influence on Hollywood and queer culture, what would it look like for one of them to return to the movie that started it all?
Resurrections doesn’t just answer these questions — it is these questions. Lana Wachowski has made a self-reflexive meta commentary out of a big budget Hollywood reboot. It won’t work for everyone, but throughout the whole experience I just felt so grateful to have a movie of this scope that surprised me from beginning to end.
This is a Matrix past the tipping point — many things have changed and many have stayed the same. Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss are still our stars, but Keanu has a beard, and they’re both looking hotter than ever. Morpheus is back but in a younger model played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen III. And Jada Pinkett-Smith is back from the other sequels, but she’s made up to be about a 100 years older and has a botanist wife. They’re joined by newcomers such as standout Jessica Henwick — and about every cis cast member from Sense8.
There aren’t trans people, except a few cameos, because we’re just not there yet. We should be. We’re not. (Maybe this is why Lilly Wachowski is off making slice-of-life television where trans characters are now allowed.) Instead we find more subtext with the villains being played by Jonathan Groff and Neil Patrick Harris — two of the most famous cis white gay men.
The action sequences are reliably captivating and despite the film’s meandering plot, combination of tones, and heady sci-fi, it clips along as an entertaining spectacle. As the film reflects on the progress and lack thereof for trans people, it’s also a reminder of what we have to lose without inventive, intelligent big budget movies.
I’m not as doomsday about Marvel and friends as some — like queer history film history comes in waves — but I know how watching The Matrix Resurrections made me feel. I know that feeling is rare, and I know I want it more. I’ll take a fourth Matrix but what I really want is a film like the first Matrix, but this time made by trans people when they’re out of the closet and with trans people on screen. I want it to be as weird and inventive and bold as The Matrix — not just a checklist of representational politics. I don’t want a big budget movie that centers trans people. I want a big budget trans movie that centers trans people. I believe someday we’ll have that. It just takes time. It takes so much time. And then it takes some more.
The Matrix Resurrections is a movie about what happens after you save the world and it still needs saving. It’s a movie about the cyclical nature of progress — the reasons to fight the same battles we fought yesterday and will have to fight again tomorrow. It’s a movie about why an out trans person can write and direct their own sequel, but out trans actors cannot take the lead. The year is 2021, the machines are still in power, and Neo is still our only hope.
