Control and the Matrix
Much of the Matrix is concerned
with control - its message of control is everywhere - this
critique focuses on two primal scenes to demonstrate the point:
"I don't like the idea that I don't
have control over my life." -Neo
The real world as Neo finds it is
not pleasant: it is dingy, the food looks disgusting and many
characters are left wondering why they didn't take the blue pill
and return to a state of blissful ignorance. But the reason why
the audience is able to accept that the world inside the Matrix
is not superior to the dark world of reality has much to do with
control.
Penley (1) notes that the primal scene is attractive to us
because it is one thing we don't have control of (2). The Matrix
presents two primal scenes (or scenes equivalent). The first one
occurs when Neo touches the liquid metal (3) and emerges from the
goo of the womb he has been enclosed in all his life. The
significance of this re-birth is important: if one can be
re-born, it is their actions now that determine what sort of
primal scene they have in the next life (4). We can control our
next primal scene.
The second primal scene, is the horrific setting which Orpheus
(5) recounts to Neo (6). Dead adults liquefied to feed the young
so that they can be used as batteries. It is a primal scene where
there is no control, where machines determine everything. The
contrast hits the viewer. It is better to have control than to
live with the horror behind blissful ignorance. Coupled with the
fact that the Matrix world is a lie, the real world in all its
squalor is better than a world where the "wool is pulled
over our eyes" because of our urge to be able to control our
lives.
1 Constance Penley: "Time Travel, Primal Scene, and the
Critical Dystopia" from Camera Obscura (1986) Fall, 15.
Extracted from Mas 304 Unit Notes 1999.
2 It allows us to fantasise about controlling our own conception
or birth.
3 which gives off multiple mirror images of himself. i.e.
subjective breakdown - on the path to discovering true identity.
4 The re-birth has Buddhist overtones. Neo is a Kundun of sorts:
complete with shaved head.
5 Orpheus "watched it himself" - Penley notes that this
is a central part of the fantasy. Sometimes I wonder if the
directors have read some of these articles.
6 Neo promptly vomits in disgust at the realisation.