Coded Discourse: Romancing the (Electronic) Shadow in The Matrix

Abstract

Haslam argues that criticism on the Wachowski Brothers' film, The Matrix (1999), has generally followed along the lines of early criticism surrounding the cyberpunk fiction of the late 1980s, which is usually seen as being founded by, and epitomized in, William Gibson's 1984 novel Neuromancer. Within this critical framework, The Matrix is supposedly the filmic refinement of the posthuman, indeterminate identity some see as being offered by cyberpunk fiction. Haslam, however, relying in part on a second strain of criticism surrounding cyberpunk, questions whether The Matrix and its sequels truly offer a radical critique of enlightenment subjectivity, or instead reproduce dominant ontological biases, specifically as they surround gender and race. The Matrix, Haslam suggests, can be read as a text that allows both of these readings, using a disturbed and disturbing set of plots and images surrounding gender and race that can be seen to point to the difficulties surrounding the performative nature of dominance as such.

We’ve Been Framed! Ends, Means, and the Ethics of the Grand(iose) Challenges

“…However, considering the larger context of the film and its themes, this entire Grand Challenge is clearly problematic; Trinity and her colleagues are, after all, imprisoned in a virtual reality, and their goal is to resist the Artificially Intelligent machines that control their bodies and minds. 37 What does the choice of certain ends imply about the means? Langdon Winner 38 has identified the centralized power structures required for the development of nuclear power (which would extend here to fusion technologies).…”