The Matrix 1999 and how people misunderstand it
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by Blender Dumbass
Aka: J.Y. Amihud. A Jewish by blood, multifaceted artist with experience in film-making, visual effects, programming, game development, music and more. A philosopher at heart. An activist for freedom and privacy. Anti-Paternalist. A user of Libre Software. Speaking at least 3 human languages. The writer and director of the 2023 film "Moria's Race" and the lead developer of it's game sequel "Dani's Race".
"Red Pill" became the go-to word for the right-wing thinkers of the 21st century. They equate taking the "blue pill" to being ignorant. To not questioning what they believe to be "harmful" leftist ideologies. While the "red pill" is the pill towards awakening. Towards enlightenment. Or some bullshit like this. The irony is that the blue pill and red pill was taken from the 1999 film by The Wachowskis called The Matrix. By The Wachowskis, who, if you know anything about the two, are really not the kind of people who would be calling themselves "conservatives". ↩ Reply
When I was a kid The Matrix was a movie that opened me to an idea that was so intense that it sparked my interest in philosophy. The idea that we might be in a simulation. And that the simulation could be controlled by us if we really would try, like what Neo ( Keanu Reeves ) does in the movie. If other superhero movies were about either having a bazillion dollars to make gadgets ( like in Batman or Ironman ) or undergoing some rather scary bullshit, to gain superpowers ( like in any other superhero film ) The Matrix made an argument that all you need to do to gain power, is to believe that you can. ↩ Reply
I could talk endlessly about the technical quality of the film. About the near-flawless direction. About the cool-af aesthetic. About the ground-breaking visual-effects. Like really, the film's visuals somehow hold up to this day. And it was done in 1999, which is like 26-27 years ago. Me being a bit of a VFX person myself I can see a few things that bother me about the rendering tech of the time. And the limitation of it, which I can sort of see in the final product. But the way the VFX artists dealt with those limitations, to make a movie that still holds up to this day, is bloody mind-blowing. Like, for example, yeah... the spoon ( that there is none ) that Neo bends at one point has a reflection which isn't HDRI. So the hot spots of light look a bit muddy. And you can see that they use the most basic reflection mapping, instead of path-tracing to render it. But it works. And it still works well in 2025. ↩ Reply
But what is much more interesting is to discuss the themes of the film. After a little action scene with Trinity ( Carrie-Anne Moss ) we see our protagonist Thomas Anderson ( Neo ) asleep in-front of a computer until being awakened by the message on the screen. The symbolism starts immediately. ↩ Reply
We are introduced the to the concept of Agents in the film. Cleverly the film-makers gave the Agents from the very beginning an an-usual gun. While we start the movie with the police, who carry the standard Glock guns, which is a standard issue gun for police forces around the world, the Agents appear to carry the Israeli Military Industries gun called "Desert Eagle", that looks kind of unusual and cool. And also differentiates them from the regular cops. ( By the way in Israel, cops also carry Glocks. Which makes it interesting ). ↩ Reply
Then after a few scenes of tense mystery buildup we get to the red pill / blue pill scene. Morpheus ( Laurence Fishburne ) asks Neo ( and in the same time the audience ) to choose between truth or lies. Everything after Neo wakes up in the beginning of the film is told from Neo's own perspective. This is a very interesting narrative tool. It puts the audience in the shoes of Neo. And then Morpheus asks him what pill he wants to take. Which in turn makes the film ask this question of the audience. ↩ Reply
Incels that popularized the term "red pill" among alt-right conservative crowd probably didn't catch the symbolism. For them blue means liberal ( because that is the color the US government gives to liberals ). And red means conservative. So "red pill" is a conservative pill. And if The Matrix ( one of the most influential movies out there ) is saying that truth equals the red pill. Well that mean means The Matrix is conservative. I mean... it has guns. And it even has some rather cool knowledge about guns, to make interesting things with guns. Right? ↩ Reply
Well here is a thing, Premarin estrogen pills are kind of reddish, while Prozac antidepressants are often sold in bluish capsules. Knowing that Lana and Lilly Wachowski were once Larry and Andy, which means they are trans-women that probably used something like Premarin for the transformation to occur, and knowing that often people who are unhappy about their gender are using anti-depressants instead of undergoing the transformation, makes the whole red-pill / blue-pill an allegory for trans-people. Which then is so ironic that conservatives now use it for the opposite message. c:3 ↩ Reply
But then wait the fucking second. Neo wakes up in the "real world". He is then picked up by Morpheus aboard the ship Nebuchadnezzar. And there he learns about a city of Zion, where real people live in freedom. Zion? Like in Zionism. You know... the state of Israel. Nebuchadnezzar is also present in Jewish traditional texts. And you could say that "the one" or the chosen one, could be an allegory for "the chosen people" or Jews. What also makes it interesting is that we have an Israel Military Industries guns in the film. ↩ Reply
Also the second and third films in the franchise are about protecting Zion at all cost from the mindless evil robots. It is kind of about terrorism. And it could be even read in the context of Israel Palestine as a pro-Israel stance. ↩ Reply
But Lana and Lilly are trans-women. How can they have such a conservative stance? ↩ Reply
Let's go back to the beginning. The Red and Blue pills could represent the transness of the Wachowskis, but the movie proudly credits them as "brothers". Meaning at the time of the film's production ( back in the late 90s ) the Wachowskis were still men. Not trans-women. And digging even deeper, the blue / red pills doesn't originate in The Matrix, but in a Paul Verhoeven's 1990 film Total Recall. Where the red pill is used in roughly the same way as in The Matrix. Yet, where our protagonist refuses to take the red pill. The Matrix adds the blue-pill... hm... ↩ Reply
Okay, how about this. The Wachowskis started questioning the status quo at around the late 90s. That lead them into writing The Matrix. And that questioning later brought them into becoming the Wachowski sisters. That would explain the weirdly inconsistent messaging. They were questioning things. Not yet having a fully formed philosophy of everything. That explains the mix between both leftist and rightist ideologies in the films. And that would also explain the Incels, who due to that inconsistent messaging could have read the movie through their lens, which brought into the world, the modern meaning of "red pill". ↩ Reply
The Matrix doesn't seem to represent left or right. It represents the currently unpopular "truth". It represents a resistance against the status quo, whatever the status quo might be at any given time. But ( and that thing is clear ), the movie is, kind of, anti-AI. ↩ Reply
Happy Hacking!!! ↩ Reply
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c:3 Well here is a thing, Premarin estrogen pills are kind of reddish, while Prozac antidepressants are often sold in bluish capsules. Knowing that Lana and Lilly Wachowski were once Larry and Andy, which means they are trans-women that probably used something like Premarin for the transformation to occur, and knowing that often people who are unhappy about their gender are using anti-depressants instead of undergoing the transformation, makes the whole red-pill / blue-pill an allegory for trans-people. Which then is so ironic that conservatives now use it for the opposite message.
⤴ ViewHormone pills..? Only blue pilled people believe in those! I am a rainbow piller. I take random pills I find under the couch and ingest them. Usually they have already expired, no ill effects are felt.
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