The Matrix director Lilly Wachowski calls out the right for appropriating 'red pill' metaphor

Lilly Wachowski has criticised right-wingers, including MAGA, for using a famous scene from her film The Matrix in their political messaging.

In a recent interview on the So True with Caleb Hearon podcast, Wachowski, who directed the film with her sister Lana Wachowski, has hit back at the right for seizing the "red pill" concept for themselves.

"It's like I look at all the crazy mutant theories around The Matrix films and what crazy ideologies those films helped create. And I'm just like what are you doing? No, that's wrong!" she said.

"Right-wing ideology appropriates absolutely everything," Lilly added. "They appropriate leftwing points of view, and they mutate them for their own propaganda, to obfuscate what the real message is. This is what fascism does."

"They take these ideas that are generally acknowledged as questions or investigations or truisms about humanity and life and they turn them to something else so that they remove the weight of what those things represent.”

The iconic scene from the 1999 sci-fi action film is when Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) offered Neo (Keanu Reeves) the blue pill or the red pill, which has spurred debate amongst viewers over the years - choosing the blue pill to return to simulated reality or choosing the red pill and learning the life-changing truths of the world.

The "red pill" or "blue pill" scene from 'The Matrix'Warner Bros.

“You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes," Morpheus tells Neo.

Over the years, this concept has been co-opted by the right, MAGA, and the "manosphere", where they believe swallowing the "red pill" is waking up to their belief that society is against white men as a result of feminism and liberalism.

It's been 26 years since the first film from The Matrix franchise was released, and during this time, Wachowski has shared how she's learned to "let go" of the work she creates.

"I want my work to have a level of catharsis for myself and so to do that I need to put myself into my work. If people want to read into you just gotta go 'do whatever you want.'" You have to let go of your work too, people are going to interpret it however they interpret it."

Lilly Wachowski on So True with Caleb HearonYouTube/So True with Caleb Hearon

The filmmaker added that she doesn't "make stuff anymore with the idea that I want it to reach as many people as possible."

Fans of The Matrix have previously discussed how the film is a trans allegory, something which Lilly has welcomed. She and her sister Lana both transitioned after the original Matrix trilogy was released, and Lilly noted how trans people have told her that the movies saved their lives.

"The Matrix was about a desire for transformation, but it was coming from a closeted point of view," Lilly told Netflix in 2020.

“I’m glad that it has gotten out – that was the original intention, but the corporate world wasn’t ready yet.”

Elsewhere from Indy100, why sci-fi epic The Matrix is a transgender allegory and scientist publishes 'evidence' that the Simulation Theory is correct.

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