"The Matrix is surely the kind of film about the matrix that the matrix
would have been able to produce." These were the infamous words that Jean Baudrillard
used to break his silence on The Matrix movies in a 2004 interview with
le Nouvel Observateur. Baudrillard's idea of simulation which we
explored in depth in a previous episode was the primary inspiration behind
the Wachowski siblings' movie series. His 1981 book Simulacra and Simulation
was not merely a prop in the movie but was the main inspiration for the
movies and was required reading for the whole cast. After the release of the
first movie the Wachowskis reached out to Baudrillard inviting him to work on
the sequels but he turned down the offer and in this interview we see why.
As it turns out Baudrillard - the "high priest of postmodernism" - hated the
movies. In this episode we are going to look at the three reasons he gives for
this disdain - firstly that it misrepresents his work, secondly that it is a work of
hypocrisy and thirdly that The Matrix fails to represent his overall theoretical
position. And then we are going to look at why Baudrillard
is wrong.
#1 The Misrepresentation of The Matrix In 2004, a year after the release of the third
Matrix movie, Baudrillard finally broke his silence on the Wachowskis' cinematic
adaptation of his work. It was well known by now that his work was the main
inspiration behind the movies but he had never spoken publicly about them
until now. And he was not happy. His first criticism is the rather damning
claim that the movies completely miss the point of his work and that it confuses
the classical Platonic problem of illusion with the postmodern problem of simulation.
The classical formulations of the problem of illusion were given by Plato and
Descartes. Plato's version comes from his dialogue The Republic where we find
his allegory of the cave in which the mass of humanity lives in an illusory state
where they mistake the shadows cast by a fire on the cave wall for reality. The
philosopher is the one who leaves the cave and emerges into the real light of the
sun. A more condensed version of this classical
problem is found in Descartes work Meditations on First Philosophy where in a
line of investigation that culminates in his famous conclusion "I think there I
am", Descartes embarks on a quest for the foundations of knowledge. He begins to
question how he knows that what he is experiencing is real. It seems to be
real, and yet, he writes: "How often my sleep at night has convinced
me of all these familiar things-that I was here, wrapped in my gown,
sitting by the fire-when in fact I was lying naked under the bedclothes."
This is the classical problem of illusion. For Descartes this sitting here beside
the fire is reality while dreaming is an illusion. With the problem of illusion
there is a clear and absolute distinction between reality and illusion.
We see this problem being directly referenced by Morpheus in the first movie:
[Morpheus: "Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was
real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you
know the difference between the dream world and the real world?"]
Baudrillard's simulation hypothesis is a tough idea to fully grasp. For a deep
dive check out the previous video where you can watch me wrack my brain in
an attempt to understand the nuances of Baudrillard's brilliant simulation
hypothesis. The bottom line is that with the emergence
of simulation in the postmodern age we have entered, this distinction between
the real and the illusory, to use Baudrillard's term, 'implodes'. The difference
between reality and illusion becomes meaningless.
With the emergence of the age of simulation, the real has become inaccessible.
We can no longer speak of the real, it is no longer attainable. We only have a
simulated reality that Baudrillard calls the 'hyperreal' in which reality and
illusion have imploded into each other. In Simulacra and Simulation he writes
that: "The impossibility of rediscovering an absolute
level of the real is of the same order as the impossibility of staging
illusion. Illusion is no longer possible, because the real is no longer possible."
It is this distinction between the problems of simulation and illusion that
Baudrillard, in the 2004 interview, claims the Matrix movies missed entirely.
The problem as he sees it is that the distinction between what is real and what
is illusion is far too clear cut. There's a red pill which takes you to the truth and
there's a blue pill which leaves you in illusion. In the interview he states that:
"The actors are in the matrix, that is, in the digitized system of things; or,
they are radically outside it, such as in Zion, the city of resistors. But
what would be interesting is to show what happens when these two
worlds collide. The most embarrassing part of the film is that the new
problem posed by simulation is confused with its classical, Platonic
treatment." So for Baudrillard the Matrix movies have
completely missed the point - they have the real in Zion and the illusion in
the Matrix. The idea of the real is preserved.
Of course any real fan of the Matrix movies will find themselves shouting at
the screen here saying that it is Baudrillard that has missed the point but we'll
come back to that in a minute. For now though we can just say that Baudrillard's
first and his primary criticism of the movies is that they have
missed the point of Simulacra and Simulation. They have misunderstood the idea
of simulation and have set up an all-too-clear distinction between the real
and the illusory.
#2 The Matrix would love The Matrix Baudrillard's second criticism of the Matrix
series is what he sees as the hypocrisy of the movies. The Matrix is, on
the surface of things, a criticism of technology and how technology is gaining more
and more power over our lives. We learn that the humans in the real world
had gone to war with their machines:
[Morpheus : We don't know who struck first, us or them. But we do know
it was us that scorched the sky. At the time, they were dependent on solar
power. It was believed they would be unable to survive without an
energy source as abundant as the sun.] However the machines find another power source
- humans and so humanity become batteries that power the machine run
world. The entire setup and story of the Matrix is
as a cautionary tale about the danger of technology and it is supposed to point
us back to what really matters - our humanity, our freedom, our human love and
connection. But Baudrillard remarks that "The Matrix is
surely the kind of film about the matrix that the matrix would have been able
to produce." The interviewer picks up on this observation noting that it
is: "a film that purports to denounce technicist
alienation and, at the same time, plays entirely on the fascination exercised
by the digital universe and computer-generated images."
Baudrillard expands on his point further saying that The Matrix movie is:
"an instructive symptom, and the actual fetish of this universe of
technologies of the screen in which there is no longer a distinction
between the real and the imaginary. [...] The Matrix paints the picture of
a monopolistic superpower, like we see today, and then collaborates in
its refraction. Basically, its dissemination on a world scale is complicit
with the film itself." And when you think about it Baudrillard really
has a point here. The Matrix for all its criticism of technology utilises it
to make a spectacle. The very thing that is so seductive about the Matrix movies is
the dazzling technological spectacle - there's Neo dodging bullets, learning kung-fu
by downloading a computer program, there's the gun fights running up
walls, there's the world of the robots and the sentinels, and then of course, there's
the Matrix itself - the movie is a monolithic fetishization of the exact thing
it sets out to criticise. For Baudrillard this is part of the broader
cultural landscape that is so overwhelming. He says that this:
"is exactly what makes our times so oppressive. The system produces a
negativity in trompe-l'oeil, [a trick of the eye] which is integrated into
products of the spectacle just as obsolescence is built into industrial
products. It is the most efficient way of incorporating all genuine
alternatives. There are no longer external Omega points or any
antagonistic means available in order to analyze the world; there is
nothing more than a fascinated adhesion." And so in our postmodern world there is no
solid ground from which to criticise the system. Che Guevara has been
legitimised as an icon of rebellious adolescents and sells millions of t-shits
and posters every year. Critiques of the system on social media only further enshrine
the power of those technological monopolies. Resistance is futile. The system,
is all-engulfing.
#3 A Glimmer of Irony Baudrillard's third criticism of The Matrix
also happens to be the easiest place to show where he is wrong. He moves from criticising
The Matrix for misunderstanding the idea of simulation, to
criticising the movies for failing to understand his philosophy in general. He says
that: "The pseudo-Freud who speaks at the film's
conclusion puts it well: at a certain moment, we reprogrammed the matrix
in order to integrate anomalies into the equation. And you the resistors,
comprise a part of it. Thus we are, it seems, within a total virtual
circuit without an exterior." Baudrillard is of course referring to the
scene with the Architect at the end of the second movie The Matrix Reloaded where
the Architect explains that the resistors in Zion are a part of the overall
matrix program. By giving rebellious outliers the illusion of autonomy and an escape
into reality, they ensure the greater overall stability of the matrix.
But Baudrillard isn't happy. His criticism is that the movies fail to enact his
chosen form of rebellion which he summarises in the interview as:
"a glimmer of irony that would allow viewers to turn this gigantic special
effect on its head." This ties in with Baudrillard's broader philosophy
of what he calls Seduction and his way of subverting this all-encompassing
system within which we live. But when it comes to the Matrix, this criticism
doesn't make sense. The Wachowskis are being criticised for not being
true to Baudrillard's overall philosophy. He admits that they have created
an all-encompassing system of oppression as he maps out in his works but
criticises the movies for not also including his own chosen form of rebellion.
But it's an unfair criticism. The Wachowskis don't reference Baudrillard's
entire corpus in the Matrix. They didn't get the cast to read all of the
French postmodernist's books. They were primarily concerned with the problem
of simulation as presented in the book Simulacra and Simulation.
This third criticism then is an unfair one in my opinion because it criticises the
movie for something it didn't try to do. Baudrillard can dislike the film because
it doesn't agree with his philosophy but on this count he can't knock the Matrix
movies just because they aren't exactly how he would have liked them to be.
Why Baudrillard is Wrong This brings us back to Baudrillard's main
criticism of the Matrix - that it fails to portray the difference between simulation
and reality - that it makes the distinction too clear cut.
This criticism might be applied to the first Matrix movie but remember this
interview took place a year after the third movie had been released and also
Baudrillard referenced the conversation with the Architect at the end of the
second movie as well so we can safely assume that he has seen the third movie
and that he has somehow missed the point because anyone who has seen the
third movie or even just the end of the second movie would find it difficult to
support Baudrillard's critique. The third movie, The Matrix Revolutions, completes
the fractalizing of epistemological doubts that had begun in the
first movie. In the original movie we find out that the entire reality Neo is
living in is a virtual reality universe. Neo escapes this Matrix and meets the other
rebels who live in Zion - the underground city of humans in 2199.
The second movie muddies the waters even more when we learn that even this
rebel colony is part of the system. The Architect informs us that previous
iterations of the matrix had failed to account for the rebellious minority and so
this rebellious anomaly had been incorporated into the design of this matrix.
The upshot is that yes Zion is the real world but the rebellion that Zion
represents is not real. It is a simulated rebellion that serves the purpose of
stabilising the matrix. So already with the second movie we have the
destabilisation of the dichotomy between real and illusion. Already we have
entered a blurred state of reality where even though Zion occurs in the real
world it is a hyperreality - it is not a spontaneous utterance of nature but a crafted
and predicted simulation of rebellion despite what its members may believe.
This destabilisation of the reality principle reaches a new level at the end of the
second movie which is picked up in the third as well. At the end of the second
movie we see Neo destroying the sentinel robots - fighting them in the real
world using the same sort of superpowers that we see him using inside the
Matrix. Then, in the third movie we see his ability to see code when he goes
blind and we also have the strange moment when a sentinel flies through him.
These instances muddy the waters of reality more. We are now left questioning
what is matrix and what is reality and it seems that we can no longer truly tell
one from the other. The world of Zion and Machine City seems to be equally
prey to the peculiar powers of Neo as the world of the matrix. By the end of the
series we can no longer say for certain what is real. Neo sues for peace with the
machines but he does not know for sure what is reality.
I've seen some people online argue that from the moment Neo leaves the room
of the Architect he is in a new level of virtual reality. Others have argued that
Zion was always a simulation. The bottom line is, the distinction between the
real and the illusory has been muddied so much that we no longer know where
one ends and the other begins. The distinction has as Baudrillard would say
imploded.
Final Thoughts In their introduction to the 2004 box set
The Ultimate Matrix Collection, the Wachowski siblings say that "It was our sincerest
hope that our movies might inspire or perhaps provoke a little Socratic
interaction, something beyond, 'Remember that one part? That was cool'".
There can be no doubt of their success. The Matrix movies are far from perfect
and Baudrillard's second criticism still stands. But that beings said, I can't think
of any other movie except for maybe Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey that has
inspired so much philosophical engagement - hundreds of articles that
transcend the Analytic/Continental divide. The Wachowski siblings created a
work of art that has sparked a philosophical conversation in a way that no
other movie ever has. It is easy to get distracted by the criticisms of the Matrix
movies, and to miss the greater success of the movies as attaining their initial
goal. The Wachowskis set out to make a movie that got people thinking and
they succeeded at a scale they could not have anticipated.
That's everything for this episode of the living philosophy. If you've enjoyed it
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