Guns, Lots of Guns: the role of violence in The Matrix more

Guns . . . Lots of Guns: The role of violence in Matrix The Robin Turner September 22, 2010 In September 2000, a man who murdered his landlady claimed that he was living in the Matrix. More recently, a woman charged with murdering her landlord made the same defence, as did a teenage boy who shot his parents, and a man accused of serial sniper killings also cited The Matrix as inspiration. Interestingly, these confessions (or pseudo-confessions) did not raise as much of a media storm as we might have expected, although producer Joel Silver still felt obliged to say of the lm It's a wonderful fantasy story that doesn't take place in the real world, so I can't comment on what makes people do what they do. [9] Perhaps crazed killers blaming their crimes on lms or video games are no longer as newsworthy as they used to be; perhaps it is simply that graphic violence has been a feature of Hollywood lms for so long that few people take it seriously any more. However, it is worth examining the violence of the Matrix lms in a way which goes beyond cliches about glorifying violence or debates about whether it is signicant that the latest serial killer wore a long black coat and sunglasses. Film audiences can tell when violence is merely entertainment (whether in cartoons or action lms), although they may be less aware of how supposedly realistic portrayals of violence can be turned into fantasy. 1 One thing that is obvious if you read even a small proportion of the lm reviews, scholarly essays, blog entries and political rants about the Matrix is that the lms are deliberately constructed so that people will see what they want to see in them, but that those who look closer will nd that, just as in the world of the Matrix itself, things are seldom what they seem. The violence needs to be there because action lms sell tickets and philosophical lms don't, but in a philosophical action lm, especially one which is based on ideas about simulation replacing reality, we can expect that violence itself is just another theme which the directors are playing with. 1 No portrayal of violence in lm can be as real as the experience of being shot, or even punched in the face. Films which attempt to show the reality of violence run the risk of being absorbed by their fantasy colleagues: get categorised as Vietnam lms. Rambo is obviously fantasy and Platoon and Full Metal Jacket are serious attempts to show the violence of the Vietnam war, but in the end, they all 1 1 Hyperreal violence A central idea of The Matrix is hyperreality, a term invented by Jean Baudrillard. Hyperreality occurs when the simulation becomes more real than what it is supposed to be a simulation of. Baudrillard gives Disneyland as an example of hyperreality: although it seems to be a fantasy, it is, he claims, more real to its visitors than either the fairy tales it plunders 2 or the real America: Disneyland is America. This is not a uniquely American phenomenon, or even a Western phenomenon; we can see the same thing in developing countries. In Turkey there is a cultural style called arabesk, which started in music as a genuine expression of the disillusionment of rural migrants to the cities; it deals with poverty, impossible romantic love and the conict between urban and rural values. Within a short time, arabesk became hyperreal. Now, young Turks dene themselves in reference to arabesk music, lms and soap operas: if they are in love, they compare themselves to arabesk lovers; when they have a ght on the street, they are thinking of the heroes of arabesk lms. In Baudrillard's view, hyperreal violence assimilates physical violence. This is why terrorism is self-defeating. The terrorist wants to make the ultimate act of deance. The powers that be have taken everything from him, or at least he thinks they have. His response is to declare war on that society by a spectacular act of violence. The Israelis have killed my daughter, so I will go into a Jewish cafe and blow myself uplet's see how they feel about their daughters being killed. What he does not realise is that his action, as soon as it is observed, will become just another scene in a hyperreal drama. For the Israeli whose daughter has been blown up, it is as real as you can get, but for everyone else it is just another scene in a collective simulation. If Baudrillard is right, then few people care about what really happened and why it happened; the important thing is what happens in the simulation. The father who was prepared to give up his life and commit murder to avenge the death of his daughter has become a character in a lm, no more real than Neo or Agent Smith. His compensationwhich is really no compensation at allis that he has a role in a mass-media drama. What is more, the meaning of that drama is obscured, according to Baudrillard, who, in a famous passage in Simulacra and Simulation, writes: Is any bombing in Italy the work of leftist extremists; or of extreme right-wing provocation; or staged by centrists to bring every terrorist extreme into disrepute and to shore up its own failing power; or again, is it a police-inspired scenario in order to appeal to calls for public security? All this is equally true, and the search for proof indeed the objectivity of the factdoes not check this vertigo of interpretation. We are in a logic of simulation which has nothing to do with a logic of facts and an order of reasons.[2, 177-178] However, violence in the desert of the real is dierent from violence in the 2 Snow White is a good example. When we think of Snow White, we usually think of the We do not think of the old German fairy-tale, and if anyone were to make a Disney lm. lm of the original version (including the scene where the wicked queen is made to dance in red-hot iron shoes until she dies) no one under the age of eighteen would be allowed to see it. 2 simulation. Any streetghter will tell you that real ghting is nothing like kung fu lms, and any soldier will tell you that war is not like war lms. Nevertheless, when people do violent things, they are often trying to recreate the violence of television or lms. It is not that lms make us violent; human beings can It is that when we are violent, we try to always nd reasons to be violent. make our violence more meaningful by imitating the violence of the simulation. This explains the statements by violent criminals that some lm made them do it. The lm did not make them do it; those people would probably have killed someone if they had been living in a world with no mass media. What the lm did was make them try to turn an ordinary act of murder into something they felt was important. Neo and Trinity gunning down a host of security guards has in this sense become more real than a drunken brawl turning into manslaughter. Real physical violence is only interesting to those it directly concerns; if you want an audience outside your family, your neighbours and the local police, killing your landlord is not enough; you have to kill him on Reality TV. But of course, most people are not particularly violent. We are attracted to the violence of lms, not because we really want to kill people, but because it represents things we really want. We want to assert ourselves, to eliminate problems, to rebel against authority. When Neo destroys Agent Smith (for the time being) we cheer because Smith represents our boss, father or whatever authority gure we want to rebel against. Smith may indeed represent the banality of our lives in general, as I.Q. Hunter claims: Neo discovers another reality, where he can ght the dull everyday lifepersonied here by agent Smith. [7] This illustrates a problem with the idea of hyperreality. By claiming that the hyperreal is somehow more real, it fails to distinguish adequately between the hyperreal violence of a reported terrorist attack, and the hyperreal violence of The Matrix. To say that X is more real than Y is not terribly meaningful; the word real then becomes a cipher for vague ideas like engaging, authentic or seductive. I would claim that everything is real; the important question is A real what ? The Palestinian blowing himself up in a cafe is a real physical event; the report on the evening news is a real media event, and Neo ghting agent Smith is a real cinematic event. They do not represent levels or orders of reality (with one being more real than another); they are simply dierent, although related. Television audiences may sometimes be confused by the correspondences between media events and physical events, often assuming that the former is a simple depiction of the latter rather than an entity in its own right (with its own social and political meaning) but they are rarely so naive as to assume the same of cinematic events. We know that the violence in The Matrix bears only a slight resemblance to physical violence, and either accept it as entertainment or look for alternative meanings. The remainder of this paper will deal with the alternative meanings that the lm-makers may have had in mind. 3 2 I know kung fu!: the martial arts theme The Matrix and its sequels are full of displays of martial arts.. But of course, these are hyperreal martial arts. In our world, learning kung fu or jiu-jitsu takes years of hard training, but within the Matrix, Neo learns a variety of martial arts styles in under a minute; the rst time he looks even slightly happy in the lm is when he comes out of the training program saying I know kung fu! Apart from the practicalities of the story-lineit would disrupt the plot to have Neo go away for ten years to learn how to ghtthis scene may well be gently satirising martial arts lms. In many such lms, the hero needs to learn from a master in order to defeat his evil opponent, and the audience are treated to scenes of strenuous training as the hero masters his art. 3 What the Wachowskis seem to be pointing out is that even this supposedly traditional martial arts training is still far too short: not even Jean-Claude Van Damme can learn a new martial art in a few weeks. Neo's instant kung fu is a clever parody of kung fu lms. An element of parody is also present in the scenes where Neo displays his martial skills, such as his lazy one-hand blocking (while looking in the other direction) at the end of the rst lm, or his ght with multiple Agent Smiths in the second. Martial arts lms (particularly Chinese ones) have always used special eects to exaggerate the characters' abilities (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is an extreme and rather tongue-in-cheek example). Since there are no physical constraints inside the Matrix, there are no limits to Neo's abilities, but he still feels obliged to follow the forms of traditional martial arts. So is this lm kung fu hyperreal? about. 4 In some ways, the martial arts shown in lms is hyperreal, in that to most people, this is what martial arts are all Actual martial artists teaching classes back in the desert of the real have to contend with the idea that the best way to defend yourself against a pair of muggers is to jump in the air and kick both of them simultaneously. On the other hand, the ght scenes of the Matrix lms are not simulation, but pastiche, in much the same way that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon involves aectionate parody of the Chinese kung fu lm tradition. It may take some experience of martial arts to see that the ghts in a Bruce Lee or Van Damme lm are hopelessly unrealistic, but no one at all could be fooled into thinking that matrix-fu is real, even in a weird Baudrillardian sense. It is similar to the world of professional wrestling as described by Roland Barthes: only the image is involved in the game. [1, 20] Fiction traditionally depends on the willing suspension of disbelief , but here we have the opposite; it is almost as though the Wachowskis are trying to say Look, this kung fu isn't real, and neither is the rest of the kung fu you see 3 This, of course, is just another reworking of Joseph Campbell's hero's journey where the hero encounters his mentor, which may explain its persistence; after the rst master-student scene of this type in a popular kung fu lm (probably various permutations, from Enter the Dragon ) it has gone through The Karate Kid, which is nearly all about this relationship, to Luke's training with Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back. 4 Keanu Reeves went through intensive martial arts training for the ght scenes, and later said this was one of the most enjoyable parts of the lm. 4 in lms. This encouragement to disbelieve is relevant to the violence of the scenes. Whatever matrix-fu is about, it is not about physical violence. Rather, it appeals to the mythology of martial arts: that training in a martial art is essentially mental training, and that in mastering your art, you will master yourself. You may not learn to dodge bullets, but you can do things that you thought were impossible, and that is the real appeal of matrix-fu. 5 3 Neo meets the NRA: the weapons theme In When Neo is not doing kung fu, he has an impressive array of weaponry. for Guns . . . Lots of guns. the rst lm, before entering the Matrix for the last time, Neo and Trinity ask Given that product placement is a feature of most lms today, we might think that the Matrix lms were sponsored by arms manufacturers. There is a fetishism of lethal hardware in the lms, but then this is normal in Hollywood, and some lms do it much more blatantly, Aliens being an extreme example (Hicks presents Ripley with a weapon, describing it lovingly: M-41A 10mm pulse-rie, over and under with a 30mm pump-action grenade launcher). At one level, we can look at this as just another example of America's obsession with guns. The lm plays to a society where a gun is a symbol of masculinity and freedom from oppression. Enjoyable as it is to satirise America's gun fetishism, we should not forget that it has real, and sometimes admirable, political roots. America gained independence and democracy through a people's army, and it was only because so many of the people were already armed that this was possible. While Europeans may associate guns more with the power of the State, in America they represent the power of the individual, particularly in lms. State power is more often represented by larger military hardware, which is why the scene in which Trinity hijacks a helicopter is signicantthe power of the State/Matrix has been appropriated by the rebels. Of course the guns in the Matrix are virtual guns, a point brought home in the famous scene where Neo and Trinity ask for lots of guns and an entire warehouse-full of lethal hardware (or rather, software) slides into place around them. A Matrix gun is an idea, not a piece of metal, so it would make sense for the person it kills to be an idea too, thus making it analogous to Baudrillard's intellectual terrorism. However, this is not the case; someone who dies in the Matrix dies in real life (except for Agents, who are software anyway). This is probably necessary for plot reasons; if no one can be killed in the Matrix, then neither could our heroes, which would make the ght scenes dull, rather like watching over someone's shoulder while he or she plays a violent video game. morality of the lm, though. It does complicate the Flannery-Daily and Wagner assert that The lmmakers portray violence as redemptive . . . the reality of the Matrix which requires that some humans must die as victims of salvic violence is not the 5 In a martial arts class I attended, I had to practice breakfalls jumping over a sword, an un-nerving experience even though the sword in question was made of wood. The teacher said Forget the sword. The sword's not there. Sure, I replied, There is no spoon. 5 ultimate reality to which Buddhism or Gnostic Christianity points, although Julien Fielding points out that this kind of violence is common in Hinduism.[6, 5] This confusion is only to be expected when the spiritual and the political come together, especially when they are constrained by the conventions of Hollywood. Given that our heroes are killing real people, some justication needs to be found for the casual way in which they do it. During Neo's training, Morpheus tells him: The Matrix is a system, Neo, and that system is our enemy. When you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, lawyers, students. People. Everywhere you look, there are people. Somewhere else, somewhere in the future they may be human beings but here these people are a part of the system. That makes every one of them our enemy. This implies a disturbing ideology. The people in the Matrix are not really human, but part of a system; thus, if we kill them, we are not killing human beings, only potential human beings. Killing a person in the Matrix is not murder, then, but the moral equivalent of abortion, perhaps. This is both morally and politically dubious. It is morally dubious, because the experiences people have in the Matrix are subjectively real, so there is no essential dierence between losing a life in the Matrix and losing your life in the physical world, as Julia Driver points out.[4] Given that this is an action lm, and we expect deaths in an action lm, there is little dierence to the viewer; we do not, in any case, regard this kind of death in the same way as death in the real world, or even death in a realistic lm or television drama. The political message, though, is rather more worrying. Extremist groups have frequently tried to justify their actions by something a little more subtle than old cliches about ends justifying means or not being able to make an omelette without breaking eggs. The idea is that the people you are killing are somehow not than fully human. They may be thought of as irredeemably subhuman, like Jews or Blacks are for Nazis, but there is a more subtle version: biologically they are human, but mentally or spiritually, they have either lost their true nature, or been prevented from from realising it. We see this attitude in many varieties of mysticism, which hold that the vast majority of people are alienated from their true (divine) nature through the illusion of the world (maya ). However, in mysticism it generally takes a harmless form, largely because most mystics espouse non-violence and compassion. 6 In politics, on the other hand, where the believers are in conict with the rest of society, depicting the masses as ignorant, alienated from their true consciousness and in general less than human is a convenient justication for acting against their wishes, up to and including killing them. This is reinforced by the attitude that those who are not with us are against us. 7 As Morpheus says, It is 6 There are, of course, exceptions: the Thuggee of India and the Assassins of Alamut regarded murder of non-believers as a virtuous act, and a number of Medieval heretics did not regard crimes against the orthodox as sinful. These exceptions generally occur, however, when there is a political agenda involved. 7 This sentence has been attributed variously to Lenin, Stalin and Krzhizhanovskii. 6 important to understand that if you are not one of us, you are one of them. This is the classic Leninist view, and The Matrix can be seen as a revolutionary Leninist parable: Certainly, The Matrix can be read as leftist in so far as its totalising vision oers, as Marxism used to, a seamlessly paranoid negation of surface reality. Acquiescence requires all-encompassing conversion We see rather than a slight readjustment of one's view of things. democracy, but the reality is fascism. We think we're free, but actually we're prisoners, ticking over on life supports. In short, this is the theory of false consciousness taken to an heuristic, barmy extreme. Only by the actions of a sort of Leninist groupuscle, a visionary avant-garde of technologically savvy white men, spiritually attuned blacks, and sexy leather-clad women, will humanity nd salvation, whether it wants to or not.[7] On the other hand, this violent elitism ts in equally well with the vision of America's libertarian Right; as Hunter also points out,  The Matrix ts satisfyingly into a long history of American fantasies about the individual living outside the repressions of the law . . . and exerting his will existentially against the world, urged on by disbelief in the law, a sense of higher purpose and a vigilante enthusiasm for not letting bureaucracy (or society) get in the way. [7] Parts of the lm look as though they could be used as adverts for the National Rie Association. The last lm departs from this individualistic or small-group violence to adopt a military theme; it represents the point where the minutemen become the revolutionary army or the Bolsheviks storm the Winter Palace. Nevertheless, the action is still portrayed in an individual way. The robots attack in inhumanly co-ordinated swarms, while individual humans lumber around in their waldos blasting away like cowboys. The most signicant blow dealt by the defenders comes not from the high-tech equivalent of a cavalry charge, but a pair of women with a home-made bazooka. 4 Conclusion A unsympathetic but witty review of The Matrix described its worldview as follows: The Matrix perfectly captured the late-adolescent male computer nerd's mindset: You can't trust anyone but your online friends. Maybe you really will save the world. Computer games are more real than what adults, who are zombies or evil mechanical brain controllers, call real life. It would be cool to have a girlfriend who is a butt-kicking videogame character and doesn't care about dumb girl stu.[8] There is some truth in this characterisation of the lm. It is obvious that the Matrix lms are designed to appeal to teenagers (though not exclusively to male 7 teenagers) and the violence of the lms, from Trinity's rst ying kick to the manga mayhem of Revolutions is an important factor. It is true that, at least on one level, the Matrix lms are an adolescent fantasy, and it is also true that this has contributed to their success. However, the appeal of the lms to teenagers is largely because their central theme is resistance and empowermentissues which aect us all, but which are more urgent for the young. The idea of empowerment is obvious in both the martial arts and the weapons themes; however, they seem to deal with it in dierent ways. Matrix-fu is about empowerment through self-realisation. As Morpheus says during the sparring scene: Come on, Neo. What are you waiting for? You're faster than this. Don't think you are. Know you are. Come on! Stop trying to hit me and just hit me. This condence in ability through belief even spilled over onto the lm set. Speaking of her performance during the extremely dangerous chase scene in Reloaded, Carrie-Ann Moss (Trinity) said My biggest fear about it was, I guess, dying . . . So on that day, I knew I could not allow myself to question for one split second whether or not I could do it."[3] Unfortunately, even the word empowerment has been absorbed into the bland world of self-improvement and feel-good philosophy; making the context both traditional and aggressive is perhaps a way to avoid the pseudoempowerment of New Age weekend retreats and business seminars, as well as holding the audience's attention. The weapons theme seems more about appropriating power: stealing the tools of the system and taking the battle to the enemy, the most striking example being the scene where Trinity and Neo rescue Morpheus, leaving behind a dozen or so corpses, thousands of cartridge cases and one wrecked helicopter. It calls Bakunin to mind: The urge to destroy is a creative urge. In the end, though, Neo still wins through his own abilities, not repower. The nal conict with Agent Smith in the rst lm seems more like a robust metaphysical debate than a ght: Smith: You're empty. Neo: So are you. ... Smith: Do you hear that, Mr. Anderson? That is the sound of inevitability. It is the sound of your death. Good-bye, Mr. Anderson. Neo: My name is Neo. From that point on, he has no need of guns. If there is a In the end, metaphysics wins over ballistics, with Neo casually plucking bullets out of the air. message here, it might be that taking power from the system may sometimes be necessary, but ultimately you are your own source of power. 8 References [1] Roland Barthes. Mythologies. Vintage, London, 1993. [2] Jean Baudrillard. Simulacra and Simulations. In Mark Poster, editor, Jean Baudrillard: Selected writings, pages 169187. Polity Press, Cambridge, 2 edition, 2001. [3] Helen Bushby. Matrix media scrum hits Cannes. BBC News, 15 May 2003. URL [4] Julia http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/3031967.stm. Driver. Articial Ethics. URL http://whatisthematrix.warnerbros.com/. [5] Julien Journal R. of Fielding. Religion Reassessing and Film, the 7(2). Matrix/Reloaded. URL http://www.unomaha.edu/ wwwjrf/Vol7No2/matrix.matrixreloaded.htm. [6] Frances Flannery-Daily and Rachel Wagner. Buddhism in the Matrix. Wake up! Gnosticism and 5(2). URL Journal of Religion and Film, http://www.unomaha.edu/ wwwjrf/gnostic.htm. [7] I.Q. The Hunter. Matrix. Banality as Saviour: (121), May Bill & Ted and URL Filmhäftet, 2002. http://www.filmint.nu/netonly/eng/banalityassaviour.htm. [8] Steve The Sailer. Washington Film of the 16 Week: May 'Matrix 2003. Reloaded'. URL Times, http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20030515-040822-7434r.htm. [9] Diana West. Lost in the Matrix. Townhall.com, 26 May 2003. URL http://www.townhall.com/columnists/dianawest/dw20030526.shtml. 9