Science Fiction and American Culture » February 18: Use Your Illusion I

February 18: Use Your Illusion I

Plan for the Day

The Matrix (1999)

“The Matrix is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.”
–Morpheus

This is quite an amazing film and came at an appropriate time in American culture. While we we’re partying like it’s 1999 (because it was) at the end of the greatest decade there ever will be, unaware of the issues* we’d soon confront, this film told us we were living under a mass illusion. Our worldviews were shaped by media that distracted us from real serious problems. We didn’t care because things were great! Of course, this is a perspective, but it was shared by many. What is controversial is that “the world that has been pulled over [our] eyes” is something we’re complicit in. As you watch the film, consider why you believe what you believe:

  • From where do your beliefs come?
  • What do you hold as truth? What convinces you?
  • How is the machine metaphor in The Matrix analogous to our contemporary dependence on technologies?

*By “issues,” I mean the pending dot-com bubble and 9/11, which were right after the film came out.

Possible Inspiration for The Matrix

Because I assign Neuromancer (1984) by William Gibson in “Rhetoric and Technology” (coming soon), I did not assign it in this class, but you have a great introduction from the three short stories he wrote related to cyberspace (“Johnny Mnemonic,” “New Rose,” and “Burning Chrome”). I saw The Matrix before I read Neuromancer, and I was stunned at how much of that novel was in the film. There were even Rastafarian pirates! Anyway, what I want you to remember is that cyberspace, the matrix, or any online virtual experience is usually allegorical in science fiction, representing the games reality can play.

Remember, your worldview is constructed based on your experiences. You probably share similar worldviews of those close to you (friends, family, co-workers, etc.), but your worldview isn’t universally experienced. Consider the “situation” of having roommates or a significant other moving in. What conflicts came up? Need more? Did they leave the sponge wet and sitting in the sink to gather funk and bacteria? [Sorry, I digress.]

History of Cyberspace

Well, this isn’t exactly a history of cyberspace, but I do want to mention William Gibson’s scifi novel Neuromancer (1984). Gibson actually coined the term “cyberspace” in his short story “Burning Chrome” (1982), but his novel is more well known. Below is a quick plot summary:

  • Case, the protagonist, is broken and wasting away on skid row–Chiba City.
  • He gets a deal to renew himself and be whole again.
  • He must break into the bizarre corporate headquarters on Tessier-Ashpool, SA and free the AI Wintermute+Neuromancer to become something bigger.

See, it’s a pretty simple plot…well, there’s just a few concerns about how all this is going to get done. Case is a cowboy, and it’s on data that he rides. He’s a thief of a kind, so he’s wanted–wanted, dead or alive. The book is from the 1980s, so a Bon Jovi reference is germane to the discussion.

Cyberspace, the matrix: It’s what we call the internet, but Gibson envisioned a global network computer system that could be accessed through a GUI (graphic user interface) before the world wide web was invented. Yes, the internet has been around since the 1960s (and Guglielmo Marconi had a vision for it circa 1900). Its personal consumer evolution didn’t occur until the early 1990s with GUIs that allowed users to surf in non-text-based environments. In the 1980s, home users with personal computers and very slow modems accessed bulletin board systems to transfer information. If they had graphics, they were very limited. Gibson has Case “jacking into” this system, so his body is outside the matrix, but his mind enters the matrix and can move around.

Barker & Jane explain that “Cyberspace is a spatial metaphor for the ‘nowhere’ place in which the electronic activities of networked computers, cable systems, and other digital communications technologies occur.” Specifically, Gibson’s vision “can be understood as referring to a computer-generated, collective hallucination which constructs the virtual space of electronic culture” (p. 462).

That sounds an awful lot like Morpheus’s quote from The Matrix above.

By the way, Neuromancer is part of the Sprawl Trilogy.

The Desert of the Real

This phrase that Morpheus speaks comes from Jean Baudrillard’s Simulacrum and Simulation, which is the book Neo hides his contraband in at the beginning of the film. Let’s define some terms:

  • simulacrum: the replication (upon replication) of a subject without being able to find the concrete beginning; similarity, likeness. In postmodern theory it refers to a copy or simulation of an item, event, or idea for which the original referent (the reality or real thing) does not exist.
  • hyperreality: the idea often associated with a viewer (an audience in general) believing the media-generated simulation is real or more real than an actual event, personality, condition, or, ultimately, an experience.
  • referent: the thing a word refers to.

The issue is that we no longer have “true” associations to referents in the real world; instead, we have simulacra of ideas without a known origin. The desert–nothingness–when we recognize it as real, horrifies us. Our so-called reality is a series of representations that represent simulacra. Intersubjectivity takes over and we operate as conforming beings because we all share the same illusion. Of course, that’s the theory here.

Slavoj Žižek also has a book titled Welcome to the Desert of the Real, and we’ll get into his work below.

Ray Nelson’s “Eight O’Clock in the Morning” (1963)

This short story was the inspiration for the film They Live (1988). Although I will warn you there are cheesy moments in the film, it’s a very severe critique of media, capitalism, and thought control. Let’s discuss the short story, but we need to have time for the following clips, which will help understand the overall meaning of the text:

Future Stuff

Respond to the Weekly Discussion #6 prompt on Canvas before Friday, (2/21) at 11:00 pm. Keep up with the syllabus and review the notes for the next film and TV shows. Also, your Midterm Exam is on Canvas due Friday, 2/27, 11:00pm. I’ll try to open it up earlier, so you have more time to attempt it.

Works Cited

Barker, Chris and Emma A. Jane. Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice. 5th ed., Sage, 2016.

Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacrum and Simulation. U of Michigan P, 1994. (originally published in 1981).