ABSTRACT
In the original Matrix series (1999–2003), the Wachowski sisters created a science fiction (SF) world to explore their experiences as closeted transwomen. After more than a decade of living openly as a transwoman, Lana Wachowski revisits the world she created with her sister in the 2021 solo film The Matrix Resurrections. This chapter explores how Wachowski’s film serves as an extended visual metaphor for what gender theorist Jack Halberstam describes as the assimilation and exploitation of queer people by neoliberal economic systems. This is particularly evident both in the story arcs of Trinity, Neo, and Agent Smith and in the redesign of the Matrix itself, which actively encourages public expressions of misery while using them to defuse any real revolutionary energy. At the same time, Wachowski’s film dramatizes SF author Nalo Hopkinson’s concept of literary and cultural renovation, inviting audiences to rethink revolution as depending not just on one singular messianic figure who makes a single grand sacrifice, but on smaller, everyday acts of kindness and connection amongst individuals who, collectively, have the power to slowly but surely change the world for better.
