Hi everyone,
Trans filmmaker Lilly Wachowski is finally coming to terms with his films having been appropriated by conservative culture. Wachowski, who co-directed the Matrix films along with his trans "sister", gave a recent interview and said that the appropriation of "red-pilling" by the conservative right is fascist.
"They appropriate left-wing points of view and they mutate them for their own propaganda, for their own to obfuscate what the real message is," Wachowski said. "This is what fascism does. And so, of course, that's going to happen."
It was from the Wachowski-directed Matrix trilogy that the concept of red-pilling emerged. That concept, of taking a pill to wake up and see reality for what it is, has been appropriated by conservatives for the phenomenon of a person coming to conservatism and abandoning a leftist, or Democrat mindset. Wachowski, who came out as trans in 2016 was not trans when making The Matrix films. Neither was his "sister," but now both are trans.
"I look at all of the crazy, mutant theories around the Matrix films, and the crazy ideologies that those films helped create, and I just go, What are you doing? No! That’s wrong!" Wachowski said.
"But I have to let it go to some extent," Wachowski said in the interview. "You’re never gonna be able to make absolutely every person believe what you initially intended." The Wachowskis were not trans when they made The Matrix back in 1999. The two have said that the Matrix was meant to be an allegory for the trans experience.
Wachowski spoke in 2019 about what led him to become trans. Speaking on a panel called "The Power of TV: Trans Visibility in Storytelling," Wachowski, then 51, revealed that it was pornography that drew him into the lifestyle.
"The first images I saw that struck a chord with me were trans images in pornography. It was something that unlocked in my brain and I saw these wonderful fearless performers becoming desirable. In my head, I could take the leap where I felt that if I could be desirable, maybe I could be loved," Wachowski said.
But yeah, conservatives are the wacky ones.
Libby