From red pills to simulation theory to the return of tiny sunglasses. The 20-year-old movie that got everything right.
The Matrix Built Our Reality-Denying World
The movie that gave all of us—including Alex Jones, flat-earthers, lizard-people conspiracists, and even Rachel Maddow—a new way to see (or not see) everything.
The Matrix was the first shot fired in what’s now considered a benchmark year for American movies—1999, the year that brought us Being John Malkovich and Magnolia, The Sixth Sense and Office Space, Fight Club and The Blair Witch Project and Election. And although few would claim it was the best of the bunch, it has worked its way into our thinking—for better and, unmistakably, for worse—as few other pieces of pop culture have done. We may talk about all those other movies. But Morpheus was right. In 2019, we are living in the Matrix.
Or, you know, maybe we’re not. Maybe in 2019, we just like to say things like “We are living in the Matrix”—and that may be the truest and deepest influence of a movie whose high-flown paranoia has insinuated itself into the way we live now. In an era when the president’s lawyer can go on TV and splutter, “Truth isn’t truth!” as if it’s something everyone should know, and endless speculative conversations proceed not from “What is reality?” but from “What if we’re living in a broken simulation?,” The Matrix is omnipresent—amazingly so, given how little we still talk about the actual movie. It’s not that the film was prescient. It didn’t anticipate our world. But it anticipated—and probably created—a new way of viewing that world. And, just as “Madness is the only sane response to a crazy world” fiction like Catch-22 had done a generation earlier, it granted everyone permission to refuse to contend with reality by deeming that refusal a form of hyperawareness.
This story is from the February 4, 2019 edition of New York magazine.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the February 4, 2019 edition of New York magazine.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
The Escape Artist
PinkPantheress blew up anonymously on TikTok. Now, her Y2K dance-pop influences the masses.
The Parasites of MALIBU
Anthony Flores and Anna Moore met Dr. Mark Sawusch at an ice-cream shop.
THE INVITED
WHEN YOU'RE A VIC-\"VERY IMPORTANT CLIENT\" -LUXURY BRANDS ANYTHING TO KEEP YOU HAPPY (AND SPENDING). WILL DO
LEARNING THE ART OF SEDUCTION FROM THE KING OF HÖRNINESS
There are two things that make women happy,” Usher Raymond IV tells me.
Magic Mikey
She gave up competitive horseback riding to pursue acting. Now, the rising star is getting awards buzz for her role as a determined stripper in Anora
'Mommy, Can We Go to Paris?
You try explaining to my kid why he can't do the wildly expensive things some of his Brownstone Brooklyn classmates take for granted.
Plus-Size Shopping in the Wild
Samyra Miller’s quest to find clothes at the mall that fit.
Hungry for More
A decade of Chicken Shop Date behind her, Amelia Dimoldenberg is still holding out for the One.
BIRTHDAY SUITS
On the cusp of 50, CHLOË SEVIGNY is ready for a change.
Art Fall Preview - World in Motion - An Alvin Ailey retrospective sets the tone for an array of eclectic offerings from the art world this fall.
An Alvin Ailey retrospective sets the tone for an array of eclectic offerings from the art world this fall. A gust of fresh air is blowing through the art world. A brand-new outfit called Ruby/Dakota has opened on the supercool strip of East 2nd Street. A whole new scene has formed around 56 Henry's two gallery spaces in Chinatown, and solo shows there by Laurie Simmons and Richard Tinkler promise to scintillate. Just north of the Whitney, Fort Gansevoort Gallery regularly showcases undiscovered artists, including, in September, 84-year-old quilt-maker extraordinaire Yvonne Wells. A gaggle of established artists are also exhibiting-Kara Walker, Simone Leigh, Nick Cave, and the still under-known Denzil Forrester among them. And the museums will have their fair share of thrilling exhibitions, too: The Whitney will feature American national treasure Alvin Ailey, MoMA will peer deep into its own brilliant bellybutton in a show about the woman who helped make the museum, and the Brooklyn Museum will give us an enormous show of artists based in its borough.