Welcome to #TransTuesday! This week we begin our examination of the INTENTIONAL TRANS ALLEGORY OF THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS, part 1! I want to caution you that this is even more advanced stuff than Reloaded was. Further, it may be more difficult to understand if you’re cis.
You’ve come so far, through two movies and eleven threads to this point, so I hope you’ll stick with me through the end. Though all three movies are INTRINSICALLY trans, and speak to the trans experience, Revolutions feels like the one most made FOR us (though it’s also for you).
Which is not to say that the others weren’t, but whereas you cis folks needed me as an interpreter to explain what the first two were saying, I can only do so much. I’m going to try my best, as always, to convey what’s going on as clearly as I can.
Before going any further, you must you must YOU MUST have read and absorbed the allegories of the first two movies. This has no chance of making sense to you otherwise.
The examination of the intentional trans allegory of The Matrix begins here (Show Replies at the end of part 1 will take you to part 2, Show Replies at the end of part 2 will take you to part 3, etc. for 5 total parts).
https://twitter.com/TillyBridges/status/1404881655525826561
The examination of the intentional trans allegory of The Matrix Reloaded begins here (Show Replies at the end of part 1 will take you to part 2, Show Replies at the end of part 2 will take you to part 3, etc. for 6 total parts).
https://twitter.com/TillyBridges/status/1450509668959207426
So I want to start by saying that while the trans allegories of The Matrix and Matrix Reloaded were instantly clear to me, Revolutions was much less so… until I got to one specific shot that cleared it all up, which I’ll call out when we get there.
I think it’s also a little less straightforward because it’s about two things, not one. It’s very much about transphobia specifically, but it’s also about the future (and our hopes and fears thereof).
And when you look at the trilogy as a whole, they represent the past, the present, and the future.
For people who know they’re trans, The Matrix is the story of what we had to go through to get to that realization and deciding to do something about it. It’s also responsible for cracking a lot of eggs, so it’s a starting point, but after that it’s already moving into your past.
Reloaded is about going back to find out why we transitioned, when it made life so difficult as we’re constantly under attack (we did it because we had to, we owed it to ourselves and every other trans person out there that it could help). That’s our present. It’s our every day.
But Revolutions is about the future. Now that we know we’re trans, and we know what that means in our society and how we’ll be treated, what comes next? What do we DO about it? What are the things we have to watch out for?
Because of that it’s a little less straightforward. I can’t as often point you to examples, because again, we’re talking about the future and what could/might happen and what we might be able to (or have to) do about it.
But as always, I’ll do my best to walk you through it and what I think it’s saying, and when we get to the shot that crystallized it for me… I think it’ll crystallize it for you too. Just be patient, it’ll take a while to get there. Okay, let’s go!
0:48 - Explosions of yellow light. We know from Reloaded that yellow = fear/caution. The fear is INSIDE the matrix of society. This is your first clue that this movie’s about society’s fears of us (transphobia) and our fears for what that might mean and do to us (the future). 
1:22 - There’s no sign of Niobe, Neo’s confidence is gone. Hence why he’s “lost”. When searching for him, they find “nothing but blue pills.” A reference to the people still stuck in the matrix… but also calling out what’s going on inside Neo’s head.
Remember from the first two movies that blue is also the color of our doubt, of our rejection of everything we really are. Neo’s already made the choice to not reject his true self, but these lingering doubts remain (which is why he now finds himself in limbo).
1:58 - Neo and Bane remain in a coma. Look how they’re nearly identical. We learned in Reloaded that Bane was a trans person with internalized transphobia, made to hate himself by society. This mirror image shows you Neo has his own internalized transphobia.
2:13 - So tortured by the reality of his own transness, taught to hate himself by society, Bane’s been self-harming. There’s no metaphor or allegory here, this is a very real surface representation of what self-hate can do to people.
2:33 - Despite Neo being disconnected, Morpheus (his subconscious) believes he’s still connected and in the Matrix. By which I think he’s worried that the matrix is, instead, in Neo. It’s definitely in Bane. Again, this is cis binary society’s transphobia worming its way in.
3:50 - Seraph, the walls protecting our heart, calls Morpheus, the subconscious. The heart has something important to say (doesn’t it always).
4:15 - Neo wakes up in the train station at “MOBIL” ave. Mobil = motion, movement. He’s caught between worlds… without motion. This is the limbo he now finds himself in. He’s trapped, and greeted by Sati.
Her name means truth and virtue, but also Sati is a Hindu goddess who sacrifices herself for the love of her husband. She’s dressed in yellow here, which again we know from Reloaded stands for fear/caution.
If you view a wife sacrificing herself for the love of her husband as two ends of a transgender spectrum (one gender sacrificed that another may exist), and take into account her name’s meaning and the color she’s presented in, what do we have?
Neo’s afraid that he’ll have to sacrifice himself, his true self. He’s afraid that in the future he’ll have to give it up and go back to pretending to be a man, or that it may result in his very real death.
Sati’s not in red because Neo doesn’t know if this is the truth or not, but presumably you’ve watched the movie prior to reading this and you can see exactly what this scene is foreshadowing.
Sati asks him outright, “Are you lost, Neo?” He doesn’t answer, because he doesn’t know. But we do.
The train takes people from the station to the Matrix, but Sati says Neo can’t go there. The Trainman won’t let him. And if you don’t do what he says, he’ll leave you at the station forever. AKA if Neo doesn’t figure out why he feels so lost, he could be stuck here forever.
5:05 - Seraph takes Morpheus/Trinity to see the Oracle. She’s back where we first found her, in her apartment. The reds are muted now, the truth is muddy. Dirtied. As she says, “One thing I’ve learned in all my years is that nothing ever works out just the way you want it to.”
5:40 - Oracle: “I made a choice, and that choice cost me more than I wanted it to.” As we learned in Reloaded, Neo’s choice to transition has turned his life into a constant fight. And it’s a fight that brings consequences.
5:49 - Oracle: “Since the real test for any choice is having to make the same choice again, knowing full well what it might cost… I guess I feel pretty good about that choice.” This is confirming what we saw Neo realize in Reloaded.
He made the choice to transition, and he’d do it again, despite the consequences and his fear over where it may lead.
Oracle explains here that the Trainman is what facilitates getting programs, parts of the matrix, in or out. He is another representation of our own internalized transphobia that can prohibit us from ever being free. To confirm, we learn he works for the Merovingian.
Going back to what we learned about him in Reloaded, the Merovingian is a trans person who has rejected their transness and Persephone was his true self that he’d locked away from the world. What his encounter with Neo did to him is something we’ll learn about in a bit.
6:50 - The Oracle sends Seraph with Trinity and Morpheus, to protect them. The walls around our heart, a result of the onslaught of violence we face (literal, legislative, and otherwise) have expanded around our subconscious and even our self-actualization.
Neo’s putting walls up around every part of himself, withdrawing more from the world as the realities of living out and proud have hurt and weakened him (to the point we know he’s now in a coma). He’s becoming more guarded, worried, and fearful, and with good reason.
7:10 - Oracle knows our subconscious is now filled with doubt and uncertainty. Morpheus is now worried he can’t trust the Oracle, aka Neo’s doubting he has the heart for this. But the heart always knows. Even though fear (the yellow light) has come between them.
Oracle: “I expect just what I’ve always expected, for you to make up your own damn mind. Believe me or don’t.” All she can do is warn them that Neo’s in trouble and needs their help. Neo needs every part of himself to get through this.
7:36 - Sati asks Neo if he’s from the Matrix, and he answers both yes and no, which is true. He was born into it, so he’s part of it, and yet he rejected it and left it behind and now lives outside it (the repercussions of which he cannot seem to escape).
Sati’s father is Rama-Kandra, likely a nod to Ramchandra, who was an incarnation of Vishnu, the Hindu deity that created, protects, and TRANSFORMS the universe. Her mother is Kamala, which means “lotus,” which in Hinduism, represents enlightenment and spiritual awakening.
Our enlightenment carries our truth to transform the world, but only if we can “get out of the station,” aka the limbo that internalized transphobia strands us in. And they, too, are programs… were created within and by the matrix, yet choose not to be bound by it.
10:10 - Rama-Kandra: “I see that you are in love. Can you tell me what you would give to hold on to that connection?” Neo: “Anything.” And that’s why he’s afraid. He now knows he’d give ANYTHING to remain self-actualized, and that scares the shit out of him.
Neo’s fights in Reloaded, aka the ways trans people are always under attack in society and must continually fight for our right to exist, have left him exhausted and he feels like he’s in limbo (the train station). The Trainman works for the Merovingian, and is a way out.
Well, he’s ONE WAY out of the exhausted limbo we often find ourselves in, via the path the Merovingian took, which we’ll get to shortly.
10:34 - Seraph to the Trainman: “We need your help.” Trainman: “I can’t help you. No one can help you.” This absolutely isn’t true, in fact we NEED each other, the community, to help each other overcome transphobia.
But the Trainman is governed by the Merovingian, and with everything you learned about him already, it’s perfectly clear he sees this as truth. There is no help, there is acceptance or denial, and he hardly believes he even had THAT choice. Although that’s changed a bit...
10:39 - The red emergency stop. Remember as we learned in The Matrix (and which still holds true), red = truth. Here, it’s the truth that our own transphobia is what grinds everything to a halt. There’s no easy way out, we’ve got to work through it.
To clarify, there IS an “easy” way out, the Merovingian’s way, but you’ll see that’s not a way Neo wants to go.
14:07 - Sati leaves, without Neo, who cannot get past the Trainman to board the train. His fear is all that can escape, the rest of him gets locked in limbo with no way out.
15:09 - Seraph/Morpheus/Trinity approach Club Hel, surrounded by red. With our walls up, guarded, our subconscious and self-actualization are going to try and free us from the limbo we find ourselves in. Note it’s again guarded by CIS WHITE MEN, which will make sense soon.
15:51 - Morpheus hits the button to Hel. Red. They, again, seek the truth, in this case why Neo feels stuck in limbo and what they can do about it. Also note this button SAID “HELP” but the P has been scratched out. Without help, you can end up in Hel. Like the Merovingian.
Important to note this isn’t club “hell,” but “Hel,” as in the Norse goddess of the underworld/dead. Remember again that Merovingian’s true self that he locked away was Persephone, a Greek goddess of the underworld/dead.
He has become a “darker” version of his true self.
16:35 - The Merovingian’s guards (more cis white men) can flout the rules of the Matrix, just like Neo/Morpheus/Trinity. He is less bound by the matrix than he was before (through accepting his transness), but that doesn’t mean he’s on our side.
Note during this fight, unlike fights with agents or security guards, there are flashes of red on these men, bursts of red blood when they’re shot. There is some degree of truth here, with the Merovingian (again, he has accepted his transness), even though it’s skewed.
Inside Club Hel it’s a fetish dance club. And there’s red to be found here, other trans people who have come to the same conclusion the Merovingian has.
18:33 - On cue, we get our first shot of the Merovingian and Persephone. They are both now IN RED, his transness has been accepted. Look how similar their hair now is, too. But also note Persephone, his true self, does not appear like she did in Reloaded.
Her clothing is MUCH more sexualized. Like… a lot. And not just sexualized, but fetishized. That’s not just a woman in a red dress, not just a woman in a low-cut red dress, but in a low-cut FETISH red dress.
18:46 - Just like Neo’s coat in Reloaded that was in place of a skirt/dress, the Merovingian has one too. Hard to tell from the screencaps, but watch when he walks over, you can tell. All of this is showing you he IS trans (which we knew), and has accepted it and transitioned.
Yet he’s not hunted by Agents. He hasn’t fled the matrix. He’s still here, playing by the “rules” cis white men set up, despite that he went from wealth, status, power, and the top of a skyscraper to the dark basement of a parking garage. A clearer metaphor you may never find.
Why? He’s still GUARDED BY cis white men. WHY?
The answer to that is very complex, and a topic I’ve not covered in any Trans Tuesday post before, which means the examination of what the Hel’s going on here will happen next week! You really don’t want to miss it.
Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
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