"Mother isn't quite herself today:" myth and spectacle in The Matrix

Abstract

In contrast with critics who interpret The Matrix by focusing primarily on either the film's dazzling visual effects or on its more fragmented “second coming” narrative, we work within the tension between the two. As a myth, the film updates an ancient initiation ritual in which the hero matures into a character capable of freeing humanity from its technological mirror image, represented here as a false mother. As a spectacle, however, the typically beneficial influence of feminine eroticism is displaced from women into the special effects, thereby diluting the impact of the narrative. The Matrix is, we believe, caught in this tension just as postmodern humanity is caught between its attraction to and its repulsion from its own technological extensions.