Lilly Wachowski is glad that the transgender community sees the trans themes in The Matrix she intended to include! As Entertainment Tonight shares, Wachowski sat down with Netflix Film Club recently to talk about the movie and its trans themes.
Wachowski states telling a trans story was "the original intention"
Wachowski revealed that The Matrix— which she directed alongside her sister, Lana Wachowski— was in fact meant to be a story exploring transness. However, these themes had to be implied rather than explicitly stated. "I’m glad that it has gotten out that that was the original intention," she said.
"But the world wasn’t quite ready for it -- the corporate world wasn’t ready for it." Entertainment Tonight also shares that the Wachowski sisters also originally meant for the character "Switch," played by Belinda McClory, to "be a woman inside the Matrix, but a man in the real world."
Wachowski glad movie "helped people on their journey"
Wachowski then mentioned her gratitude that The Matrix movies "have helped people on their journey" while they navigated their own transgender identity. "I love how meaningful those films are to trans people," she said, "and the way that they come up to me and say, 'these movies saved my life.'"
As Entertainment Tonight mentions, both Lilly and Lana Wachowski are trans women. According to Lilly, The Matrix is a movie that was "all about a desire for transformation, but it was coming from a closeted point of view."
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Lilly shares she and Lana existed "where the words didn't exist"
Lilly explained that this particular point of view was "where our headspaces were" at the time she and Lana were imagining The Matrix. "I don't know how present my transness was in the background of my brain when we were writing it," Lilly admitted.
"For me and Lana, we were existing in this space where the words didn't exist, so we were always living in a world of imagination. Which is why I gravitated toward science fiction and fantasy."
There is another sequel to The Matrix in the works, and Lana Wachowski is set to return along with the franchise's star, Keanu Reeves! Jonathan Groff has also signed on for the project, which is currently known as The Matrix 4. Now that Lilly Wachowski has revealed the original movie to be a transgender allegory, perhaps the upcoming film will make trans themes more apparent!
