Lilly Wachowski criticizes the right wing’s appropriation of the ‘Matrix’ message: “That’s what fascism does”
The co-director of the saga starring Keanu Reeves lashes out against those who have appropriated her work for socio-political purposes opposed to her ideology.
More than 25 years have passed since The Matrix exploded onto the screen and redefined what action and sci-fi could look like in Hollywood. Its groundbreaking digital effects and philosophy-driven plotlines turned it into a cultural landmark.
But for Lilly Wachowski—who co-directed the saga with her sister Lana—seeing parts of the political right adopt elements of the film for their own messaging has been deeply unsettling. In a recent interview, she criticized how the movie’s underlying themes have been appropriated for the opposite of what she intended. “That’s what fascism does,” she said.
Why Lilly Wachowski says The Matrix has been misinterpreted
Speaking on the podcast ‘So True with Caleb Hearon’, Wachowski said it has been hard to accept that she can’t control how the public interprets her work. She explained that she’s had to “let go” rather than try to convince people what the world of The Matrix actually means to her.
“You have to let go of your work,” she said. “People are going to interpret it however they interpret it. I look at all the crazy, mutant theories around, like the Matrix films and what the crazy ideologies that those films helped create, and I’m just like, ‘What are you doing? No! That’s wrong!’ But I have to let it go to some extent or else I’m engaging in… You’re never going to be able to make absolutely every single person believe what you initially intended.”
The misuse of the red pill: from sci-fi symbol to political badge
The moment Wachowski points to most is the now-infamous red pill/blue pill scene—one of the movie’s most enduring images. In the film, Neo must choose between a blue pill, which returns him to a comfortable illusion, and a red pill, which exposes him to a difficult, unsettling truth.
Over the years, the red pill has been widely adopted by MAGA-aligned conservatives in the United States, who use it as a symbol of “waking up” to their political worldview. Wachowski condemned how right-wing movements frequently seize on popular culture—even material that contradicts their ideology—and twist it into propaganda.
“Right-wing ideology appropriates absolutely everything. They appropriate left-wing points of view, and they mutate them for their own propaganda, to obfuscate what the real message is,” she said.
“That is what fascism does. It like takes these things, it takes these ideas that are generally acknowledged as questions or investigations, or, you know, truisms about... humanity and life, and they turn them to something else so that they are, they remove the weight of what those things represent,”
What the red pill really meant to the Wachowskis
Conservative groups have long interpreted the red pill as an awakening to what they describe as cultural “truths,” especially when pushing back against LGBTQ rights.
But both Lilly and Lana Wachowski have clarified over the years that the red pill was always intended as a trans allegory. The deeper meaning wasn’t widely discussed at the time of release, largely because studios weren’t ready for that conversation.
“That was the original intention, but the corporate world wasn’t ready for it,” Lilly explained in 2020. She said the entire concept of The Matrix “was all about the desire for transformation but it was all coming from a closeted point of view.”
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