"The Matrix"

The MAtRiX
Disclaimer: The following text is intended for those who have seen The Matrix. It will not give plot summaries; introduce every character or event, significant or insignificant to the assignment, nor will it discuss the super-graphical cinematic innovations.

If one stares long enough at the title ‘The Matrix’, your mind begins to play tricks on you. For instance, if you eliminate the letter T, and I in the word ‘Matrix’, it just spells out Marx. I just thought this was interesting to share as I will, nevertheless, discuss certain Marxist ideas that I found appealing in this movie. This paper will stray away from the many controversial, philosophical concepts of mind vs. body, religion, perception, and other aesthetical, metaphysical, and epistemological arguments. I will make an attempt to generally focus on the relationship between Neo and Morpheus, under the scopes of the ‘Intellectuals’. Also, I will attempt to re-introduce the concept of hegemony as it is extremely evident in this movie.
Morpheus would definitely be responsible for the famous repetitive concept; “Free your Mind”, just as he freed Neo’s mind. Marxist ideology is not easy to cope with. Nevertheless, Marx did have a vision. As much as his works are viewed as theories, I don’t think Marx himself had intentions to show the world the way it is. I think he wanted to change the world, by preventing certain Historical phenomena’s.
Morpheus, in his own Zion like heaven appears to be unique. He stands out because he seems to have higher belief value, and experiences a greater understanding of a productive future; where the war between the humans and the machines seizes to exist, a place where these two entities live collectively and in harmony (communism?). Interestingly enough, this so-called vision of his isn’t entirely his. The Oracle in this movie symbolizes the very concept of Ideology. Only the higher intelligentsia can understand this ideology. Only with the help of the Intellectual can a society conform to change. The intellectual would educate the proletarian class, so as to put an end to the class struggle, and produce an equal production/labor force. To me, Morpheus represents the higher intelligentsia of the bourgeois origin, who has been fused with Neo (who lives in the Matrix, and symbolizes the lower proletarian sector, which in the real world (Zion) he is nothing more then a physical battery for the machines).
Hegemony can be seen from two different end points. First, from the Machine-like-AI, who have established hegemony over the humans, and secondly, the humans’ attempt to achieve and move forward towards hegemony over the Machine. This very concept of ‘who has dominance over one another’ becomes an everlasting cycle introduced by Marx. He seeks to find a solution to stray away from hegemony (capitalism). The humans advancing towards hegemony is present when those individuals who are freed from the matrix, ultimately entering, and becoming part a class. A class Gramsci would consider “Organic Intellectuals of the working class [who] are defined on the one hand by their role in production and in the organization of work and on the other hand by their “directive” political role, focused on the Party. It is though this assumption of conscious responsibility, aided by absorption of ideas and personnel form the more advanced bourgeois intellectual strata [(Morpheus)], that the proletariat can escape from defensive corporatism [(Machines/Matrix)] and economism and advance toward hegemony” (p2). Once this class or organization has been fully established then can they only strive for change categorized by a revolution. Hence the title of the last Matrix film, “Matrix Revolutions”.