Lilly Wachowski calls out right-wing groups for misreading The Matrix

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Lilly Wachowski, one of the creators of The Matrix, has been publicly criticizing people with fascist views who claim the film supports their ideology and misunderstand its meaning.

The Matrix is a sci-fi classic that we placed at Number 1 on our list of best movies ever.

This 1999 sci-fi film presents a dark future where a hacker named Neo discovers his world isn’t real. It’s a computer simulation created by artificial intelligence to control people, who are actually being used as a power source – their bodies are connected to machines that harvest their energy.

Neo faces a pivotal decision: he’s presented with a red pill, symbolizing harsh reality, and a blue pill, offering a return to comfortable illusion. Lilly Wachowski feels this choice has been consistently misunderstood and incorrectly portrayed.

Lilly Wachowski says right-wing “mutate” Matrix message

In an interview on the So True podcast, Wachowski explained that right-wing ideologies often take ideas from the left, twist them, and use them to spread their own message – a tactic she described as a hallmark of fascism. Essentially, they co-opt and distort opposing viewpoints for their own purposes.

Wachowski explained that the claim of only two biological genders isn’t based on science, but is rather a tactic similar to fascism. Fascism, they said, takes commonly understood ideas – things people often question, investigate, or simply accept as true about life – and distorts them, stripping away their original meaning and significance.

Lana Wachowski, who publicly came out as transgender in 2016, has explained that the idea of being “red-pilled” in The Matrix isn’t about conservative politics. She sees it as a metaphor for the transgender experience within the film. In the 2020 Netflix documentary Disclosure, Wachowski said this was her original intention, but studios weren’t prepared for that interpretation at the time. She described The Matrix as being fundamentally about the desire to change and transform, but that perspective came from her own experience of being closeted.

Want to know more about the next Matrix movie? Here’s the latest on the sequel currently in the works, and an idea from Joe Pantoliano about how his character might reappear.

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2025-12-02 14:50