Two writers who worked on the latest ‘Matrix’ have revealed that they tried to weave their political messages into the movie, and wanted to ‘take back the term ‘Red Pill,’ which, they say, has been ‘kidnapped by right-wingers.’
In a recent interview for the A.V. Club to promote the new ‘Matrix: Resurrections,’ writers Aleksandar Hemon and David Mitchell reveal the political lenses through which they’d approached the film, and the narratives and ideas they’d tried to weave into the movie.
Interviewer Matt Schimkowitz pressed the writers about how current social and political issues such as “Cambridge Analytica, precursors to the ‘Metaverse,’ [and] social media radicalization” influenced the writing process for the movie.
“We were aware because you bring it into [the movie’s writing collective] The Pit, all that’s happening in the world, so we talked about specific things,” Hemon recalls. “Things like the Red Pill/Blue Pill trope or meme and how it was kidnapped by the right wing, the verb ‘to red-pill’ and so on. So one thing we were mindful of is how to reclaim that trope. To renew the meaning of Red Pill/Blue Pill.”
