The Matrix series hasn't directly acknowledged LGBTQ people until now. The character of Switch was changed for the film because studio executives were confused. That didn't stop queer readings of the work, which intensified after directors Lana and Lilly Wachowski came out as trans women.
In the 2020 documentary Disclosure, Lilly Wachowski encouraged these readings, saying, "The Matrix was all about the desire for transformation, but it was all coming from a closeted point of view." The Wachowskis made the first film in the series, The Matrix Resurrections. The latest sequel gave an opportunity to acknowledge the readings on queer and trans issues. Lana Wachowski, who is directing without Lilly, and the crew took it.
In the latest chapter of the saga, Neo is trapped in a new Matrix and living as video game developer Thomas Anderson. While working on an ambitious new project, his boss Smith forced him into developing a sequel to his blockbuster video game series The Matrix, which is similar to the movie trilogy we've all seen and that Neo can't remember.
The meta first act allows for Resurrections to comment on the interpretations of The Matrix. The first direct reference to the LGBTQ in the series was made in the original story of The Matrix games. This exchange is tongue-in-cheek and not a complete rejection of the reading. Many of the things these developers bring up are contained in the series. The scene is just ridiculing those who say The Matrix is about more than one thing.
Most of the queer content in Resurrections is the same as the original, repeating old scenarios of the awakened Neo and Trinity rejecting their dead names and adding in new references to "binaries" which have inevitably been read as a commentary on gender binaries. The previous films made it difficult for characters to be queer, but with the help of Resurrections, they can now be seen as couples.
The villains of The Matrix Resurrections might be the most fascinating aspect of the queer subtext. Despite the problematic history of queer-coded villains in Hollywood, they are often a source of fascination for queer artists and audiences. I am pretty sure that Lana Wachowski knew what she was doing when she cast two openly gay actors in the roles of the two main antagonists in the film.
Hugo Weaving had a part in the original trilogy in regards to the queer subtext, so Agent Smith is the richer character. Smith has been compared to closet gay preachers, trans women who force themselves to live as men, and conversion therapy advocates. Smith's self-loathing comes through loud and clear when he tells Morpheus in the first film, "I hate this place, this zoo, this prison, this reality, whatever you want to call it."
Groff's Smith has come out if Weaving's Smith is closeted. Not as trans, but as gay. The queer-coding on the Smith is so heavy that it almost goes beyond coding, without being offensive or explicit enough to warrant the sort of censorship common with LGBTQ+ material in blockbuster movies around the world. Groff has described the film as a whole as being more queer, and it is easy to see why he would want to play Smith as gay.
Groff's Smith is more relaxed and comfortable in his own skin than Weaving's Smith was. When Smith makes his appeal to Neo around an hour and 22 minutes into the movie, it becomes clear he is more comfortable expressing his affection for his opponent. Berg, the crew's resident Neo scholar, joked that there were so many theories about the two of them. Smith says that the analyst used their bond and made it a chain. Smith asks Neo his opinion on his blue eyes, and takes a lot of pauses to make flirtatious faces. It is total bait.
Smith says that Anderson and Smith are one of the Binaries that form the nature of things. There is a gender subtext to the criticism of binaries in Resurrections. Smith has a passion for fighting Neo and the analyst that is not hard to see, as he claims that the analyst had a leash on his neck. When Smith saves Neo and Trinity from the analyst, he says that he was free to be himself. Smith and Morpheus have a kid together in the form of Yahya Abdul-Mateen II's new Morpheus program character.
The analyst is not as heavily queer-coded as Smith. He is one of those Matrix fans who have appropriated the original's imagery, monologuing about "alternative facts" and looking down on others as "sheeple." Most viewers know that Harris is a gay man, but they also know that his most famous characters, from Barney to his own caricature in the Harold & Kumar movies, have been heterosexual.
Harris says that he played the character as a version of himself, even though it was wildly different from himself. Lana Wachowski's style has evolved in a more naturalistic direction, leaving Harris somewhat confused over how "truth" is defined. Neil Patrick Harris isn't the "true" Neil Patrick Harris, but anyone who knows the actor will bring their knowledge of his public identity to the analyst. It creates a strange phenomenon in which the two most significant agents of a system often read as a metaphor for conformity and anti-LGBTQ oppression.
Being openly queer made one an enemy of the system. This isn't necessarily the case in 2020. Marriage and protection from employment discrimination have been written into the law, and enough has changed that some queer people are able to hold power within the system. Our governments and corporations are more gay-friendly than before, but that doesn't mean they're more friendly in general. Pinkwashing is a form of capitalism that uses nominal progressiveness on queer issues to distract from harmful actions in other areas.
One of the main themes of The Matrix Resurrections is that the systems of power are appropriate and that they can be subverted. The story of rebellion against the Matrix has been turned into a video game franchise. Most audiences don't understand the intended message of the corporate product that is Subversion. They took your story, something that meant so much to people like me, and turned it into something trivial. Bullet time is the most famous image in The Matrix and it is symbolic of how revolution gets warped against its original meaning.
The queer-coded villains of Resurrections are an example of this being done to the system. Smith is able to redeem himself by breaking away from the system that the analyst embraces. There are always heated debates over whether the goals of the LGBTQ movement should be to show the world that queer people can be just like everyone else or to reject normal and respectability politics. Lana Wachowski might object to anyone saying what The Matrix Resurrections is about, but at least part of it is an anti-assimilationist message: not gay as in happy, but queer as in fuck you.
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