Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 2, No. 3, 2003, Page 71
Book and Film Reviews
Film Review: The Matrix Cult
Much of the semiotic discussion around the deeper structures of The Matrix has tended to
center around positive ethical and philosophical systems. Thus, numerous critics have
pointed out the Christian subtext in the film with Neo as Christ and Morpheus as John the
Baptist (James L. Ford: 8). The Garden of Eden story has been superimposed on The Matrix
as well with the implication that just as Adam's and Eve's awakening to knowledge makes
Christianity possible, so too, Neo's awakening will lead to the salvation of humanity by a
Christ-like figure (cf. James S. Spiegel: 13). Others have picked out connections with
Joseph Campbell's monomyth concept where the hero must depart from the familiar world,
go into a netherworld and return morally transformed (A. Samuel Kimball: 176, 198).
There is also the Platonic interpretation where the passage toward the light from the famous
cave allegory is read into the awakening process of The Matrix: "The theme of appearance
versus reality is as old as Plato‘s Republic. And while perhaps no writer or artist has
improved upon his cave allegory in presenting this theme, the Wachowski brothers‘ The
Matrix might be as effective an attempt as any since Plato, in cinematic history anyway"
(James S. Spiegel: 9). Buddhism and its notion that reality is illusion appears as an equally
convincing model for reading The Matrix (James L. Ford: 10). Even Gnosticism has been
used as an interesting semiotic framework for the film (Frances Flannery-Dailey and Rachel
Wagner: 10-12).
However, most of the authors mentioned above sooner or later end up dealing with the
issue of violence in the Wachowski brothers' film. This violence seems to be at odds with
the ethical principles inherent in the Christian, Buddhist or Gnostic interpretative models.
In fact, the martial arts and bloodshed in The Matrix and in The Matrix Reloaded might
move some viewers to discount whatever philosophical message(s) the films might seek to
convey. If one is still bent on applying a positive semiotic model to the film, one may be
tempted to make the argument that in the cyberworld of the Matrix the violence is as unreal
as the residual images of the characters. This desire for moral consistency is undoubtedly
what motivated the film's special effects supervisor John Gaeta and editor Zach Staenberg
to make the following remark in the scene-by-scene commentary accompanying the DVD
version of The Matrix: "Nobody actually dies. All these people are virtual. [...][It's] a
cathartic experience" (The Matrix DVD: Feature Length Audio Commentary). They are
referring to the scene where numerous government security men are killed by Neo and
Trinity as the two rebels try to rescue Morpheus. However, this attempt to pretend the
violence is not real within the logic of the story does not stand up to scrutiny.
As Morpheus trains Neo in a virtual reality program that resembles the Matrix, he explains
the relationship that the rebels have with the inhabitants of the evil cyberworld: "The
Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. [...][The people we're trying to save]
are a part of that system, and that makes them our enemy. [...]Anyone we haven't
unplugged is potentially an agent" (The Matrix DVD: The Gatekeepers). Therefore, apart
from the agents, the people with whom the rebels interact in the Matrix are computerized
projections of those imprisoned in the pods, i.e., each individual within the Matrix is linked
to a specific existing physical body that lives in the power plant. Neo is a case-in-point
since his virtual self is not merely a bunch of numbers in a computer (as would be the case
in a video game for example), but rather a bunch of numbers that represent a real person
in a pod. Thus, the dwellers of the Matrix are virtual and real at the same time.
What makes the reality of these people indisputable is that the death of a computerized self
in the Matrix means the death of the body to which it corresponds. This is evidenced by
the death of Mouse at the hands of government security men who are pursuing the rebels.
Mouse's virtual self is shot by virtual bullets within the Matrix, and then we immediately see

Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 2, No. 3, 2003, Page 72
his real body inside the hovercraft (i.e., in the real world) writhe in agony and bleed
profusely out of the mouth. The same applies to Neo whose physical body in the
Nebuchadnezzar dies (before his Christ-like resurrection) after his residual image is shot
within the Matrix. Therefore, Zach Staenberg and John Gaeta are wrong in their
assumption that "all these people are virtual" and so "nobody actually dies" (see above). If
the real Mouse dies after being shot, then so do the real bodies of all the security men shot
by Neo and Trinity in the government building.
In this connection Frances Flannery-Dailey and Rachel Wagner wonder why the Wachowski
brothers make the violence so real in the film:
Indeed, the "violence" which takes place in the Niko Hotel could still be portrayed, with the
reassuring belief that any "deaths" which occur there are simply computer blips. The fact
that the writers so purposefully insist that actual human beings die (i.e. die also within the
power plant) while serving as involuntary "vessels" for the agents strongly argues for The
Matrix‘s direct association of violence with the knowledge required for salvation (53 also
see Peter X Feng: 151).
I would suggest that a shift in semiotic perspective occurs when we read The Matrix in this
light. Instead of seeing the cyberworld as analogous to the Buddhist samsara — a world of
illusion that every human must strive to overcome in order to access a higher reality
(Frances Flannery-Dailey and Rachel Wagner: 26), instead of interpreting Morpheus's rebels
as the enlightened ones of Mahayana Buddhism who give of themselves in order to guide
the "blind" out of samsara and toward enlightenment (Frances Flannery-Dailey and Rachel
Wagner: 30), I would propose the model of a modern aggressive, violent cult.
The story of destructive fringe religious movements begins with the Book of Revelation in
the New Testament. The author, John of Patmos, offers a reading of the Roman Empire not
as a sociopolitical network that offered peace and relative prosperity to most of the world
for the first time in human history. Instead, feeling disenfranchised as a member of a new
religious movement that did not fit into any religious system of the times, John presents the
entire world as an instrument of cosmic evil slated for destruction (cf., Adela Yarbro Collins:
141-142). The only exception is a small group of "saints" that follow John's understanding
of Christianity. The method for legitimizing this stance is the projection of the social
conflict in question to the transcendental plane where the in-group (John's Christians) are
agents in the hands of God while the out-group (the rest of humanity) are representatives
in the hands of Satan (cf. Adela Yarbro Collins: 148-150). This model went on to inspire
various millenarian sects throughout the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance, e.g., the
Anabaptists. As Norman Cohn points out, one can recognize the paradigm of what was to
become and to remain the central phantasy of revolutionary eschatology. The world is
dominated by an evil, tyrannous power [...]until suddenly the hour will strike when the
Saints of God are able to rise up and overthrow it. Then the Saints themselves, the chosen,
holy people who hitherto have groaned under the oppressor's heel, shall in their turn inherit
dominion over the whole earth (4).
The pattern of social turmoil which emerged as a result of this thinking worked as follows:
A marginalized group (often consisting of peasants that flocked to medieval cities but could
find no work or a social niche) dealt with its frustration by isolating itself from mainstream
society exactly as John demands in Revelation.
The group argued that society was part of a cosmically evil enemy deserving of utter
destruction.
Often violent acts (including the massacre of local Jews [Norman Cohn: 49-50, 61-2]) would
be committed against society on the assumption that a divine agent would intervene and
usher in the end of the unjust world (cf. Norman Cohn: 29-32, 253, 314).