The Real Housewife-ification of Congress; And, 25 years of being pilled by The Matrix
BRITTANY LUSE, HOST:
Hello, hello. I'm Brittany Luse, and you're listening to IT'S BEEN A MINUTE from NPR, a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident.
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LUSE: This week, we're connecting the dots between fake eyelashes, bleach-blonde hair, and a lot of people yelling to strike those things from the record. I know, I know - how are all these things connected? Well, we're going to find out with Alana Wise - she covers race and identity for NPR - and writer Kerry Manders, who has written a lot about queer culture and butch identity. Alana, Kerry, welcome to IT'S BEEN A MINUTE.
ALANA WISE, BYLINE: Thanks for having me.
KERRY MANDERS: Thanks for having me, too, Brittany.
LUSE: It's great to have you both here. So the three of us are getting into what I'm calling the "Real Housewife"-ication (ph) of Congress. And when I say that, do you both know what I mean?
WISE: Oh, yeah, it's like the back-and-forth, the petty fights. It's like you turn on C-SPAN and it's like, wow, when did I get premium cable?
LUSE: (Laughter) Kerry, I see you nodding along.
MANDERS: Yes, absolutely. And the delight I'm seeing on social media. It's like people are loving these queens going after each other, insulting each other's looks and intelligence.
LUSE: (Laughter). Let me just give the listeners some background. So there have been many shiny examples of the "Real "Housewife"-ication of Congress over the past year. There was George Santos. Need I say more? Bernie Sanders intervening in a near-fistfight between a Republican senator and a witness at a congressional hearing last fall. And then last week, last week there were the words exchanged between Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and Democratic representative Jasmine Crockett. In an exchange with Crockett, during a routine House Committee hearing, Greene interrupted Crockett and said...
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MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE: I think your fake eyelashes are messing up what you're reading.
LUSE: I think your fake eyelashes are messing up what you're reading, implying that Crockett, who is Black, couldn't understand what was going on because of her physical appearance. The hearing erupted.
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ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: That is absolutely unacceptable. How dare you...
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Inaudible).
OCASIO-CORTEZ: ...Attack the physical appearance of another person?
GREENE: Are your...
OCASIO-CORTEZ: Move her...
GREENE: ...Feelings hurt?
OCASIO-CORTEZ: ...Words down.
LUSE: And led to an exchange about what words were appropriate for the hearing in which Crockett posed this question.
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JASMINE CROCKETT: If someone on this committee then starts talking about somebody's bleach-blonde, bad-built butch body, that would not be engaging in personalities, correct?
LUSE: Please note Marjorie Taylor Greene is blonde and boasts a lot about her cross-fit routine. Kerry, Alana, it was funny but also depressing at the same time, and a lot has been made of what this says about the state of Congress. But I want to focus on the words themselves and why these are attacks that resonate. To start, Alana, when you heard Greene say fake eyelashes, what did you hear?
WISE: So pretty immediately, it came across as, oh, I'm not just attacking you for doing your makeup. I'm attacking you for the very specific and very Black-coded way that you're doing your makeup. And it felt almost like a directly racist attack and to make the connection that, oh, because you're wearing fake eyelashes, you don't understand. And if you don't understand, that means inherently, you do not belong here in this place where we're making these massive decisions.
LUSE: You describe Jasmine Crockett's makeup, like, being done in a very Black-coded way. There are going to be listeners that don't know what that means.
WISE: Yeah. So, especially over the past several years, we've seen a lot of Black women embracing fake eyelashes in a way that aren't necessarily meant to appear natural, but they're supposed to be over the top and glamorous. This is a makeup trend that has been really popular with Black women in the same way that you might see high blush being very popular among Southern white women. And it's not lost on me that the direct callout of her lashes seemed like a very almost, quote-unquote, "safe way to dog whistle that your Blackness is out of place here."
LUSE: Now, OK, on the flip side, thinking about what Jasmine Crockett said to Marjorie Taylor Greene, bleach-blonde, bad-built butch body. Kerry, what do you hear in Jasmine Crockett's words?
MANDERS: I thought that Crockett's response used the same kind of rhetorical move to me. The implication being MTG - she's a mannish lesbian because that's what butch means. And I think the counterattack was to say, you're not the right kind of woman either, and let me make fun of your mannish body.
LUSE: Also, I just want to note the phrasing that Jasmine Crockett used because we have yet to touch on the phrasing itself. I mean...
MANDERS: Yup.
LUSE: ...This is alliteration.
MANDERS: Yes.
LUSE: Six words in a row.
MANDERS: I think people are delighting in that alliteration.
WISE: It would be one thing if she, you know, reinvented - what's the Mary Poppins thing?
LUSE: Oh, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
WISE: But she gave you six very short, one-syllable, two-syllable B words. It's easy to track.
LUSE: That's a very good point. In some ways, perhaps a copywriter's dream. And to that point, I mean, in response to all this, Kerry, you've noted how immediately following the exchange, lots of people but gay men, in particular, memed Crockett's comments into a social media frenzy. I can't help but think, in part, they're championing the comments because Marjorie Taylor Greene has a proven track record of being extremely anti-LGBTQ. So even though the word butch, you know, has a homophobic or transphobic history...
MANDERS: Yep.
LUSE: ...It's being heralded by part of that same community. Why do you think this is being championed without much criticism?
MANDERS: When I first became aware of this story, I didn't know about the inciting incident yet because I saw #B6...
LUSE: Oh, you saw the social media response first.
MANDERS: Yes, and I honestly thought that B6 was a sassy soundbite from a queer celebrity because gay men, especially young gay men...
LUSE: Huh.
MANDERS: ...The gaybies, were taking it on and wanting to wear it, right? Asking for t-shirts and saying that it was their slogan of the summer. And I thought, oh, what celebrity interview are they taking this from? Who has owned...
LUSE: (Laughter).
MANDERS: ...Their bad butch? I've been calling myself ever since in my own household. I'm like, I'm a bad butch...
LUSE: (Laughter).
MANDERS: ...Right? And appropriated it. And I want to be very careful here because Jasmine Crockett does not have a history of homophobia. And I think there is a understandable celebration of Crockett not just letting it go, not just taking it. At the same time, words mean beyond their intentions, right? And I still can't get around - to use butch body is, in its rhetorical effect, homophobic. And a lot of the aftermath has been really disheartening to see my identity - I'm a proud butch - turned insult.
LUSE: I mean, that just goes to show how tricky and layered some of this language is and why it's inspired such a cornucopia of responses. Back to Marjorie Taylor Greene, though, for a second. Alana, her comments were immediately denounced as racist, but ultimately, there's not been much consequence for her and what she said to Jasmine Crockett. How, in some ways, is this kind of rhetoric toward a Black woman business as usual in Congress or in the workplace in general?
WISE: I think that the fact that she felt so comfortable to insult the appearance of a Black woman while knowing she is in one of the most hallowed chambers on the planet - it really speaks to the fact that, as you said, it is business as usual. People are still fighting to be able to wear their natural hair at work and in the classroom. You then have the racist misogyny or misogynoir of having your appearance being questioned, particularly as it pertains to beauty standards that aren't natural to what you would normally adhere to and the effort to try to adhere, in some ways, to those standards, be it straightening your hair and that not being seen is good enough, be it the style of clothing that you wear. There are all these layers to the ways that Black women are facing rampant discrimination in the workplace that just makes the attack in Congress sadly commonplace.
LUSE: Pulling out a little bit, whether it's racism or homophobia or transphobia, I think we often see those ways of punching down as a way of bolstering oneself. You see it in Congress, and you will also see it on the literal housewives of insert name of city here. Just last week, we saw a viral advertisement that came from a Republican woman running for secretary of state in Missouri. And in it, she was running with a bulletproof vest on. And she said - Alana, I see you rolling your eyes already. But she said...
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VALENTINA GOMEZ: In America, you can be anything you want. Don't be weak and gay.
LUSE: Don't be weak and gay. Stay - expletive - hard. And showed a photo of her holding an automatic rifle. The ad itself is preposterous. I mean, it seems like something that would come out of a dark comedy because it's just so ridiculous. But it's punching down on people to anger some people and to make others laugh. It's a cheap and cruel way to build yourself up. And that kind of insulting and dissing seems like such a huge part of politics and culture right now. We are obsessively consuming it and memeing it. Why do you both think disses are what's getting us all talking right now?
WISE: It's always sort of a guilty pleasure to see somebody get cut down in a very incisive and surgical way. It's part of why, for example, the rap battle between Drake and Kendrick Lamar has been so interesting.
LUSE: Oh.
WISE: Despite the fact that a number of the allegations had been absolutely horrifying.
LUSE: Yeah.
WISE: Like, you can call someone a person who abuses children. But at the end of the day, we're all singing (singing) BBL Drizzy, like, nonstop. So that's thing number one. Thing number two is that it also feels good when it seems as though someone is getting their comeuppance. And for Marjorie Taylor Greene, it seemed like, OK, you tried to hurt Jasmine Crockett's feelings. Now I am going to cut you down. I am going to absolutely bring you down to size in a way that I think really resonated with people.
MANDERS: Brittany, you've mentioned the term - or you've said, like, the punching down a number of times, and I think that you're absolutely right about that and this kind of belittling in order to score - I was going to say pop cultural points or to score likes. And I'm going to go back to this point. I'm really interested on my social media feeds that 99% of the skits and memes and parody songs I'm seeing are from men. What I worry about overall is that this is a win for misogyny. We don't have to talk about these women and their politics and their ideas. We can talk about them instead insulting each other's looks. And then that gives them permission to also insult looks because they did it first.
LUSE: Well, I mean, it's difficult to think about that without also considering the gender makeup...
MANDERS: Yeah.
LUSE: ...Of Congress and how underrepresented...
MANDERS: Yes.
LUSE: ...Women are there. So you just may have something there, Kerry.
MANDERS: Yeah.
LUSE: But Alana, Kerry, I have learned so much here. Thank you both so much.
MANDERS: Thank you both.
WISE: Thank you.
MANDERS: Appreciate the conversation.
LUSE: And as a thank you to both of you, I'd like to teach you something by playing a little game with you all. Can you stick around for a tiny bit longer?
MANDERS: Absolutely. Yep.
WISE: Absolutely.
LUSE: We'll be right back with a little game I like to call But Did You Know? Stick around.
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LUSE: All right, all right. We're going to play a little game I like to call But Did You Know?
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LUSE: Here's how it works - I'm going to share a story that's been making headlines this week, and as I give you some background on the story, I'll also ask you trivia related to it, but don't worry - it's all multiple choice. And the first one to blurt out the right answer gets a point. Person with the most points wins, and their prize. As always, is bragging rights. This is public radio, y'all.
WISE: (Laughter).
LUSE: You want another prize, you going to have to go on "The Price Is Right." I'm sorry.
WISE: Given our conversation about Congress, I think it's important to establish the rules here of conduct.
LUSE: Oh, that's true. That's true.
WISE: Any of your right answers will be stricken from the record, just letting you know.
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LUSE: OK - for those who don't know, Alana has appeared on this segment before, has played But Did You Know? in the past, and she didn't win that time, so...
WISE: Highway robbery.
LUSE: ...I know you're coming in with a little chip on the shoulder, but you want to know something? A little chip on the shoulder sometimes will get it over the finish line. So starting off, you may have heard - actually, I don't know what you've been doing if you haven't heard - but former President Donald Trump is on trial in New York for allegedly falsifying business records to influence the 2016 presidential election. Testimony in that trial ended this week, and one of the men present in Trump's entourage was the former leader of which of these bad boy groups? Was it A, the Hells Angels; B, the Colombo crime family, aka one of the five families in the New York Mafia; or C, a lead actor from "Bad Boys," the movie?
WISE: B.
MANDERS: I'm saying A.
LUSE: Kerry says A, the Hells Angels - and the answer is A, the Hells Angels.
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LUSE: Alana, girl (laughter). I don't mean to...
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WISE: It's been real nice. Thanks for having me, guys. I'm retiring officially today.
(LAUGHTER)
LUSE: Oh, no. OK, there's still two more. OK, but yes, the answer is A, the Hell's Angels. Trump was accompanied by Chuck Zito, who is famous for helping found the New York chapter of the infamous outlaw motorcycle club, the Hells Angels. Trump himself has long shown admiration for macho bikers, and at a biker rally in 2016, he said, quote, "Do we love the bikers? Yes, we love the bikers," to which I ask both of you - do we love the bikers?
WISE: Yes. We love the bikers.
MANDERS: We love the bikers. Dykes on Bikes, man - it's very butch.
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LUSE: All right, so on to the next question. Speaking of people connected to the former president, during Trump's trial, we've seen and heard a lot of just off-the-wall, wild stuff. But one thing that has felt the wildest was when a list of Trump's close personal contacts was revealed in court. It was like being able to go through someone's phone, which can feel dirty but also really exhilarating...
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LUSE: ...Or so I'm told. Which one of these people did a close aide to Trump say the former president, quote, "frequently spoke to?".
LUSE: Was it A, LeBron James; B, Serena Williams; or C, Sofia Vergara?
MANDERS: Oh, I'm going to say C.
WISE: Let's go - let's go B.
LUSE: And the answer is B, Serena Williams.
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LUSE: Alana is back in the game.
WISE: Back at it, baby.
LUSE: It's giving challengers.
MANDERS: (Laughter) Do they have any proof that he was talking to her? You say alleged.
LUSE: Well, the Trump aide alleged the two had close contact in 2017, and fun fact - Donald Trump and Serena Williams did play tennis against each other at the opening of the Trump National Golf Club in 2015.
MANDERS: Wow, I did not know that.
LUSE: And yes, Serena reportedly did let him win one point.
WISE: OK, that's what I've done here today, Kerry.
LUSE: (Laughter).
WISE: I also ceded one point.
MANDERS: No.
MANDERS: All right. Well, to recap our score at this point in the game, Kerry, you're at one point. Alana, you're at one point. So without further ado - our tie-breaker final question. While we are on the topic of Trump's close contacts, we can't not talk about the one and only Rudy Giuliani. The self-proclaimed America's Mayor this week pled not guilty in a felony election interference case in Arizona - different case.
MANDERS: (Laughter) It's hard to keep track.
LUSE: At the same time, Giuliani dropped a hot new line of what? What is Giuliani trying to sell with his name now? Is it A, a limited edition Rudy-branded watch; B, a skincare line - every celebrity has one - or C, coffee beans.
WISE: C.
MANDERS: Yeah, I don't...
WISE: It's C. It's so commercial.
MANDERS: Yeah. I would only be able to guess here, so...
LUSE: The answer is C, coffee beans.
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LUSE: Giuliani, who was also Trump's former lawyer, tweeted a video announcing the new coffee line. And at $29.99 a bag, you, too, can enjoy coffee labeled, fighting for justice...
WISE: (Laughter).
LUSE: ...And enjoying life.
MANDERS: Oh, my God.
LUSE: Which - I don't drink coffee, but that's exactly, I imagine, what I would feel when I have my morning cup of Joe.
MANDERS: Wow.
LUSE: Right?
WISE: I feel like that's what Superman's coffee label would be - fighting for justice and enjoying life.
LUSE: Does Superman need coffee, though? Does he get sleepy?
WISE: I mean, he needs a grift. I don't think the Daily Planet pays all that well.
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LUSE: All right. Well, that is it for But Did You Know?
MANDERS: Congratulations, Alana.
WISE: Thank you.
LUSE: This has been a long time coming.
WISE: Justice for me.
LUSE: Justice for you (laughter). Exactly. Oh, my gosh. Well, Alana, Kerry, thank you so much for joining me today. It was so wonderful to talk to you both.
WISE: Same here. Thank you.
MANDERS: Thank you. I appreciate the conversation.
LUSE: That was NPR's Alana Wise and writer Kerry Manders. I'm going to take a quick break, and when I get back, we're getting pilled. Yes, I'm talking about the red pill from "The Matrix" and why, after 25 years, the metaphor of being pilled is as important for trans people today as it is for men in the alt-right.
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LUSE: I'll be right back.
My big question this week is, how did the red pill from "The Matrix" become a symbol for the manosphere and trans identity and anti-capitalism? Every day, I hear people saying they're pilled. They're "Bridgerton" pilled, or they're Sabrina Carpenter me "Espresso" pilled. And listen. It's been 25 years since the first "Matrix" film came out, and we're still using that one metaphor to talk about something that's expanded our universe or just broken our brains - the red pill. "The Matrix" was imagined by sisters Lana and Lilly Wachowski. And if you haven't seen it, be warned. I am going to spoil it. But again, it has been 25 years.
Basically, Keanu Reeves plays a normal guy working a ho-hum corporate job. He begins to realize something is not right with his world. Then he meets Morpheus, played by Laurence Fishburne, who gives him the choice to keep living in his comfortable world or find out the truth about the Matrix.
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LAURENCE FISHBURNE: (As Morpheus) Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself. You take the blue pill - the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.
LUSE: Of course, he wants to know about the Matrix. So he takes the red pill, wakes up in a womb-like vat of goo and finds out intelligent machines have been using his body for power. The world he thought he lived in was just a simulation. He realizes he's Neo, a chosen one with the power to fight back.
Now, the metaphor of the red pill that opens your mind to what's really happening, it resonated with a lot of people - from trans people to anti-capitalists to right-wing manosphere acolytes. But what about this one metaphor speaks to all these very different people? To find out, I sat down with writer John Wilmes, who wrote an article about the red pill in The Ringer, and writer and cultural critic Emily St. James. We get into the long life of the red pill and how our culture got "Matrix" pilled.
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LUSE: Emily, John, welcome to IT'S BEEN A MINUTE.
JOHN WILMES: Thanks.
EMILY ST JAMES: It's good to be here.
LUSE: Do you remember what you thought of "The Matrix" when you first saw it? Emily, you first.
ST JAMES: Yeah. I remember just, like, being immensely blown away by it and taken with it. But, like, the only scene that really registered with me was the scene where they take the bug and put it in Keanu Reeves' belly button.
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ST JAMES: That was stuck lodged in my brain, and then I watched it a billion times on DVD.
LUSE: (Laughter) That is great imagery there, so thank you for bringing that back. John, what about you?
WILMES: I definitely watched it, I think, on VHS at a friend's house with more lax parents, I guess. You know, I was just a 12-year-old boy. I just thought it was very cool. I've never seen action like this in a movie before.
LUSE: I also was about maybe 12 when the movie came out as well, 11 or 12. I thought it was going to be kind of corny. I don't know - just all the leather jackets and stuff. I was like, are we sure? And then I saw it, and I was like, I think we all actually need floor-length leather jackets. But we're here to talk about one scene in particular, the one where Morpheus offers Neo the blue pill or the red pill. I want to talk about how we see this moment in our slang, to be, quote-unquote, "pilled" by something. Definitely comes from this. What does being pilled mean? What does it mean to be pilled?
ST JAMES: I think that the word has become a sort of an all-purpose suffix in many ways. We needed a suffix that kind of said, I'm getting really excited about something. It has lived in that way in the same way that, like, -gate now means a scandal. -Pilled is like that. A couple of years ago, I got really into soccer, and I started saying I was soccerpilled. It's just like, a thing that opens your mind to something new. And we can use it in sort of playful contexts. You know, you might say you're Rodrigopilled if you're getting really into Olivia Rodrigo.
LUSE: Oh, I'm Rodrigopilled. Yeah.
ST JAMES: I think it's a useful word. I do think that for a lot of people, there is that more political context of like, if you're redpilled, often, you're very right wing - or blackpilled. Other colors of pills are happening. And it's sort of ironic, given the film's provenance from two trans women.
WILMES: Yeah. I would say that the great irony of the legacy of the movie is that when Neo takes the pill, it releases him from the goo, right? But when we're getting pilled online, we're going deeper into it, usually. We're finding ourselves enmeshed in ideas that really exist more online than in the real world in a lot of cases and just getting lost in the sauce, basically.
LUSE: As you mentioned, Emily, it's become clear in the years since "The Matrix" first came out, the first "Matrix" film, that the directors were expressing some gender feelings. And the Wachowskis have both since come out as trans, and Lilly Wachowski confirmed that she thinks of it as a trans metaphor. Like, "The Matrix" is the gender binary, and taking the red pill is realizing that you're trans. Emily, how do you see that mapping onto the film?
ST JAMES: "The Matrix" as a trans film, as a trans text - people have come around on that idea in recent years, especially since Lilly Wachowski came out. But I, as a trans person, sort of hesitate to make "The Matrix" too clean a trans metaphor. I think that that element is in there. But I also think it sort of comes out of this tradition of art made by trans people before either they come out to themselves or they come out to the world that is often grappling with understanding that something in society is wrong, and some of it's in your own head, and some of it's out there. I tend to think of this as more of an anti-capitalist film than an anti-gender film.
LUSE: Wait. Can you say more about that?
ST JAMES: Yeah, I think that one of the reasons that it has had such a long legacy is that it does seem to be anticipating a lot of the conversations we're having around the flaws of our economic model. When you're looking at the system and saying that it's messed up - it's all-pervasive, and it permeates everything - the closest thing we have to describing that in our modern world is capitalism.
But it certainly can be read through the gender lens and obviously has been. I just think that that ultimately ends up limiting what's a very complex, interesting movie. There's a lot going on in this film, and I think that it's worth engaging with all of it. But yes, some of it is very gender.
LUSE: John, you wrote in an article about the legacy of the red pill that this metaphor is extremely vague, which I think kind of goes to Emily's point about how there are many different readings that you can extract from "The Matrix." That red pill can stand in for anything. Talk to me about how the red pill started proliferating in the culture among right-wing men.
WILMES: I mean, I guess, the red pill becoming this far-right misogynist symbol, that probably started sometime in the later 2000s. There's this sort of think-tanky political scientist type guy named Curtis Yarvin, who, in more recent years, has appeared on, like, "Tucker Carlson" and stuff like that. He starts reappropriating the red pill symbol, saying that, you know, Noam Chomsky, of all people, is selling blue pills, and here I have the red pills.
Now, this guy is super wonky. So it really takes on more of this cultural friction when it starts to just be, like, very base, crude misogyny, right? It becomes this symbol for the collection of internet subcultures that are referred to as the manosphere. And by now, the only person I see saying it a lot is Andrew Tate.
LUSE: Right. Andrew Tate is one of the main people in that right-wing manosphere field and notably indicted on charges of human trafficking in Romania. Talk to me about his relationship to "The Matrix" specifically.
WILMES: Yeah, he still is talking about it a lot. He's basically using "The Matrix" to represent what he would call cancel culture, kind of suggesting that "The Matrix" is, in fact, liberal acceptance, which, to him, is hegemonic and overbearing, and that's the thing that we need to break free from.
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ANDREW TATE: A psyop is the Matrix as a whole. They constantly decide how they want you to think and what they can do to make you believe that. But it starts with tolerance. You have to be tolerant. Tolerant of what? Tolerant of having your shop set on fire, tolerant of your kids being taught things you don't want, tolerant of crime, tolerant of your house...
LUSE: As you noted, John, it started really gaining steam when it began standing in for misogyny. For a long time, there was a Reddit page called r/redpill. And it was a meeting place for people who use the red pill metaphor to say, you know, taking the red pill means realizing feminism is overbearing and what's wrong with the world. And I think it's interesting that "The Matrix" kind of smacked of gender to them, too. They saw women as being the overlords keeping men in the goo. Emily, I'm wondering, how did it get reimagined in that way?
ST JAMES: Well, I think one of the things that we're sort of circling is the process of coming out as trans makes you sort of realize that the gender binary, as it's constructed, is entirely made up by humans. And I think when trans people come out, you go down this line, and you're like, well, what else is made up? Money is functionally an imaginary concept that we have attached meaning to through, like, specific physical objects, etc., etc., etc. And, like, the further you get down that rabbit hole, the more you're like, well, everything is just imaginary.
But the alternate side of that is that when you have something that vague, you can be like, oh, what else is imaginary? It's the idea that men and women have equal intellectual capacity or something. If you decide that that idea is imaginary, then, like, you end up tracing that down another very different path. And "The Matrix" is just like, we all understand that the world is just a little bit weird and just, like, a little bit off, and it just doesn't quite make sense. And if you could just open your eyes, you'd see all of that. It's just a starting point for, well, I think this is something people are lying to me about. And you can kind of go in either political direction from that. I don't really buy political horseshoe theory, but maybe I do in the case of "The Matrix."
LUSE: (Laughter). It's interesting. I mean, with this whole women being the overlords thing, like, that's not really how it works in the real world. You know, like, there are a lot of stats out there about how women are more likely to face violence at the hands of men than vice versa. And men still hold the most positions of power in our government. So how is it easier to believe in the idea that women are oppressing men is the actual red pill truth than to see some of these very real, real-life gender dynamics?
ST JAMES: I think, like, one of the things that "The Matrix" really gets right is that truth is individualized as much as it is systematized. Let's say I'm a young man who girls won't talk to. That is true. And you can tell me, you know, all the stats on how women still suffer various structural inequalities, etc. But for me, what's true is I can't get a girl to talk to me. I can't get a girl to go out with me. And, like, that becomes the truth. And your personal truth always overrides the actual, like, structural truth.
And to build a society, we all need to sort of put our truths together and accept that, like, a lot of different things can be true at the same time. Girls might not want to talk to you, and they also might face terrible structural inequality. And it's very hard to build a common story, a common sense of a truth that can encompass as many people as possible in the age when we can go sort of to a space where we have our truths reflected back at us 24/7.
WILMES: It's funny because during the red pill moment or right after it anyway, when Morpheus is breaking down the way things really are for Neo, there is a small section of that where they go...
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FISHBURNE: (As Morpheus) ...To the desert of the real.
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WILMES: And it's just this perpetual storm zone where we don't know what is what. And it sort of presages this - what a lot of people have called the epistemological crisis of...
LUSE: Right.
WILMES: ...Modern-day no shared truth because there's too many versions of the truth.
LUSE: Oh, gosh, epistemological crisis. I mean, it's a very apt description. But another thing I've been wondering about is that I feel like the most enticing fantasies are often for something really wonderful to happen, where you're like, oh, I did buy the winning lottery ticket. Or, like, in "Princess Diaries," you know, you wake up, and you're, like, a princess, and then your grandma is Julie Andrews. Everyone knows why you want something wonderful to happen. But the truth that you see and experience in "The Matrix" is crushing. The truth that's in "The Matrix" that people seem to want is a harsh truth and a scary truth. I wonder, what do you think makes people fantasize about being exposed to harsh truth when it seems like, in real life, the very human instinct is to run from that?
ST JAMES: I think that we have a sort of limited understanding of escapism. We have this thought that, like, escapism is we're going to go into a happy space. But horror stories have been popular for a long time for a reason. There is a part of our brain that wants to acknowledge the darker side of everything, that wants to be like, no, actually, the things that are coming after you really are that bad, and you need to get away from them. Your fear is justified. I think "The Matrix" actually travels in two directions in this regard.
First, there's just the pure chosen one escapist fantasy of once I learn how the world works, I can make bullets stop with my hands. I can bend backwards. I can do all kinds of cool stuff with the help of CGI effects professionals. But there's also sort of the flip side of that, which is this movie is selling you the escapist fantasy of acknowledging that everything really does suck. That is a thing that storytelling too rarely does, and I think it is to this film's credit that it sort of goes there. So I think that "The Matrix" succeeds in giving us escapism because it feeds both sides of our escapist brain, the dark and the light.
LUSE: Well, before we go, I have one last question I want to ask each of you, which is, what are you pilled by?
ST JAMES: All right. I'm tennis pilled. I'm currently pilled by the film "Challengers."
LUSE: Tennis pilled. OK. What about you, John? What are you currently pilled by?
WILMES: "Challengers" pilled. Tennis pilled. It's time to play tennis again. It's getting nice out, so that's great. Willa Cather pilled. Been reading a lot of Willa Cather.
ST JAMES: Do you think the phrase Willa Cather pilled has ever been uttered before right now?
WILMES: I really hope so.
LUSE: (Laughter) John, Emily, thank you both so much for joining me. This was really so much fun.
ST JAMES: Thank you.
WILMES: Thank you.
LUSE: Thanks again to Emily St. James and John Wilmes. You can read more of their thoughts on "The Matrix" in Vox and The Ringer.
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LUSE: This episode of IT'S BEEN A MINUTE was produced by...
BARTON GIRDWOOD, BYLINE: Barton Girdwood.
ALEXIS WILLIAMS, BYLINE: Alexis Williams.
LIAM MCBAIN, BYLINE: Liam McBain.
COREY ANTONIO ROSE, BYLINE: Corey Antonio Rose.
LUSE: This episode was edited by...
JESSICA PLACZEK, BYLINE: Jessica Placzek.
SARA SARASOHN, BYLINE: Sara Sarasohn.
LUSE: Engineering support came from...
TIFFANY VERA CASTRO, BYLINE: Tiffany Vera Castro.
LUSE: We had fact-checking help from...
BARCLAY WALSH, BYLINE: Barclay Walsh.
LUSE: Our executive producer is...
VERALYN WILLIAMS, BYLINE: Veralyn Williams.
LUSE: Our VP of programming is...
YOLANDA SANGWENI, BYLINE: Yolanda Sangweni.
LUSE: All right. That's all for this episode of IT'S BEEN A MINUTE from NPR. I'm Brittany Luse. Talk soon.
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