Reframing Latin America: A Cultural Theory Reading ... - BGSU Blogs

post what?! (not) an abbreviated introduction 13
amples are drawn from academic debates or from popular American culture.
One reason for this is that most of our readers live in the United States; thus,
we fi nd it easier to introduce alien concepts with familiar references. But
another reason is that understanding postmodernity requires a solid understanding
of modernity, which is closely tied to European and U.S. history,
for better or worse. With these issues in mind, and as a nod to the notorious
rejection by cultural studies and the Birmingham school of the difference
between high art and popular culture (which we will explain later), let’s
open up the discussion by considering a recent Hollywood blockbuster.
THE MATRIX: Black Leather, Cool Action,
and Maybe Even Some Cultural Theory
Few fi lms in the recent past have generated more scholarly as well as general
interest among moviegoers than The Matrix. It is quickly becoming
the Star Wars of the early twenty-fi rst century, a widely viewed fi lm that
defi nes a pop culture generation. The Matrix is a science fi ction drama combining
stylized violence and hip fashion with some probing questions about
the state of lived existence. It asks whether the world we know and assume
to exist (Earth in the late twentieth and early twenty-fi rst centuries) really
does exist.
The fi lm revolves around the main character, Neo, played by Keanu
Reeves. He is a nondescript computer programmer for Metacortex, a massive
software fi rm in Manhattan. On the side he is a computer hacker
who makes extra money selling illegal programs. Shortly after the fi lm begins,
Morpheus, played by Laurence Fishburne, contacts Neo through his
computer. Neo has heard of Morpheus and believes him to be a legendary
computer hacker, but as we are about to learn, Morpheus is much more
than that. When Morpheus informs Neo that “the Matrix has you,” Neo
responds, logically, by asking, “What is the Matrix?” When he accepts an
invitation from Morpheus to learn the answer, his and our (the audience’s)
wild ride to a new understanding of the world begins.
Morpheus tells Neo that nothing he has experienced in his life has been
real. All the sights, sounds, smells, emotions, and memories that he associates
with lived reality have been constructions. Morpheus says that the
natural laws Neo assumes have governed his daily life do not, in fact, exist.
He demonstrates this by instantly changing their surroundings. At one moment
they are sitting in a room in New York City talking and the next they
are standing on a rock ledge on the side of a cliff. When Neo asks, “This
isn’t real?” Morpheus responds, “What is real? How do you defi ne real?” He