The Performance of Male Subjectivity in The Matrix Trilogy

Abstract

The trilogy of The Matrix essentially speaks of, indeed demands, the constitution, development and stabilization of a male subject. [...] In the figure of Neo as the Chosen One the trilogy permanently reproduces a consistent concept of active masculinity in the form of male heroism by means of the formal principle of recursive (presup)position as an ongoing process. That this male subjectivity is a performance is one of the trilogy's most essential, constitutive messages, which the films never acknowledge openly but keep producing on a formal level. [...] At first glance, the films thus seem to represent a stabilizing trend of the Hollywood cinema dispositif. At the same time, however, the trilogy is perilously situated on the brink of an abyss when the production process of this masculinity exposes its own constitutive dependence on a femininity whose visible and representative manifestation could hardly be more energetic, nimble and clever. Thus, the trilogy of The Matrix figures as the prototype of contemporary manifestations of a dispositif that seeks to (re)consolidate the severely shaken status of male heroism by employing strategically its whole array of technological possibilities.