In “The Matrix,” the Wachowski brothers bring the audience a unique postmodern story ridden with simulacrum undertones. Throughout the film, what is real is continually questioned and challenged. One scene in particular exemplifies the boundary between reality and simulation. This scene takes place when Morpheus offers Neo the choice between the red and blue pills. The red pill will offer Neo an escape from his simulated world, while the blue pill will keep him in the simulacrum remaining unaware of what is real.

This scene is symbolic of numerous post-modern themes, specifically the inability to distinguish real from simulation. Humans in the matrix have been wired into a simulated reality, unaware that a real world exists. Only very few people ultimately “wake up” from this false reality. This is symbolic of modern day America and what Jean Baudrillard has observed in “Simulacra and Simulation.” Similar to the film, Baudrillard contests that people in America have become so detached from reality that they are unable to identify what is really a simulation and what is not. He explains, “We are in a logic of simulation, which no longer has anything to do with a logic of facts and order of reason” (Baudrillard 16). American identity has become dominated by corporate agenda; we are living in a simulated world where we are told to believe in the consumerist ideals manufactured by the governing industries. He contests that this capitalist simulacrum is so strong, that our sense of the real has almost completely deteriorated; our fabricated everyday world no longer has anything to do with the real. Instead of nature, we are now surrounded by stores, malls, and advertisements. We no longer have conception of the reality that existed before the industrial error; as such, we continue to play the role of mindless pawns living in a simulated world created by capitalist America. This capitalistic simulacrum has become the new reality.

The ideas of Baudrillard are exaggerated and taken a step further in “The Matrix.” The consumerist simulated world of America has been augmented and emphasized in a more extreme light. The consumerist American simulacrum has been modified into an actual technological simulation consisting of nothing that is even remotely real. As Americans are kept in the consumerist simulacrum of the U.S. so that corporations may strip them of their wealth, humans in “The Matrix” are kept in a false reality so that the machines may physically rob them of the energy. Ultimately, energy is symbolic of wealth, and the matrix is symbolic of consumerist simulacrum America. By exaggerating these realities of American society, the Wachowski brothers are able to illuminate an often overlooked aspect of society and life. Moreover, the blue pill is symbolic of the ignorance of the masses, while the red pill represents the enlightened few who are able to see through the type of simulation present in both the matrix, and American culture. If the humans in the matrix never wake up, the matrix will continue to exist, robbing them of their life force. Similarly, if more Americans don’t become aware of the simulated society represented by the matrix, then we will forever be trapped in this distorted capitalistic system of extortion.

Adam Szetela