Poststructuralist Jean Baudrillard, in his essay Simulacra and Simultations, argues that a capitalist world and reality are a fake world and reality, one wherein human beings reject the real world because of the more exciting world capitalism provides for them. In short, the masses of humans are brainwashed into thinking they live in an ordered world with no real problems, a world where they continue to make the capitalists rich through paying taxes while the capitalists urge them to abolish social programs because of clever catchwords and phrases. In other words, people prefer to live in a fantasized existence as opposed to the real world. So life in the film The Matrix is for inhabitants, humans who live in a world that is really a virtual reality. The world does not exist, only this virtual reality wherein humans are lulled into lives of blind obedience to the system. Off they go to through their daily 9-5 routine, unaware of what Morpheus tells Neo “Matrix is the wool that has been pulled over your eyes.”
Neo is software engineer working in a sterile gray slot at a dehumanized cube farm. By night he is a hacker extraordinaire. He meets the legendary hacker Trinity who introduces him to the mysterious Morpheus. Morpheus tells Neo that the world is not what he thinks it is, but, instead, evil forces have hidden the true reality from humankind. He also tells Neo that he is the “one”, the messiah-like figure who has been prophesied as the savior of the world. Only he can remove the wool from humanity’s eyes and bring them to freedom. Morpheus explains to Neo that the world he knows is actually the “Matrix”, a giant virtual-reality computer that programs every man, woman, and child on the planet. However, as Morpheus also tells Neo, there is no definition of the Matrix, for one has to see it for themselves. They share a relationship very similar to Luke Skywalker and Yoda from Star Wars.
Neo will lea...