The red pill and blue pill are metaphorical terms representing a choice between learning an unsettling or life-changing truth by taking the red pill or remaining in the contented experience of ordinary reality with the blue pill. The pills were used as props in the 1999 film The Matrix .
In the film The Matrix , the main character Neo (played by Keanu Reeves) is offered the choice between a red pill and a blue pill by rebel leader Morpheus (played by Laurence Fishburne). Morpheus says "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." It is implied that the blue pill is a sedative that would cause Neo to think that all his most recent experiences were a hallucination, so that he can go back to living in the Matrix's simulated reality. The red pill, on the other hand, serves as a "location device" to locate the subject's body in the real world and to prepare them to be "unplugged" from the Matrix. [1]
Neo takes the red pill and awakens in the real world, where he is forcibly ejected from the liquid-filled chamber in which he has obliviously been lying. After his rescue and convalescence aboard Morpheus's ship, Morpheus shows him the true nature of the Matrix: a detailed computer simulation of Earth at the end of the 20th century (the actual year, though not known for sure, is suggested within the original movie to be approximately 200 years later, though it is revealed through sequels The Matrix Reloaded , The Matrix Revolutions and The Animatrix that at least 700 years have passed). It has been created to keep the minds of humans docile while their bodies are stored in massive power plants, their body heat and bioelectricity consumed as power by the sentient machines that have enslaved them. [2]
In a 2012 interview, Matrix director Lana Wachowski said:
What we were trying to achieve with the story overall was a shift, the same kind of shift that happens for Neo, that Neo goes from being in this sort of cocooned and programmed world, to having to participate in the construction of meaning to his life. And we're like, "Well, can the audience go through the three movies and experience something similar to what the main character experiences?" So the first movie is sort of classical in its approach. The second movie is deconstructionist, and it assaults all of the things that you thought to be true in the first movie, and so people get very upset, and they're like "Stop attacking me!" in the same way that people get upset with deconstructionist philosophy. I mean, Derrida and Foucault, these people upset us. And then the third movie is the most ambiguous because it asks you to actually participate in the construction of meaning... [3]
— Lana Wachowski, Movie City News, October 13, 2012
In the 2021 film The Matrix Resurrections , the Analyst uses blue pills to keep Neo's true memories suppressed in the guise of therapy sessions. Later, Neo takes another red pill before being freed from the Matrix once again by Bugs and her crew. In Trinity's case, she does not have to take the red pill again because of the way that Sati is freeing her from the Matrix. The red pills also allow friendly programs to leave the Matrix, as seen with the program version of Morpheus.
An essay written by Russell Blackford discusses the red and blue pills, questioning whether if a person were fully informed they would take the red pill, opting for the real world, believing that the choice of physical reality over a digital simulation is not so beneficial as to be valid for all people. Both Neo and another character, Cypher (Joe Pantoliano), take the red pill over the blue pill, though later in the first Matrix film, the latter demonstrates regret for having made that choice, saying that if Morpheus fully informed him of the situation, Cypher would have told him to "shove the red pill right up [his] ass." When Cypher subsequently makes a deal with the machines to return to the Matrix and forget everything he had learned, he says, "Ignorance is bliss." Blackford argues that the Matrix films set things up so that even if Neo fails, the taking of the red pill is worthwhile because he lives and dies authentically. Blackford and science-fiction writer James Patrick Kelly feel that The Matrix stacks the deck against machines and their simulated world. [4]
Matrix Warrior: Being the One author Jake Horsley compared the red pill to LSD, citing a scene where Neo forms his own world outside of the Matrix. When he asks Morpheus if he could return, Morpheus responds by asking him if he would want to. Horsley also describes the blue pill as addictive, calling The Matrix series a continuous series of choices between taking the blue pill and not taking it. He adds that the habits and routines of people inside the Matrix are merely the people dosing themselves with the blue pill. While he describes the blue pill as a common thing, he states that the red pill is one of a kind, and something someone may not even find. [5]
The Matrix, and its sequels, contain numerous references to Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its 1872 sequel Through the Looking-Glass . [6] The Alice in Wonderland metaphor is made explicit in Morpheus's speech to Neo, with the phrases "white rabbit" and "down the rabbit hole", as well as the description of Neo's path of discovery as "Wonderland". The concept of the red and blue pills has also been speculated to be a reference to the scene in Alice in Wonderland where Alice finds a cake labelled "Eat Me" and a potion labelled "Drink Me": eating the cake makes Alice grow to an enormous size, while drinking the potion makes her tiny. [6]
The Matrix also makes references to historical myths and philosophy, including gnosticism, existentialism, and nihilism. [7] [8] The central concept of the film has been compared to Plato's Allegory of the Cave, [9] [10] Zhuangzi's "Zhuangzi dreamed he was a butterfly", René Descartes's skepticism [11] [12] and evil demon, Kant's reflections on the Phenomenon versus the Ding an sich, Robert Nozick's "experience machine", [13] the concept of a simulated reality and the brain in a vat thought experiment. [14] [15]
The Wachowskis asked star Keanu Reeves to read three books before filming: Simulacra and Simulation (1981) by Jean Baudrillard, Out of Control (1992) by Kevin Kelly, and Introducing Evolution (1999) by Dylan Evans. [16]
Fan theories have suggested that the red pill may represent an allegory for transgender people or a story of Lana and Lilly Wachowski's history as coming out as transgender. [17] [18] During the 1990s, a common transgender hormone therapy for trans women involved Premarin, a maroon tablet, while a common antidepressant prescribed to closeted trans women at the time, Prozac, was blue. [19] Lilly Wachowski stated in August 2020 that the filmmakers had intentionally included transgender themes in the film. [20]
In Freudian psychology, the corresponding principles are the reality principle and the pleasure principle. [21] [22] [23] [24] [25]
The concept of red and blue pills has since been widely used as a political metaphor in the United States, especially among online culture, where "taking the red pill" or being "red-pilled" means becoming aware of purported political biases inherent in society, including in the mainstream media, and supposedly thereby becoming an independent thinker; while "taking the blue pill" or being "blue-pilled" means unquestioningly accepting these purported biases. [26] [27] The supposed truths revealed to those who refer to themselves as "red pilled" often include conspiracy theories, as well as antisemitic, white supremacist, homophobic and misogynistic beliefs. [27] [28]
Because of its common usage as a self-identifier among the alt-right and others who subscribe to right wing beliefs, the term "red pilled" is sometimes used by others to refer to the right. [29]
The first known political use of this metaphor is in the 2006 essay "The Red Pill" by University of Colorado sociology professor Kathleen J. Tierney, in which she argued that those who felt that the U.S. government had a poor response to Hurricane Katrina should "take the red pill" and realize that "post-September 11 policies and plans have actually made the nation more vulnerable, both to natural disasters and to future terrorist attacks." [30]
The metaphor was then popularized in a different context by neo-reactionary blogger Curtis Yarvin. [31] He first used it in a 2007 blog post written under the pseudonym Mencius Moldbug, and titled "The Case Against Democracy: Ten Red Pills"; in it he argues that trying to convince a Westerner that democracy is bad is like trying to convince "a Catholic in 16th-century Spain... to stop believing in Catholicism", but he then offers ten "red pill" arguments (along with their "blue pill" counterparts) to make a case against democracy. [32]
In 2017, political activist and commentator Candace Owens launched Red Pill Black, a website and YouTube channel that promote black conservatism in the United States. [33]
In some parts of the men's rights movement, manosphere, and the anti-feminism communities, the term "red pill" (sometimes written as the "redpill") is used as a metaphor for the specific moment when a person comes to believe that certain gender roles they are expected to conform to, such as marriage and monogamy, are intended for the benefit of women alone, rather than for mutual benefit. [34] [35] In 2016, a documentary titled The Red Pill , about the men's rights movement, was released.
This metaphor was extended; where you can also become either black-pilled (pessimistic or apathetic about the future), or white-pilled (hopeful about the future or believing change is possible.) This metaphor has been embraced by commentators including libertarian Michael Malice, whose 2022 book The White Pill advocates the latter point of view. [36] Malice defines the term as, “It is possible that we will lose, it is impossible that we must lose.”
The metaphor of the blackpill was first popularized by the incel-related blog Omega Virgin Revolt. [37] In this parlance, being red-pilled means believing concepts like male oppression and female hypergamy, while being black-pilled means coming to believe that there is little that low-status or unattractive men can do to improve their prospects for romantic or sexual relationships with women. [38]
The Matrix is a 1999 science fiction action film written and directed by the Wachowskis. It is the first installment in the Matrix film series, starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, and Joe Pantoliano, and depicts a dystopian future in which humanity is unknowingly trapped inside the Matrix, a simulated reality that intelligent machines have created to distract humans while using their bodies as an energy source. When computer programmer Thomas Anderson, under the hacker alias "Neo", uncovers the truth, he joins a rebellion against the machines along with other people who have been freed from the Matrix.
Lana Wachowski and Lilly Wachowski are American film and television directors, writers and producers. The sisters are both trans women.
The Matrix Reloaded is a 2003 American science fiction action film written and directed by the Wachowskis. It is the sequel to The Matrix (1999) and the second installment in the Matrix film series. The film stars Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, and Gloria Foster who reprise their roles from the previous film, with Jada Pinkett Smith joining the cast.
The Animatrix is a 2003 adult animated science fiction anthology film produced by the Wachowskis. The anime compiles nine animated short films, detailing the backstory of The Matrix film series, in addition to providing side stories that expand the universe and tie into the film series.
The Matrix Revolutions is a 2003 American science fiction action film written and directed by the Wachowskis. It is the third installment in The Matrix film series, released six months following The Matrix Reloaded. The film stars Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, Jada Pinkett Smith, Monica Bellucci, Lambert Wilson, and Mary Alice who replaced Gloria Foster as the Oracle following Foster's death in 2001.
Neo is a fictional character and the protagonist of The Matrix franchise, created by the Wachowskis. He was portrayed as a cybercriminal and computer programmer by Keanu Reeves in the films, as well as having a cameo in The Animatrix short film Kid's Story. Andrew Bowen provided Neo's voice in The Matrix: Path of Neo. In 2021, Reeves reprised his role in The Matrix Resurrections with what Vulture calls "his signature John Wick look".
Enter the Matrix is a 2003 action-adventure video game developed by Shiny Entertainment and published by Infogrames under the Atari brand name. The first game based on The Matrix film series, its story is concurrent with that of the film The Matrix Reloaded and features over an hour of original footage, written and directed by the Wachowskis and starring the cast of the films, produced for the game.
Agent Smith is a fictional character and the main antagonist of The Matrix franchise. The character was primarily portrayed by Hugo Weaving in the first trilogy of films and voiced by Christopher Corey Smith in The Matrix: Path of Neo (2005), with Ian Bliss and Gideon Emery playing his human form, Bane, in the films and Path of Neo respectively. He also makes a cameo in the anime film The Animatrix (2003), voiced by Matt McKenzie. Jonathan Groff and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II portray Smith in The Matrix Resurrections (2021), the latter playing Morpheus in a dual role.
Morpheus is a fictional character in The Matrix franchise. He is portrayed by Laurence Fishburne in the first three films, and in the video game The Matrix: Path of Neo, where he was the only original actor to reprise his character's voice. In The Matrix Resurrections, an AI program based on him is portrayed by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II.
The Matrix is an American cyberpunk media franchise consisting of four feature films, beginning with The Matrix (1999) and continuing with three sequels, The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, and The Matrix Resurrections (2021). The first three films were written and directed by the Wachowskis and produced by Joel Silver. The screenplay for the fourth film was written by Lana Wachowski, David Mitchell and Aleksandar Hemon, was directed by Lana Wachowski, and was produced by Grant Hill, James McTeigue, and Lana Wachowski. The franchise is owned by Warner Bros., which distributed the films along with Village Roadshow Pictures. The latter, along with Silver Pictures, are the two production companies that worked on the first three films.
The Matrix Online was a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) initially developed by Monolith Productions and later, a few months after launch, by Sony Online Entertainment. It was advertised as a continuation of the storyline of The Matrix films, as The Wachowskis, the franchise's creators, gave their blessing to the notion of gamers "inherit[ing] the storyline". The game began closed beta-testing in June 2004 which was then opened for people who pre-ordered the game in November 2004. Warner Bros. and Sega released MxO on March 22, 2005 in the United States. It was released in Europe on April 15, 2005. In June, Warner Bros. sold the rights to the game to Sony Online Entertainment, and the game's development and operation was transferred to the latter on August 15, 2005. Sony Online Entertainment shut down operation of the game on July 31, 2009.
The Oracle is a fictional character in The Matrix franchise. She was created by The Wachowskis, and portrayed by Gloria Foster in the first and second film and Mary Alice in the third film. The character also appears in the video game Enter the Matrix and the massively multiplayer online role-playing game The Matrix Online.
Niobe is a fictional character in The Matrix franchise. She is portrayed by Jada Pinkett Smith. She serves as a supporting character in the three sequels of the original film, The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions and The Matrix Resurrections, and one of the protagonists of the video game Enter the Matrix. Niobe also appears in the MMORPG The Matrix Online. In the game, however, Niobe's character voicing is portrayed by Gina Torres, who portrayed the minor Zion character Cas in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions.
The Matrix: Music from the Motion Picture is one of the two 1999 soundtrack albums from the blockbuster film, The Matrix.
The Keymaker is a fictional character, portrayed by Korean-American actor Randall Duk Kim, in the 2003 film The Matrix Reloaded. He is a computer program that can create shortcut commands, physically represented as keys, which can be used by other programs to gain quick access to various areas within the simulated reality of the Matrix. He appears as an elderly, bespectacled Korean man dressed in a button-down shirt, smock, and an apron hung with bunches of keys.
Agents are a group of characters in the fictional universe of The Matrix franchise. They are guardians within the computer-generated world of the Matrix, protecting it from anyone or anything that could reveal it as a false reality or threaten it in any other way. Agents also hunt down and terminate any rogue programs, such as The Keymaker, which no longer serve a purpose to the overall Machine objective. They are sentient computer programs disguised as human government agents, physically appearing as human but with a tendency to speak and act in highly precise and mechanical ways.
The Twins are fictional characters in the 2003 film The Matrix Reloaded. Henchmen of the Merovingian, they are "Exiles", or rogue programs that have chosen to hide in the Matrix rather than face deletion.
The Matrix Resurrections is a 2021 American science fiction action film produced, co-written, and directed by Lana Wachowski, and the first in the Matrix franchise to be directed solely by Lana. It is the sequel to The Matrix Revolutions (2003) and the fourth installment in The Matrix film franchise. The film stars Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Jessica Henwick, Jonathan Groff, Neil Patrick Harris, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, and Jada Pinkett Smith. The film is set sixty years after Revolutions and follows Neo, who lives a seemingly ordinary life as a video game developer having trouble with distinguishing fantasy from reality. A group of rebels, with the help of a programmed version of Morpheus, free Neo from a new version of the Matrix and fight a new enemy that holds Trinity captive.
"Down the rabbit hole" is an English-language idiom or trope which refers to getting deep into something, or ending up somewhere strange. Lewis Carroll introduced the phrase as the title for chapter one of his 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, after which the term slowly entered the English vernacular. The term is usually used as a metaphor for distraction. In the 21st century, the term has come to describe a person who gets lost in research or loses track of time while using the internet.
Nozick suggests, like Keanu Reeves choosing the red pill over the blue pill in The Matrix, that most of us would want reality over pleasure.
Neo has to choose between the red pill and the blue pill; his choice is between Truth and Pleasure: the Real, or persistence in the illusion [of] the pleasure principle.
Imagine being stuck in the Matrix, knowing it was fake, but without any red pill to give you access to the reality principle.
Matrix is false, but also providing the Matrix with its "reality principle".
[In] the choice between a red pill and a blue pill...blue pill represents a beautiful prison of the dream pleasure-principle oriented world.
Despite their tenuous coalitions and the fragmentation and fracturing that many observers of the "alt-right" have identified, digital hate culture does have a "common spirit" that is based on the tropes of the Red Pill and white genocide. ... Often used as a reference to a state of mind, the sense of being "red-pilled" in the context of digital hate culture refers to the idea that leftist political ideologies (which, for the purveyors of hate refers to the entire spectrum of feminists, Marxists, socialists, and liberals) have deluded the population and conspired to destroy Western civilization and culture.
'You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe,' Laurence Fishburne's character Morpheus tells Neo. 'You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.' The hero takes the red pill, which is meaningful to these groups who feel the world has mistreated them. Gathering in online echo chambers, they feel like heroes for seeing the world for what it is, for being brave enough to handle it and strong enough to show others. Little do they realise that their red pill of truth often leads them down a path of delusion, the very thing they think they are rallying the rest of the world against. ... They hang out on YouTube or in internet forums and weave a web of conspiracy theory around themselves, in which they are the ultimate victims, and their scapegoats some unlikely victors in the game of life – groups typically marginalised by society: Jewish people, Black people, other people of colour, and, of course, women.
As group members are radicalized – a process they refer to as "redpilling" – their ideologies and distrust of the media feed on each other and ultimately inform a broader shift in their understanding of reality and veracity. As a result, they may view highly ideological and factually incorrect information as truthful, thus complicating understandings of disinformation.
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