Yeah i recently rewatched it for the first time since my egg cracked and the trans allegories are literally in every single scene. Cis people just don’t notice because they lack the context and because all of it functions on more than just the trans level, like the looking glass referencing both Alice in Wonderland and those realizations a freshly hatching trans person has in front of the mirror.
I’m sorry if this is a stupid question, I’m here to learn. Has Alice in Wonderland anything to do with trans themes? I read it as an adult but still a while ago. From what I remember, Through the Looking Glass explores more mathematical themed stuff since the author was a mathematician. Is it of significance in the trans community?
I just mentioned it because Matrix brings it up several times. And to be clear, i did so as an example of the stuff that’s not a trans allegory, but one of the other layers the Matrix movies have. Besides having very clear representations of trans experiences like egg cracking, medical transition, feeling trans joy and empowerment for the first time, being deadnamed, being attacked by assimilationist elements from within your own community, finding your first transbian crush etc., they absolutely work as a metaphor for developing a revolutionary mindset and ridding yourself of false consciousness, for queer community outside of expressly trans spaces, for philosophical musings and for expanding your consciousness. And the latter is where Alice comes in, which has been cited over and over again as a metaphor for psychedelic experiences since the days of the beatnicks at the very least.
I could totally see how Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass can be perceived as trans metaphors, too. It’s not like the Matrix movies, were we know they were made by two unouted trans women who intended it to be a trans allegory among a bunch of other stuff, but it’s one of these cases were media has what Tolkien referred to as applicability - something that has not a 1:1 allegorical dimension that maps exactly and consistently towards another subject that is not explicitly mentioned in the medium, but always there as a foil to it. But that, instead, can be transferred to all kinds of subject matters in some ways, that has these nuances and parallels without being 100% a stand-in for a certain thing.
BTW if anybody wants to get deeper into the subject of the Matrix movies from a trans perspective, both Aranock and Sophie from Mars have taken this topic apart more thoroughly than i could ever hope to do here.
Yeah I’m cis and definitely didn’t pick up on any of that the first few times I watched it. Of course, part of that is because I was 12 and just thought the fight scenes and computer shit was cool, I hadn’t really started considering movies through an allegorical lens. But I still don’t think I would have figured it out until trans issues became more mainstream and I had the right framing.
Of course once it all made sense to me I loved the movie even more. I really appreciate hearing people talk about what it’s meant to them and how they felt watching it. It’s such a great movie.
Yeah, it just works on all these levels. It does a great job at being a late 90s silly action film, it works as a “what if we’re all like, uh, brains in a jar?” stoner philosophy diatribe, it makes you want to fight back against the system when that track by RATM comes on and then you come back to the movie 20 years later, after you’ve figured out you’re trans, and realize you know that exact mood when Neo looks up at Trinity and says “I know Kung Fu!” because that’s just exactly what the really empowering kind of gender euphoria feels like. That sensation of everything being possible just because you’ve figured out the biggest secret in your life.
yeah! (to your point about cis people not noticing) this is something referred to in media studies as a “textual wink,” usually in the context of queer analysis; when the author of the media includes something that looks benign to most audiences but not to a smaller (usually queer) audience it signals for them to pay attention to those aspects of the film and that there’s something else going on thematically, like trinity’s bit about “where that road ends” and morpheus’s “splinter in your mind” etc etc
Yeah i recently rewatched it for the first time since my egg cracked and the trans allegories are literally in every single scene. Cis people just don’t notice because they lack the context and because all of it functions on more than just the trans level, like the looking glass referencing both Alice in Wonderland and those realizations a freshly hatching trans person has in front of the mirror.
I’m sorry if this is a stupid question, I’m here to learn. Has Alice in Wonderland anything to do with trans themes? I read it as an adult but still a while ago. From what I remember, Through the Looking Glass explores more mathematical themed stuff since the author was a mathematician. Is it of significance in the trans community?
I just mentioned it because Matrix brings it up several times. And to be clear, i did so as an example of the stuff that’s not a trans allegory, but one of the other layers the Matrix movies have. Besides having very clear representations of trans experiences like egg cracking, medical transition, feeling trans joy and empowerment for the first time, being deadnamed, being attacked by assimilationist elements from within your own community, finding your first transbian crush etc., they absolutely work as a metaphor for developing a revolutionary mindset and ridding yourself of false consciousness, for queer community outside of expressly trans spaces, for philosophical musings and for expanding your consciousness. And the latter is where Alice comes in, which has been cited over and over again as a metaphor for psychedelic experiences since the days of the beatnicks at the very least.
I could totally see how Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass can be perceived as trans metaphors, too. It’s not like the Matrix movies, were we know they were made by two unouted trans women who intended it to be a trans allegory among a bunch of other stuff, but it’s one of these cases were media has what Tolkien referred to as applicability - something that has not a 1:1 allegorical dimension that maps exactly and consistently towards another subject that is not explicitly mentioned in the medium, but always there as a foil to it. But that, instead, can be transferred to all kinds of subject matters in some ways, that has these nuances and parallels without being 100% a stand-in for a certain thing.
Thanks for clarification! I reread your comment and I misunderstood it the first time, now it makes more sense.
No problem!
BTW if anybody wants to get deeper into the subject of the Matrix movies from a trans perspective, both Aranock and Sophie from Mars have taken this topic apart more thoroughly than i could ever hope to do here.
I found YouTube links in your comment. Here are links to the same videos on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Link 1:
Link 2:
Alice in wonderland is about math actually
Yeah I’m cis and definitely didn’t pick up on any of that the first few times I watched it. Of course, part of that is because I was 12 and just thought the fight scenes and computer shit was cool, I hadn’t really started considering movies through an allegorical lens. But I still don’t think I would have figured it out until trans issues became more mainstream and I had the right framing.
Of course once it all made sense to me I loved the movie even more. I really appreciate hearing people talk about what it’s meant to them and how they felt watching it. It’s such a great movie.
Yeah, it just works on all these levels. It does a great job at being a late 90s silly action film, it works as a “what if we’re all like, uh, brains in a jar?” stoner philosophy diatribe, it makes you want to fight back against the system when that track by RATM comes on and then you come back to the movie 20 years later, after you’ve figured out you’re trans, and realize you know that exact mood when Neo looks up at Trinity and says “I know Kung Fu!” because that’s just exactly what the really empowering kind of gender euphoria feels like. That sensation of everything being possible just because you’ve figured out the biggest secret in your life.
yeah! (to your point about cis people not noticing) this is something referred to in media studies as a “textual wink,” usually in the context of queer analysis; when the author of the media includes something that looks benign to most audiences but not to a smaller (usually queer) audience it signals for them to pay attention to those aspects of the film and that there’s something else going on thematically, like trinity’s bit about “where that road ends” and morpheus’s “splinter in your mind” etc etc