The Matrix was a metaphor for transgender identity, director confirms (2020)

If it's true that transgender people didn't think about this until the directors came out, the metaphor can't have been a very good one. That's likely more the fault of the studio than the directors.

A point of comparison is Harry Potter. Rowling is still coy about it—as you would be, given the money at stake. But every gay or lesbian reader, and lots of straight ones beside, immediately see what inspired lycanthropy. Not to mention the adolescent protagonist who moves out of his suburban closet to discover a hidden world at the back of a strange pub, where power comes from the point of a spark-shooting wand, and his latent talent for riding broomsticks makes him the most popular boy in his boarding school.

With Rowling's sense for wordplay, she must have been aware of that interpretation, even if it wasn't entirely deliberate. But it isn't just words: the whole structure of magical Britain, and the muggle world's surprising failure to notice things that are sitting in plain sight, are strikingly familiar to gay and lesbian readers who were around when the books were written.

I find the question of "how to know if this is a simulation or reality", much deeper and interesting philosophically, than the gender-fluid stuff. Like JK.Rowling claiming that Voldemor would have voted Brexit (lol), this seems like a opportunistic re-writting of the original scenario to piggy-back on something trendy.

Meh. They can say anything they like today. "The Matrix" movies were and still are a huge inspiration to many people who disagree with the status quo [for informed and critical-thinking reasons and not just to double down on an expired teenager rebel act].

Ret-conning your own work in such a way doesn't make you favors.

Plus it was strongly implied with the Switch character from the first movie. I had zero problems with any character (them included) and I loved the idea that if you are a more independent thinker you can also switch your gender as well [between The Matrix and the real world].

That's cool and progressive and all but it wasn't the central point of the movies. Not for me, not for literally anybody else I ever spoke with about it.

So yeah, hop on that modern movement, that's fine, but claiming something about movies that is at odds with what most of your audience understood about them is not going to change their opinion.

But meh, I guess she wouldn't be the first director addressing the fans with "you don't get it".

What about Cypher? He wanted to go back and wanted it so badly he would kill others like him for it. Pretty dark.

What a soul crushing claim since it meant so much to people permanently secure and hard wired in their gender.