"Freaks in The Matrix" Response
The final chapter in our text states: "[The film] The Matrix can be viewed as a metaphor for the mass media matrix and more broadly the corporate matrix that spans the globe. Humanity has created a race of nonhumans that has now seized control. This race is composed not of robots or computers, but of corporations."
I don't remember much about the movie. I now believe I should revisit it. What I do remember is that it scared me, deeply, as a child, and if this film can indeed be used as a metaphor for the role of corporations in our world than the reality of our situations is just as scary. I don't like the idea of corporations being in control, of existing seemingly neverendingly, slowly sucking us dry of our money and controlling us through what we consume.
Concerning freaks, I wholeheartedly agree that it is us who give definition to what it means to be a freak and what it means to be "a normal." It's as if we can never get it right, as if we are set up to fail. We are either too much or too little of something, or possibly too in-between to be normal, and therefore we're shunned, cast in the freak role with no choice of our own. Because being a freak or a normal is all about performance; we give power to what it is we epitomize. The criteria for what we epitomize is created by someone other than ourselves. The media maybe. Or maybe the media is the medium with which this unknown entity sets the criteria and imposes upon us our freak status.
Maybe this is all a bunch of rambling, but what I can say is my favorite quote from the text, and a clever homage to Ryan Murphy's showtune-and-Journey-singing freaks: "At the end of the day, we do not have many real normals left. We may all feel a little normal, because we all experience at least a little privilege, but how many are truly normal? All the cheerleaders and football players have joined the glee club." Hear, hear!










