surpassed the fear of surveillance and is now creating fear of lack of democratic rights . The fear of being monitored has now evolved into a context where choice is being taken away . Not only are our actions monitored , they are now dictated much like in the sequence where Neo ’ s movements are dictated to him over the phone to help him out of the building . Much like the ‘ explicit ’ connotations of red in The Company of Wolves , the scene allows for an explicit acknowledgement of how easily one can be monitored and controlled using technology .
The imperception of oppression that Morpheus describes is evident through the suggestion that ‘ you cannot smell or taste or touch ’ the matrix , making it non-detectable to the senses . The anxiety surrounding the matrix and the oppression caused by being on the illusive side of it reflects the anxiety that was felt in the 20 th century as technology , especially artificial intelligence was being developed . What Morpheus describes about the ‘ real ’ being an illusion is what is known as the ‘ hyperreal ’ which Jean Baudrillard helped to define with the example of Disneyland :
Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real , when in fact all of Los Angeles and the America surrounding it are no longer real , but of the order of the hyperreal and of simulation . 80
Baudrillard highlights the illusive nature of Disneyland ; such an attraction creates a harsh distinction between what people deem as ‘ real ’ and ‘ unreal ’. Through this harsh distinction , the attention is drawn away from the changes in reality such as , the developments in technology and surveillance . Slavoj Žižek also draws attention to how fiction and reality are connected as he states , ‘ these are fictions which already structure our reality . If you take away from our reality , the symbolic functions that regulate it , you lose the reality itself .’ 81 Žižek recognises that the Matrix may be a ‘ machine for fictions ’ but reality becomes destabilised when we take away from the fictions that structure it . If we take into consideration Baudrillard ’ s comment on Disneyland , if we took away the fictions of Disneyland and the escapism of what is not real , our reality would destabilise as there would be nothing ‘ unreal ’ to compare it to . Therefore , the anxieties that Morpheus presents about not being able to detect the system , is symbolic of the anxieties of both the original and contemporary audiences regarding technology .
80
Jean Baudrillard . Simulacra and Simulation . ( Michigan : University of Michigan Press , 1994 ), 12 .
81
Slavoj Žižek , ‘ The Third Pill and Videogames ’ The Pervert ’ s Guide to Cinema , accessed November 29 th , 2020 , https :// www . youtube . com / watch ? v = zgcGvKG-YfE & feature = emb _ logo