At 57 years old, writer Lilly Wachowski is still doing a lot of soul-searching.
Born Andrew, and one-half of the famous Wachowski Brothers, Wachowski and his older brother, Lana (60), born Laurence, are known for their iconic movie series “The Matrix.”
Both claim to be transgender.
‘As a trans person, the dark question that I had as a trans person was, “Who will ever love this?”‘
Andy became Lilly in 2016, while Larry was four years ahead, becoming Lana in 2012. Since then, the duo have leaned into their new identities, going so far as to retroactively characterize “The Matrix” trilogy as a “trans metaphor” in 2020.
Freedom fried
During a recent interview on “So True with Caleb Hearon,” Lilly Wachowski took another look back at his previous work and explained that he has a new perspective that helps him see how his work got him to where he is now, in relation to his gender status.
I look back on all of my previous work, and I see it because I’m looking at it from this higher place. It just creates this different perspective from this point of view up here, and I can see “Bound” — the first shot of the movie is a closet. And it’s like, “Okay, it looks like we’re going to be working on some stuff.”
Noting that “The Matrix” was about “liberation and identity and, like, freedom,” Wachowski then repeated a liberal trope about making art that can “will things into being that you need to see in the world,” before further saying that his movies have also been about finding love, while also being subliminal instruments for transgender storytelling.
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“A lot of the things that me and Lana were also writing about was love — that we needed to create stories that gave us a grounding to see that love was possible,” Wachowski tried to explain. “As a trans person … the dark question that I had as a trans person was, ‘Who will ever love this?’ … And it gave us this reminder that there was a future for us.”
Mad for it
Wachowski also noted another powerful source of creativity his new identity has given him: “trans rage.”
In 2017, he and a partner began working on a trans-themed screenplay — a process he described as “purging all this rage and horror out of the world and onto this page.”
After a few years executive producing the Showtime series “Work in Progress” — a vehicle for comedian and self-described “masculine queer dyke” Abby McEnany — Wachowski returned to the script in 2021, finding “catharsis” in responding to a world he found had become “way s**ttier for trans people.”
Wachowski channeled some of his rage into “creating caricature[d] buffoons of the right wing.” He also used it to inspire a vision of “an idealized family, a network, a Weather Underground of trans people coming together and supporting each other and holding each other up, trying to create a story that is the best of us.”
Larry Wachowski, now Lana (L), and Andy Wachowski, now Lilly (R). Photo by Bob Riha Jr/WireImage
Flip-flop
Wachowski’s new creative direction hasn’t been great for the bottom line.
A fourth installment of the beloved Keanu Reeves saga, “The Matrix Resurrections,” flopped when released in December 2021, making only about $38 million on a $190 million budget.
That’s less than a third of the $139 million its predecessor, “The Matrix Revolutions,” pulled in 2004 — and a far cry from 2003’s “The Matrix Reloaded,” which took in over $280 million.
The first “Matrix” made $171 million in 1999.
Align, Movies, The matrix, Transgenderism, Writing, Story telling, Hollywood, Transsexual, Entertainment