BOUND (1996) dir. LILY WACHOWSKI. LANA WACHOWSKI

The Matrix behind the scenes photos

The comment Lana Wachowski made at that trans100 event - about how she knows a lot of black people that would vote against trans-friendly bathroom bills, and that they should know better because black people used to be forced to use segregated bathrooms - is probably one of the worst things I've ever heard a white LGBT celebrity say. She and her sister have a long and well-documented history of being two of the most racist people in Hollywood, and this is a perfect example.

While she didn't directly say that black people are responsible for preventing trans-friendly legislation, she still heavily implied it. She still singled out black people as opponents of trans rights. She still, for some reason, basically said that black people being transphobic is worse than nonblack people being transphobic because it's also hypocritical (never mind that you can certainly say the same for cisgay transphobes, who she never mentioned, but she felt the need to single out black people because it's... bathroom-related?) and that she expects better of them - why would you expect better treatment from a cis black person, but not from a cis white person? She also heavily implied that trans people and black people are wholly separate, mutually exclusive communities, as if there are no black trans or transfem people

@ardourie this is what came to mind instantly when I saw your posts over the last couple of days. The Wachowski sisters love to make their films & shows racially and culturally diverse, they love to fill their shit with nonwhite people (who can be cis, straight, gay, but conveniently never transgender, as if that can be chalked up to coincidence), but their respect for blackness & black people crumbles as soon as they meet a black transphobe. Suddenly black people have to be singled out as transphobic. Suddenly transphobia is worse when it comes from a black person. Suddenly blackness is antithetical to transness and suddenly those are separate communities.

The Wachowskis are racist. Lana Wachowski is racist and her remarks at the trans100 event were antiblack. Audiences are way too ready to overlook the anti-Asian racism in Cloud Atlas, they're way too ready to overlook the comments the sisters made about white saviours not being a real thing, they're way too ready to overlook the active removal of any and all references to Norsefire being racist or white supremacist in V for Vendetta (despite making it clear they're anti-LGBT!), and they're way too ready to overlook the trans100 comments. They're influential white artists, and so (like we see constantly on this platform) any attempt to address or criticise their racism is met with allegations of transphobia. It's not transphobic to point out when trans people are racist. It doesn't make you a TERF to point out when transfems are racist. It doesn't make you transphobic to point out when trans people make the LGBT community unwelcoming and hostile towards black or other nonwhite people.

The Wachowskis, their comments in real life, and the media they make, are racist. They perfectly exemplify the kind of stuff Tyler's been posting about, where they drive qpoc out of the community, decry criticism from people of colour as transmisogynistic, and are racially exclusionary in their support for LGBT rights.

Things that have not been lost on me:

Both my favourite TV show and my favourite movie (which is an adaption of my favourite book) both have graphic, yet gorgeous, queer sex scenes that look like works of art and also have beautifully tender scenes that take place in museums.

Both have a very multicultural cast.

Both have an impeccable soundtrack.

Both are about overcoming odds against an archaic entity based in London.

I have great taste as both were unmitigated global phenomenons (fuck you, Reed, this strike is exactly what you deserve).

Coincidentally, both have a Latino with a Z in their last name who was forced out of the closet by a jealous asshole, but that actually led to the prior getting better career opportunities in their respective public-speaking fields and being able to be public with the men they love.

Both were created by trans/non-binary individuals so maybe let us tell more stories!

FirstPrince is very Nomanita-coded.

... (What I only just now realized) More than half of this can also be said about my favourite musical.

Gina Gershon with Jennifer Tilly - Lana and Lily Wachowski @talesfromthecrypts

I’m honestly shocked that The Idol (Sam Levinson, 2023-) is seen as so shocking considering how bland and tepid it is. It feels like someone wanted to remake Perfect Blue (Satoshi Kon, 1998) but got lost along the way and ended up with 50 Shades of Hannah Montana, in the same way, that not only are its touted sex/kink scenes shockingly chaste and bland but also feels as substantive as a gormless sitcom meant to sell you a soundtrack (the Weekend interjects has a few self-insert needle drops throughout). The show's most obnoxious sin, like a bad children’s show, is that it frequently has characters deliver exposition that in turn informs important characterization, often indicating that they should’ve been depicted as part of the narrative proper, or announcing what commentary they are attempting. Characters try to sell us on the depth of the material, and why we should care, often in a cynical way as to say “this is what you should be talking about,” like a rather crass evocation of Brittney Spears in the first episode. 

Like the paparazzi with Spears, there is a lecherous survey of Joss’ (Depp) body present in almost every sequence she is on screen, but only in as much as it is being sold to us as sexy or broken. When it is not a temple for heroin chic fetishism, there are some decent attempts to show the damage her endless physical labor does to her, as emphasized by a sequence where we see the bleeding callouses and bandages on her feet. Yet frequently, her body is meant to be a sight for erotic titillation, her personality vacuous beyond unironic “cool girl” talking points that there is little else to focus on according to the series but her physique. It is almost as comically puritanical as some of its most vocal detractors, as any real depiction of sex is off-screen or so tepid that you imagine these are the fantasies of men who only know sex from the pornos they watched when they were teens in the nineties. Campion, Lynch, Cronenberg, and the Wachowskis were doing wilder erotic depictions decades ago.

What The Idol appears to be most substantively about are petty grievances against those who have slighted Sam Levinson in the past, i.e. an intimacy coordinator and women with authority. In the much-touted intimacy coordinator scene, wherein they are seen as obstructing Joss’ bodily autonomy (it’s conservatively clever, you almost have to applaud it), they are locked up in a bathroom by her manager Chaim (Azaria). This unintentionally sets up a throughline in the series where Joss keeps going against prior legal agreements. In this case, the intimacy rider for what she does and does not want to do, which the coordinator even states that they can redo and begin work again the next day. This paints Joss as indecisive and unprofessional, which the show seems to agree with, but also believes that what she needs is strong (patriarchal) guidance after her mother’s death. Her older woman manager Nikki (Jane Adams) is seen as a cruel taskmaster who wants to drop her at the earliest opportunity, and several women with power over Joss are seen as temperamental and unprofessional (like the director at the music video shoot). Whenever Joss needs comforting she either finds it in the arms of a man (usually Chaim, sometimes Tedros (a charisma-leaching Weeknd) away from a woman who was stressing her out. When it is not a man, it is a black woman (Destiny (Randolph)) effectively acting as her mammy. 

Speaking of race, there are some off dynamics at work. A brief torture scene in the second episode feature Tedros electroshocking Izaak (Sumney) when he fails to perform to his liking. Izaak is surrounded by white women, watching him gyrating above them, as Tedros continually hurts him. In effect, it is a scene of a light-skinned black man brutalizing a dark-skinned black man, seemingly for his own amusement and that of the white women. Further demonstrating this colorism, shots with Izaak are frequently so underlit that they obscure his features. True the show’s look is that of a low-rent neo-noir pastiche, but certainly some creative lighting could have mitigated the problem while also giving the series a better visual identity than what it has.

The fact it is so dour while unintentionally hilarious makes the series perversely entertaining, but exclusively in terms of ironic aesthetic enjoyment, divorced from its repressible messaging and politics. The style is likewise nothing to write home about, functional without much expressiveness. It seems at points most of the more expressive stylistic techniques like quick cutting and panning shots are used to obscure poor dancing quality from Depp. Otherwise, the bare minimum in terms of composition and structure is just around barely subpar. 

Seeing as the series is intended as a limited run, I do not think it will overcome these hurdles in the long run. However, I do believe in at least seeing where the series goes from this point. Odder situations have happened than a series becoming good after the first third, so we shall see.

The Wachowskis's The Matrix Revolutions turn 20 today. Feel old yet ?

The Animatrix: A Detective Story by Shinichiro Watanabe.

BOUND (1996) dir. LILY WACHOWSKI. LANA WACHOWSKI

i watched Don (2006) recently, and spoiler: i don't like it.

this film piqued my curiosity because of the poster and in general the aesthetics, which seems quite inspired by the Wachowskis' Matrix (1999). After all, this film sets a new standard for action films.

Action films before The Matrix were power fantasies featuring macho-men and explosions everywhere. The Wachowski sisters came in with their fashionable hero(ine), their choreographed action scenes modelled on Hong Kong action films, their abundant use of slow-motion, spinning cameras and other filmmaking techniques that make Neo look cool. The quintessence of coolness being achieved in the iconic 'bullet time scene' which combines all the above elements.

so when i saw, the theatrical release poster of the film Don (2006) i wondered if it was an Indian remake of the Wachowski sisters' masterpiece because why not ? after a quick Wikipedia research, I realised that it actually was the remake of the Hindi film of 1978 and, on paper, that sounds like a great idea. revamping an action film from the late 70s with new filmmaking techniques in a post-Matrix era; that makes sense, I was quite optimistic.

unfortunately all the inventive filmmaking techniques are used just to make Shah Rukh Khan cool and every other scene is mid. After the intermission, we even abandon the green filter because apparently for the filmmaker The Matrix = green filter. like i said, The Matrix emulated Hong Kong martial arts films for their action scenes, and so did Bollywood films in the 80s. so why does Farhan Akhtar (director of Don (2006)) decides to emulate the worst of Hollywood incomprehensible action scenes. Its countless cunts which create superficial 'smoothness'. why? my little theory is that Farhan Akhtar just want to make his protagonist 'look cool' but with a very superficial understanding of what makes a protagonist cool.

in this film, Shah Rukh Khan plays a dual role: the cruel drug lord Don and his lookalike Vijay, a kind-hearted man from humble origins. but he's too busy trying "to look cool", his acting is identical whether he plays Don or Vijay. moreover, we minimize how cruel Don is because of the "coolness" of Shah Rukh Khan. his "wittiness" defuses the emotional scenes that require seriousness.

to conclude, i'm so happy The Matrix was such an influential film but unfortunately people all around the world liked it for superficial reasons. for so many people, The Matrix is just green filter and slow motion, and that saddens me.

Speed Racer

“You don’t climb into a T-180 to be a driver. You do it because you’re driven.”

This is such a fun and brightly colored movie that also deals with pretty deep concepts and had me going “oh you’re in this too?!” for like every other person. If you need a Reason (beside fun!) to watch it, I think it’s a fun experiment with new special effects tech from the late ‘00s.

It’s been over 15 years, are we still doing cult classic?

Gina Gershon with Jennifer Tilly - Lana and Lily Wachowski @talesfromthecrypts

I love watching movies by the Wachowskis. Because it is:

By: The Wachowskis brothers

By: The Wachowskis 

By: the Wachowskis sisters