The Matrix, Wreck-It Ralph and Identity

 

While I’ve been home for Thanksgiving this past week I finally had the time to see two digital cultural related movies (albeit completely different): Wreck-It Ralph and the Matrix. While I had heard good things about both, and I thought that they would both pertain to themes I’ve been blogging and thinking about over the last few months, I was very surprised at how nicely they actually go together. The Matrix is very much more intense and dark than Wreck-It Ralph, but they both pose interesting questions of identity and how to survive in a world completely dominated by technology.

I should probably begin by saying that I was pleasantly surprised with the Matrix, and Wreck-it Ralph drove me crazy. Going into both movies I expected to not like the Matrix and to enjoy Wreck-it, but it’s nice to be wrong once in a while. Although both movies left me with a lot to think about, I appreciate the mind-bending way the Wachowski brothers approached the questions they raised about reality and where we can draw the lines.

Within both movies there is the central idea of being able to create and mold who we are, especially in video games and virtual reality. I think that its essential that both Ralph and Neo only get power over their own world and situation, whether its their video game or inside the Matrix, as they choose who they’re going to be and how the world will perceive them. It is when Neo finally accepts himself as the hacker Neo, not the safe computer programmer he once was, that he finds his power as the one. Likewise Ralph needs to accept himself as he is, but also realize that he has potential outside of the roles others have prescribed for him, so that he can gain control over his world and his environment.

Now I don’t necessarily think we’re all living in a completely machine controlled world, but I do think that the idea of creating our own identity is still essential to controlling our online world (and the very physical reflections it can have). I highly doubt we’re going to have the types of identity crises portrayed in either movie, yet the way he define ourselves and our relationships online gives them power and authority within our world. As we choose who we’re going to be online, we decide what influences we’re going to let into our lives and the power they will have.

In the end both of these movies echo the same themes of who are we and how do we formulate our own identities in a world that is trying to describe ourselves for us. I don’t know if I’d personally recommend Wreck-It Ralph, but I think that both it and the Matrix provide an invaluable lens for viewing our culture and our increasingly digital society.