This post was originally published by them on April 27, 2023 by Wren Sanders
Over the last 25 years, few filmmakers have rebelled against Hollywood’s stodgy, at-best-neoliberal sensibilities with more gleeful rage than Lilly Wachowski. Alongside her sister and creative partner Lana, Wachowski has offered us everything from the latently trans-coded Matrix trilogy to the stridently anti-fascist thriller V for Vendetta to the kaleidoscopically queer Sense8. Since 2019, the Chicago-born artist has also written, directed, and produced on two seasons of Work in Progress, a searing and hilarious portrait of a self-identified fat dyke working through depression, isolation, and more.
Wachowski’s anti-fascist politics are evident from her body of work, though in recent years the filmmaker has been even more direct, speaking out against the GOP’s violent tendencies and auctioning off artifacts from her movies to fundraise on behalf of transgender youth. More recently, Wachowski has partnered with the non-profit QUEER|ART as one of the organization’s cadre of esteemed mentors. Describing the position as a “path toward the resistance of empire,” the filmmaker’s role comprises a year-long creative exchange with the up-and-coming filmmaker Catching On Thieves, who’s currently at work on a feature film about a suicidal therapist who hires an assassin to take their own life.
So far, the collaboration has proven valuable beyond the sharing of scripts and the discussion of genre films and camerawork. “Lilly is teaching me that it’s healthy and fruitful to work from a place of rage,” says Wachowski’s mentee. “And that there’s power in that place having humor and love — it doesn’t have to be one or the other.”
In a rare interview, Them spoke to Lilly Wachowski about the revolutionary promise of queer mentorship, the full story behind The Matrix’s trans subtext, and how she expands the scope of her own imagination.
You recently called mentorship a means of resisting empire. I’d love to begin by asking you to elaborate on that idea.
My immediate response is that I think queerness resists empire. And so in my queer body and in my trans body, I resist empire in my very being. Another way to look at it is that empire and capitalism require there to be winners and losers. They require competition. Mentorship, and the connectivity it creates, disarms empire and capitalism by bringing us together as part of the same fabric.
I’m curious if anything about being a mentor has surprised you so far.
I am surprised by how much I enjoy it. [laughs]
Say more.
As trans people, we are world builders. We are able to imagine futures that don’t yet exist. And so embracing connectivity has made me hungrier for more, hungrier to see the world through other people's eyes more, hungrier for other people's stories, particularly queer stories.
Without getting too deep into the gory details, being a trans girl in this country was hard enough before all these state legislatures started their crusade against us. So, I wanted to ask: In what ways has this moment of attack mobilized you creatively?
It’s completely debilitating in a lot of ways. But one thing I can do as a filmmaker who has been in this industry for a little while is give queers and trans folks and people of color jobs in front of and behind the camera. After the second season of Work in Progress, I was like, This is the reason to stay here. The joy that these folks are getting out of being their true artistic selves is what this revolution is about. I need to do everything in my power to get these voices to the fore. Because when I think about what’s happening in this industry right now, it’s the inverse. The studios have become these wealth hoovers that are just hoovering up money to these death stars of capitalism above us in these super conglomerates. The bottom line has always been present, but now it’s become the core product. That’s why shows are getting shelved. At the same time, they’re trying to legislate us out of public space — to disappear us. These two forces working in tandem is incredibly daunting. But as a trans person, I am the embodiment of change and I am the living embodiment of hope. And so all I can do is go about my business and make my art.
“Incredibly daunting” is a great way of describing the set-up of The Matrix, a trilogy whose power comes, in part, from the seemingly indestructible foes our heroes face. I wonder how the idea of Neo being “The One” to save humanity maps onto today’s struggle, when the need for collective struggle feels so paramount?
So the first Matrix is this Christ mythology, and the second one tears down the mythology and you're like, Is he not the one? He’s not the one. Then the third one is the most important, because what the third one is actually saying is that we are all Neo — everyone works in tandem to save the collective. It’s with all of those people, even Locke, the guy who is the non-believer, playing his part in the survival of humanity. Our connectivity is how we beat the machine.
Continuing on The Matrix, you confirmed a couple years ago that it was a trans allegory —
No, I didn’t.
You didn’t? Tell me more.
Yeah, so that came from an interview I did for Disclosure. They had a bunch of Matrix questions. And the question they asked me was about Switch, who was originally written as a trans character who was male in the real world and female in the matrix. And they took that response and attached the question that everyone now references that it’s a trans allegory. And so it was slightly out of context, but I don’t sit here and put a stink up about it, because it is a trans allegory in that it was written by two closeted trans women. And so all of the things that are in it are super-duper trans. The idea of transformation, even the whole “My name is Neo, Mr. Anderson —” that idea of claiming identity, it’s undeniable.
Got it. Well, I appreciate your setting the record straight, and I’m honored to share that additional context. Continuing with this idea of the trans-coding in The Matrix, I wanted to ask about a resonance that I don’t see brought up as often as the themes of transformation and claiming identity. And that’s the way Neo and Trinity’s relationship, at least in the first movie, definitely strikes a trans dyke chord.
Yeah, with all the decisions we made with that film, there’s just this burbling transness simmering below everything. So when I look back at the way that we cast those two parts, I can see how obvious it is that they’re one part in a lot of ways; that they’re two sides of the same coin. It’s not like these were conscious decisions, but more like we’re finding our way instinctively as these two closeted trans women. So all those things that your receptors are buzzing about are completely valid. When people say, “Oh, it’s a trans allegory,” it’s like, “Yeah… it is, but we weren’t like, Hey, let’s write a trans allegory.” That’s not how it started. We were like, “Hey, let’s write this action film,” and then we got our trans all over it. [laughs]
You mentioned two sides of the same coin — that really resonates, especially thinking of that climactic scene where Trinity and Neo first kiss. The way you and Lana use lighting in this sequence, it almost looks like you’ve performed cinematic FFS.
Yeah, I mean, duh! [laughs] It's hilarious and shocking how you can see what's going on in our brains, just below the surface.
The last thing I wanted to ask you about is imagination, which is such a central element of your art. I wonder how you practice imagining, or to put it another way, how do you hone your powers of imagination?
I would bring us back to this idea of connectivity. I can sit here in my office and I can do things that keep my mind flexible. I can write in a journal or draw or practice painting. But ultimately, I think that the way that we continue to open our imagination is in connecting with other artists and other human beings. That is the way that we’re able to truly triangulate our way into other perspectives, other worlds.
This conversation has been edited and condensed.