Comparing Marx And Wachowski's The Matrix

In my video, I talk about Karl Marx and his theories around the base and superstructure of society and relate them to the movie, “The Matrix”, directed by Lana Wachowski and Lilly Wachowski (a.k.a. the Wachowski brothers). The article “Film and Ideology”, by John Hess, discusses these terms in depth, so I used it as a reference to guide my analysis of the film. In the article, Hess states that “The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness.” I believe that this quote easily relates to the entire movie, as these machines have created their own political superstructure and are fooling the entire human race into believing in this illusory, simulated reality shaped by them, that in turn shapes their social consciousness.
According to Hess, “The totality of economic life includes our

conscious as well as our unconscious participation in it.” The base, which is the economic means of production, is divided into the owners and workers of production. The machines and the humans represent these subdivisions in the movie. The article states that the owners or ruling class consist of the people who own the economic means of production. In this case, the machines represented in the movie, are the owners of production. They control the humans and their social consciousness through the matrix. The working class were the humans. They technically work for the machines by providing them with constant energy regardless of the fact that they are participating totally unconsciously. The machines are dependent on the energy that is produced by the humans because they need it for their own survival. In the same way, the owners are dependent on the worker’s labor for their economic means of production. I portray this in my video when referring to how the machines are using the humans as batteries in order to stay functional.
To keep the working-class cooperative, the members of the ruling class create this sense of “false consciousness”.

This is illustrated by the matrix, the fake, simulated world that the humans are kept in. This world was created by the machines to keep the humans from seeing the truth. In the article, Hess points out how Marx shows us where to look for the relation between base and superstructure. He claims that Marx believed that the realm of production "conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life.” Hess goes on to explain that ideology is “unreliable” and mystifies social relations. I represent this in my video by explaining how, in the movie, Morpheus tries to get Neo to understand this concept by opening the curtain of the matrix and revealing the truth behind the illusion. When Neo begins to understand the matrix, he realizes that he is merely a worker being exploited for the machine’s benefit, and that the world he knew was only an ideology created and ensured by

them.