Representation of the Theme of Reality in Movies The Matrix and Ghost in the Shell

The matrix is all around us,” says Morpheus to the newly awakened Neo. The Matrix is a symbolical indication to the world, which is paralleled to be nothing more than a simulation within the brain. While, Ghost in the Shell cyborg federal agent Maj. Motoko Kusanagi trails 'The Puppet Master' who illegally hacks into the computerized minds of cyborg-human hybrids. With her partner, she corners the villian, but her curiosity about her own identity sends the case in an unforeseen direction. So maybe the matrix isn’t all around us after all.

These movies were important in introducing viewers to this idea of an illusionary nature of our perceived world. Using the parallel of computer programs or being half cyborg, the movies combined the contemporary scientific world’s adoption of an ancient eastern philosophical ideas that the world around us is similar to a dream, experienced entirely by all. I believe that the Matrix begs life’s greatest questions while Ghost in The Shell demands the questions are answered.

When we try to think about the nature of our existence, about why we are here, a lot of complications of life often stop us before we start. Life is just too complicated. How do we know what is real and what is simply illusion brought on by our own view of the world? Is it possible that we could be blinded about why we exist? Why do we exist and what is the purpose of our existence? While, we don’t have all the answers to these existential questions, the Matrix and Ghost in the Shell defiantly tackle them in different ways.

Neo questions anything that he feels attached to this feeling. This includes questioning the higher ups and control like government judgements, thinking of false communication and media influenced social control. But just cannot get an answer to his question of what is bothering him from the shadows and why it is hidden, he keeps exploring the previous topics which eventually leads him to Morpheus. While in Ghost in the Shell, Major Kusanagi, our protagonist who is also half cyborg is influenced by the power of computers. And that’s when our protagonist questions how much artificial enhancement and replacement can a person undergo and still remain human. But how does the Matrix and Ghost in the Shell tackle these questions?

Are we like the people held captive in the Matrix, oblivious to why we are here? Have we been deceived into believing that the physical reality around us is all there really is to life? Or is there something more? Is it possible that humankind really is being held captive? What is the truth?

But when these questions are being asked, that is when we chose the red pill or the blue pill in the Matrix. The Blue Pill is us clinging to worldly life and the path of seeking comforts and pleasures that we all keep choosing on a regular basis. However, such false hopes veil the truth and we seek out for that ‘promised land.’ When Morpheus asks Neo to choose between a red pill and a blue pill, he essentially offers the choice between fate and free will. In the Matrix, fate rules, since the world is preconstructed and actions were set in stone, all questions already have answers and any choice is simply the illusion of choice. In the real world, humans have the power to change their fate, take individual action, and make mistakes. Neo chooses the red pill (real life) and learns that free will isn’t so pretty.

Though Neo is the ideal model of free will, fate plays a large role in his adventure. One of the most overt philosophical references occurs near the beginning of The Matrix when Neo stashes his illegal software inside a hollowed-out copy of a book by French postmodern philosopher Jean Baudrillard entitled Simulacra and Simulation. Originally published in 1981, Baudrillard’s book argues that late-twentieth-century consumer culture is a world in which simulations or imitations of reality have become more real than reality itself, a condition he describes as the “hyper-real.”

Baudrillard also argues that consumer culture has evolved from a state in which we are surrounded by representations or imitations of things that really exist, toward a state in which our lives are filled with simulations, objects that look as if they represent something else but have really created the reality they seem to refer to. In such a situation, the world of simulations increasingly takes on a life of its own, and reality itself erodes to the point that it becomes a desert. Morpheus introduces Neo to the real world by welcoming him to “the desert of the real,” a phrase taken from the first page of Simulacra and Simulation. Hence, the entire concept of the Matrix films can be interpreted as a criticism of the unreal consumer culture we live in, a culture that may be distracting us from the reality that we are being exploited by someone or something, just as the machines exploit the humans in the Matrix for bioelectricity.

In Ghost in the Shell a ghost is a person’s deep self, his or her essence, which remains intact even as one’s physical body becomes more and more integrated with computers and machines. The name is a reference to philosopher, a treatise on the nature of consciousness whose title was borrowed from another philosopher, Gilbert Ryle, who coined the phrase to describe the notion of consciousness as somehow apart and separate from biological processes. Koestler’s book took up the notion that humanity’s existence might have been a mistake, an evolutionary error, and dealt with humanity’s propensity to violence and awareness of the inevitability of death. All ideas that would come into play, in various ways, throughout Ghost in the Shell’s story.

With the line between man and machine muddled to the point almost of disappearing, the Matrix raises the complicated question of how mutually dependent man and machine actually are or might be. One fear of artificial intelligence is that technology will entrap us in level upon level of dependence, and in the trilogy, Neo discovers more and more about the diligence and detail of the Matrix. Technology threatens to become smarter than humans, but one larger point of the trilogy is that technology doesn’t have to be smarter than us to enslave us.

As long as humans turn to technology to solve human problems, humans and technology are interdependent. In the trilogy, the machines are dependent on humans for life, and they grow and harvest humans so they can continue to exist. Though the reverse doesn’t necessarily follow; humans don’t rely on the machines for their existence. The trilogy’s entire story stays true on the fact that at one-point humans needed artificial intelligence for something, and so created A.I. to fulfill that need.

Nevertheless, this amazing Hollywood creation has left behind a taste of truth, and a curiosity in many to explore into the true nature of reality. Intoxicating with insightful one-liners such as the wise Morpheus commenting to the confused Neo on the difference between “knowing the path and walking the path,” Matrix is truly one of a kind where art serves as a medium into spiritual and philosophical inquiry.

Ghost in the Shell links all the various iterations is a commitment to science fiction world building and philosophical inquiry. At every turn, the series offers a reminder that animation can do more than comedy and kid stuff, the realm in which it is most often found in the United States and that at its best, it’s also capable of ideas and action, drama and intellectual engagement, mind-blowing imagery and stories to match.

Even having a vague idea of the Matrix and Ghost in the Shell, and to question the solid reality of our daily life is already a great start for anyone seeking true inner freedom. It is a step towards freedom from our own conceptual mind as Morpheus's advice: “You have to let it all go, Neo. Fear, doubt, and disbelief. Free your mind.”