Lilly Wachowski Slams Ivanka Trump, Elon Musk After ‘Red Pill’ Reference
The Matrix creator Lilly Wachowski was not happy about Elon Musk and Ivanka Trump referencing her film on Twitter on Sunday afternoon. After Musk tweeted out a message saying “take the red pill” and Trump later responded “taken,” Wachowski took to her own Twitter account to show her displeasure, saying “f*ck both of you.”
Fans of The Matrix know the red pill plays a significant part in the eventual uprising of human beings against their machine overlords.
In the Wachowski sisters’ sci-fi film, Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) explained to Neo (Keanu Reeves) that he had been living in a computer-generated simulation for his entire life. Morpheus then offered Neo a choice. He could either take the blue pill and forget the revelation and go back to his “normal” life. However, if he took the red pill, Neo would “wake up” in the real world and join the fight against the machines.
In the Wachowskis’ movie, Neo did take the red pill and learned the truth. Since the movie premiered, the phrase “take the red pill” has been accepted as another way of telling someone to learn the truth about a situation they had been unaware of in the past.
However, as Jordan Moreau of Variety reported, the phrase has taken on a different, far more political connotation in recent years.
Some in the conservative movement have used the phrase to tell people to join them and accept their political beliefs. It’s often used in various internet forums in regards to joining Donald Trump’s cause or men’s rights groups.
It’s not clear if Wachowski knew Musk and Trump were using the phrase she created in order to try and sway people over to the conservative movement or were simply referencing the movie’s big reveal. What was clear is the screenwriter and director was not happy the pair were using it at all.
After her response began trending on Twitter, Wachowski used the opportunity to ask her followers and those who came across her tweet to donate to the Brave Space Alliance. According to the organization’s website, the Brave Space Alliance was created to “fill a gap in the organizing of and services to trans and gender-nonconforming people.”
Moreau pointed out the tweet by Musk was just the latest in what has been “bizarre” behavior by the Tesla CEO. Last week, he threatened to move his company’s headquarters out of California and sue San Francisco’s Alameda County for its handling of the coronavirus shutdown.
It appears that this is the first time Trump has interacted with any of Musk’s comments on the social media platform.
