The Horrifying Secret 'The Matrix' Reveals About Humanity | After Hours

a symbol of organizational anonymity you can use to trade power in exchange for lack of identity of capacity for personal human connection it's the characters main challenge in the film don't Vito and Coen stuff in front of Michael he always Dan's out on okay well what about the most inexplicable career in Hollywood history - obviously Keanu Reeves veto but that makes me think of a really good one okay bear with me that's why bear with me I have a two-pronged thesis this time so strap in from the first it starts with Keanu actors other actors have a wide range of emotions but our boy piano in his Zen wisdom goes another way running away from the explosion betraying his psychotic lover decided to abandon everyone everything he's ever known and loved so he can learn the terrifying truths about the world same face faces haha feces it's like confusion mixed with various stages of pre post and mid orgasm it's his to steal hope steal at best Opel aluminum that face is called the neutral mask and it's the face that you as an audience member subconsciously want in an action franchise that face allows you to empathize more strongly with the hero of these big budget blockbusters like Star Wars or Harry Potter or the matrices instead of Dale day-lewis slowing us down with his specific choices and his real emotions is you in new faces we've got Keanu stone-faced Lee going through the roller-coaster ride so that we can live vicariously through him which brings me to my next point you guys read Scott McCloud's understanding comics you totally ad-hoc like me man I had a two pronged thing I said it pinch it off like facies understanding comics [ __ ] have you read it I don't read any books published after 1895 or before 1895 well it's it's more of a graphic novel sort of deal so not really a you usually have to read in those though they're like the Trojan horse of books which is a reference I only understand because of the movie Troy well it it has this spectrum of the way that images interact with our brains on one end of the continuum you've got the Mona Lisa on the other end you've got the little stick figure woman that's on the bathroom door of women's restrooms every single painting or drawing of a woman you've ever seen exists somewhere between those two extremes the Mona Lisa in her beautiful detail almost lifelike making you wanna get inside of her home of other places huh I Bona so I didn't make the her Damona IRA is on the other end you've got the stick figure which is that's what is this 9r Nestorian I think you've still got something to say and make Ramona with my Leonardo I'd better the Mona Lisa Soren please but that little stick figure restroom woman can do something that the Mona Lisa cannot she tells every single woman that passes by that door hey do you see this little woman in her little dress well that little woman represents you and she's walking to this room and having herself a little pee that woman is useful because women of all shapes and sizes can identify Keanu Reeves is the women's bathroom symbol of cinema if the point of a movie is to get people of all shapes and sizes to pretend that they're the hero that's the guy you need and look up the most successful movie franchises of the last 25 years on Wikipedia or just listen now as I say this that one the bulk of them are cartoons or drawings like the stick figure woman or they're superheroes with the neutral mass like Iron Man Spider Man bad underneath or their movies like Star Wars Transformers The Matrix hires the Caribbean Harry Potter Twilight who are the stars of those movies not the coolest characters the main ones Luke's nor Lando bloom cheela queef neo that girl that's bored that vampires are real I bet you can't think of a single time that you've quoted any of those characters despite the fact that those are the most quoted movies in the last 25 years I'm Harry Potter damn it quit it you're quitting no you're right there's nothing exactly they're all neutral masks Vader and Yoda get to say the memorable quotable lines hung gets to be the ghouls orgastic I don't have it with me Luke gets to be the whiny skinny kid who thinks adults are a bummer and robots are cool not true that's not a character that's demographic the fourth Pirates taking Captain Jack his own movie and dropped Orlando Bloom Lois box office by a mile in a blockbuster the cool smart interesting character has to ask has to be the side kid and the hero has to be a bland empty husk of humanity that we can wear like a costume like a reverse escort mission we're the dead weight that the interesting characters have to drag around its standard wish-fulfillment they suck you into a character that's completely unremarkable like all three of you and turn him into a hero me turn you into me sorry I misspoke Harry Potter isn't particularly heroic he just looks his way through close-up because he's got the right friends but he still fulfills the same weirdly specific wish of all those other blockbuster heroes that superheroes carry neo Luke Frodo Twilight girl Shila beef they're all just human avatars or avatar they're all human avatars so we can relive the same fantasy over and over and over again the world is a lie and you you are secretly the most important person in that world that's the wish fulfillment that's what we want to be famous a star on the screen to be important to be remembered to be immortal one wants to be important was more like obsesses it's all we talk about ever since Star Wars we've increasingly gone to more and more movies that convinced us that we're secretly more interesting and more powerful than the world lets on we cannot get enough of that story this is actually my my I'm making this argument my kids know just movies I mean Twitter lets you be the most important newsfeed in the world to yours teeny-tiny pocket of followers two prongs I had Facebook lets you produce your very own trimming of your life that lives on creepily after your death a clean hoax that you'll never return know we've created the synthetic universe that just lies to us over and over and tells us you are the one but we have it yes but we haven't gotten into the why yet why we're obsessed with this the idea was the blue pill option is that we're one of seven billion people on earth hurling through empty space wondering if there's a god or not if anything that we do even matters all watching the same movie to stave off the same fear that we are just like all those teenagers in all those stadiums watching the same movie for the same reason and that we will be forgotten just as quickly as them when we're gone those movies are famous and successful because they know what we want and in a way the matrix was right we are spending billions of dollars were the right to create this fault world that hides the truth about our universe but the false part isn't that we're secretly the one and no one told us no is that we might not be the one and in fact probably aren't and it makes the blue pill even more terrifying than the red pill yeah well too late I already took the red one what do you mean Michael took a red pill the guy yep you don't know that guy with the pills he specifically said that he came to Clockwork Orange he's doing is he not doing a bit I thought he was referencing that movie oh he's actually okay we should set check please check a check wait nine one one call nine one I don't please forget the check if you're feeling saucy like me you like our videos there's I thought there'd be more puns we set this up and I what thank you click Subscribe use your Moodle and the possibilities are endless breadsticks and salad we got there we got there all right

Channel: Cracked

Views: 2,510,620

Rating: 4.816812 out of 5

Keywords: After Hours, Cracked, Cracked.com, Dan O'Brien, Katie willert, Keanu Reeves (TV Actor), Soren Bowie, Michael Swaim, The Matrix, Speed, Photoshop, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Daniel Day-Lewis (TV Actor), Action Movies, Graphic Novels, Mona Lisa, Superheros, Neutral Masks, Twitter, Social Media, Adobe Photoshop (Software)

Id: lrbKuOaVF3k

Length: 8min 17sec (497 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 27 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/iamaloof]

I've never thought about it like that. Very thoughtful, and funny, and interesting...just, really great overall actually. Thanks for posting.

[u/SR-71]

protagonists*

[u/hawkeye122]

Cracked.com will always get my upvotes

[u/earlofrochester]

Why do you disagree with the video, /u/Ganstergguy?

[u/LBaxter]

This is actually... extremely relevant here. If you're writing in first person is it better to have a more blank mind, kinda leave things open for the reader, or state your opinions? Interesting.

[u/lured_lurker]

This is a frustrating concept to wrap my head around, because I would have a hard time writing a character like Neo. This may be a concept that works better in cinema, where you have the thousand words of the picture to work with and a soundtrack conveying emotion. In books, you already have one hand tied behind your back because you are limited to letters, punctuation, and maybe italics or capitalization if it's really important. How straight of a straight man can you make and still elicit a response?

Also, I'm not sure I agree with their premise, even for cinema. Absolutely, people love to be convinced that they're special, but aside from the action sequences, the blank face doesn't do much for me. People don't want to be Tony Stark just because he flies around in choreographed dogfights behind an iron mask. They love him because behind the mask he's smart-mouthing Jarvis, and when the mask comes off there's someone behind it. How many people have you heard announce 'I'm Will Turner!' No one. And how many of those box office smashes are lauded for being well written? Do you want to be emulating the emotional range of Kristen Stewart? Or Shia Labeouf's dialogue? No no no no no!

There's a place for it, obviously, or these movies wouldn't make money. It's just not anything I want to try to replicate. Maybe I just prefer Mona Lisa characters. The battle mask works for an adrenaline rush, but if you want a memorable experience, you should make someone memorable.

[u/PugnacityD]

Interesting, I think this has a lot to do with the disempowerment of the individual in capitalist society, making people lust to feel important and wanting to fulfill that, even if it's just a fantasy.