Commentaries on this Media!

Penetrating the code base of a virtual body

by Critical Commons Manager

In this emotionally climactic scene from The Matrix Reloaded, Keanu Reeves plays Superman to Trinity's Lois Lane, rescuing her from falling off a building and then literally resurrecting her lifeless body by reaching into the code base of her virtual avatar in the Matrix. This sequence also pays perverse homage to Cronenberg's Videodrome in a highly aestheticized and, yes, eroticized image of code-based avatars expressing their undying love for each other through penetration of the torso. Unlike Cronenberg, however, in the Matrix, it is women's bodies whose code base is permeable and fluid.