In a conversation with The Daily Beast, Hugo Weaving – great Australian actor and AI-antagonist Agent Smith from The Matrix films – talks about the state of the world right now, and his beloved arts industry, but as any conversation about the world today turns, it got political pretty quickly.
After slamming the Murdoch presses for twisting the truth until they “revere the lie”, he was asked about the ways in which the alt-right movement has tried to co-opt The Matrix and ‘red pilling’ as their own.
“I am befuddled by it. It just goes to show how people don’t read below surfaces. They don’t read between the lines. They will take something that they think is cool and they will repurpose it to fit themselves when the original intention or meaning of that thing was quite the opposite.”
Weaving reflects on the common, shallow misreadings of both The Matrix and V for Vendetta (he played V in the film), and in the end feels pop culture itself has these issues, and a narcissism that runs to the top of politics today.
“That’s a problem with popular culture: these films are profoundly thought through, but it’s too easy to look cool, have a cool haircut, and have a gun, and you think that’s all you need to do in life.”
It’s a really interesting interview, go check out the whole conversation at The Daily Beast.
Seamus runs Byteside. You may also have spotted his words at the Australian Financial Review, the ABC, Junkee, Gamespot, The Esports Observer, CNET, Gizmodo and a few other spots over the years. He's very happy that he gets to nerd out for a living.
