Not The Spoon That Bends

Morpheus, Neo, Agent Smith, and Cypher.

Smith acts as a false father to Neo. In their first shared scene Smith condescends, wanting something from Neo, appeals to his sense of the greater good in “bringing a known terrorist to justice”, and self interest in “[wiping] the slate clean.” They are both wearing business suits, but Neo is uncomfortable in his. Neo views the carrot and stick as submission to authority, rather than opportunity to be fulfilled – as Smith hoped for him.

In contrast, Morpheus appeals to Neo’s feeling that there’s something wrong with the world. Neo follows Morpheus and is trained by him in a student-mentor capacity. Morpheus, as the true father figure, wants Neo to achieve his potential. “I can only show you the door. You’re the one that has to walk through it.” When Neo decides to rescue Morpheus (and reach his potential in achieving the impossible), he dresses like him, wearing all black and sunglasses.

Cypher acts as the false son to Morpheus, even being bald like him. He’s the only one on the ship who sees the folly in being ‘free’ to live as a low ranking crew member taking orders to further the cause of freedom. He wanted Trinity’s love (“I don’t remember you ever bringing me dinner.”) – which signifies being the one – and Morpheus’s belief – which does the same. Both things Neo has. In his bitterness, Cypher wants to reset the clock and go back to his happier life before. (“The mind has trouble letting go.”) He feels bad for his betrayal of Morpheus, but decides to go through with it anyway.

Morpheus chooses Neo as his true son (the chosen one) before he even meets him. “He believes it so blindly that he’s going to sacrifice his life to save yours.” But it is not until Morpheus’s life is in danger (by the actions of the false son) that Neo chooses Morpheus as his true father. At this point, Tank makes explicit how Morpheus is “more than a leader to us. You’re a father.” and Neo accepts his place in the small ship’s team (and family), as well as the responsibility it carries to act when he thinks he can. It comes full circle as the action Neo takes is to save the true father from the false father.

In a larger context, other films, such as Fight Club or Avatar have a similar rejection of a false father figure to find a new path. In the former, the narrator rejects the life path of ‘get a job, get married, buy a house’ as set out by his father, as well as rejecting his leader figure, Tyler Durden by the end of the film. In the latter, Jake Sully rejects the military father figure, Colonel Miles Quaritch, to join a mother codified planet and culture.

This rejection as a form of growth gives characters a way of starting in one place, and ending in another. It would, however, still be conceivable to tell three stories in those film universes where the character started as part of the ‘resistance’. Choosing not to do so has implications for the audience. In each of these films, the main character starts as part of the established order (with the audience), then moves to counter it, through the rejection of the false father figure. Perhaps the filmmakers are being didactic, wanting to have people join a counter-cultural movement of some sort.

A more interesting idea, however, would be that audiences are being given something not allowed. A criticism of the established order has been expressed and the violence as the logical follow-through has been carried out in spectacle form. Because of this, the violence doesn’t need to actually exist. We can have a feeling of relief, the paranoia of reality being an illusion has been explored and now we can contain it and come back to our non-fictional world. In this way, we stay with our actual fathers, our actual environmental damage, our actual unfulfilling lives, and our actual ‘reality’, and bury that feeling that there’s something wrong with the world. Entertainment distracts and fulfills us, by subverting the splinter in our minds. All rejection is fictional. False, even.