Red pill

The terms "red pill" and "blue pill" refer to a choice between the willingness to learn a potentially unsettling or life-changing truth by taking the red pill or remaining in contented ignorance with the blue pill. The terms are associated with the 1999 film ''The Matrix''.

Background

In ''The Matrix'', the main character Neo is offered the choice between a red pill and a blue pill by rebel leader Morpheus. Morpheus says "You take the blue pill... the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill... you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes." The red pill represents an uncertain future and, unknown to Neo at the time he takes it, the pill frees him from the enslaving control of the machine-generated dream world. The pill allows Neo to escape into the real world, where he lives in a pod and is being used as a battery - and finds that living the "truth of reality" is harsher and more difficult than living in the ignorance which the blue pill offers: continuing his life within the confined comfort, without want or fear, of the Matrix's simulated reality.

Neo chooses the red pill and joins the rebellion.

''The Matrix'' (1999)

Reality, subjectivity and religion

''The Matrix'' (1999), directed by the Wachowskis, makes references to historical myths and philosophy, including gnosticism, existentialism, and nihilism. The film's premise resembles Plato's Allegory of the Cave, Zhuangzi's "Zhuangzi dreamed he was a butterfly", René Descartes's skepticism and evil demon, Kant's reflections on the Phenomenon versus the ''Ding an sich'', Robert Nozick's "experience machine", the concept of a simulated reality and the brain in a vat thought experiment. ''The Matrix'' directly references Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel '' Alice in Wonderland'' with the "white rabbit" and the "down the rabbit hole" phrases, as well as referring to Neo's path of discovery as "Wonderland".

Japanese director Mamoru Oshii's 1995 anime film adaptation of Masamune Shirow's 1989 manga ''Ghost in the Shell'' was a strong influence.

In ''The Matrix'', Neo ( Keanu Reeves) hears rumors of the Matrix and a mysterious man named Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne). Neo spends his nights at his home computer trying to discover the secret of the Matrix and what the Matrix is. Eventually, another hacker, Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss), introduces Neo to Morpheus.

Morpheus explains to Neo that the Matrix is an illusory world created to prevent humans from discovering that they are slaves to an external influence. Holding out a capsule on each of his palms, he describes the choice facing Neo:

As narrated, the blue pill will allow the subject to remain in the fabricated reality of the Matrix; the red serves as a "location device" to locate the subject's body in the real world and to prepare them to be "unplugged" from the Matrix. Once one chooses the red or blue pill, the choice is irrevocable.

Neo takes the red pill and awakens in the real world, where he is forcibly ejected from the liquid-filled chamber in which he has obliviously been lying. After his rescue and convalescence aboard Morpheus's ship, Morpheus shows him the true nature of the Matrix: a detailed computer simulation of Earth at the end of the 20th century (the actual year, though not known for sure, is suggested within the original movie to be approximately 200 years later, though it is revealed through sequels ''The Matrix Reloaded'', ''The Matrix Revolutions'' and ''The Animatrix'' that at least 700 years have passed). It has been created to keep the minds of humans docile while their bodies are stored in massive power plants, their body heat and bioelectricity consumed as power by the sentient machines that have enslaved them.

In a 2012 interview, Lana Wachowski said:

In the 2021 film, ''The Matrix Resurrections'', the Analyst uses blue pills to keep Neo's true memories suppressed in the guise of therapy sessions. Later, Neo takes another red pill before being freed from the Matrix once again by Bugs and her crew. In Trinity's case, she does not have to take the red pill again because of the way that Sati is freeing her from the Matrix. The red pills also allow friendly programs to leave the Matrix, as seen with the program version of Morpheus.

Red pill as transgender allegory

Fan theories have suggested that the red pill may represent an allegory for transgender people or a story of Lana and Lilly Wachowski's history as coming out as transgender. During the 1990s, a common male-to-female transgender hormone therapy involved Premarin, a maroon tablet. Lilly Wachowski stated in August 2020 that the filmmakers had intentionally included transgender themes in the film.

Analysis

An essay written by Russell Blackford discusses the red and blue pills, questioning whether if a person were fully informed they would take the red pill, opting for the real world, believing that the choice of physical reality over a digital simulation is not so beneficial as to be valid for all people. Both Neo and another character, Cypher (Joe Pantoliano), take the red pill over the blue pill, though later in the first ''Matrix'' film, the latter demonstrates regret for having made that choice, saying that if Morpheus fully informed him of the situation, Cypher would have told him to "shove the red pill right up [his] ass." When Cypher subsequently makes a deal with the machines to return to the Matrix and forget everything he had learned, he says, "Ignorance is bliss." Blackford argues that the ''Matrix'' films set things up so that even if Neo fails, the taking of the red pill is worthwhile because he lives and dies authentically. Blackford and science-fiction writer James Patrick Kelly feel that ''The Matrix'' stacks the deck against machines and their simulated world.

''Matrix Warrior: Being the One'' author Jake Horsley compared the red pill to Lysergic acid diethylamide, LSD, citing a scene where Neo forms his own world outside of the Matrix. When he asks Morpheus if he could return, Morpheus responds by asking him if he would want to. Horsley also describes the blue pill as addiction, addictive, calling ''The Matrix'' series a continuous series of choices between taking the blue pill and not taking it. He adds that the habits and routines of people inside the Matrix are merely the people dosing themselves with the blue pill. While he describes the blue pill as a common thing, he states that the red pill is one of a kind, and something someone may not even find.

Other uses

* In the 2004 book ''The Art of the Start'', author Guy Kawasaki uses the red pill as an analog to the situation of leaders of new organizations, in that they face the same choice to either live in reality or fantasy. He adds that if they want to be successful, they have to take the red pill and see how deep the rabbit hole goes.
* Until they were removed from the Maemo operating system application installer in January 2010, certain advanced features were unlocked by a "Red Pill Mode" Easter egg (media), Easter egg to prevent accidental use by novice users but make them readily available to experienced users. This was activated by starting to add a catalog whose URL was "matrix" and then choosing to cancel. A dialog box would appear asking "Which pill?" with the choices "Red" or "Blue", allowing the user to enter red pill mode. In "Red Pill" mode, the installer allows the user to view and reconfigure system packages whose existence it normally does not acknowledge. In Blue Pill mode the installer displays only software installed by a user, creating the illusion that system software does not exist on the system.
* The choice between taking a blue or red pill is a central metaphor in the 2011 Arte documentary film ''Marx Reloaded'', in which philosophers including Slavoj Žižek and Nina Power explore solutions to the global Great Recession, economic and financial crisis of 2008–2009. The film also contains an animated parody of the red/blue pill scene in ''The Matrix'', with Leon Trotsky as Morpheus and Karl Marx as Neo.
* In the 2013 movie version of ''The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013 film), The Secret Life of Walter Mitty'', when Ben Stiller's character lands at Nuuk in Greenland, he asks the man in the airport booth: "Do you have any cars available?" "Yeah, we have a blue one and a red one", the man replies. "I'll take the red one", says Walter. This is also "the final scene in the trailer: a quirky and charming sequence on its own, even before you recognize the built-in riff on the famous "Red/Blue Pill" exchange from ''The Matrix''". "The choice between the red and blue car at the rental car lot is worthy of mention, if only because it almost candidly pulls the idea from the red pill of ''The Matrix''. Two jelly bean, or pill, shaped cars , red and blue; the only thing missing is Lawrence Fishburne working the counter". "The passage connecting reality to illusion is often visualised using tangible things and physical environments [as] Neo took the red pill in ''The Matrix''."
* In some parts of the men's rights movement and the manosphere, the term "red pill" is used as a metaphor for the specific moment when they come to the belief that certain gender roles they are expected to conform to, such as marriage and monogamy, are intended to solely benefit women, rather than for mutual benefit. In 2016, a documentary titled ''The Red Pill'' was released, which deals with the men's rights movement.
* In 2017, political activist and commentator Candace Owens launched ''Red Pill Black'', a website and YouTube channel that promotes black conservatism in the United States. The term is used as a metaphor for the process of rejection of previously believed leftist narratives.
* In May 2020, Elon Musk tweeted "Take the red pill", agreeing with a Twitter user that it meant taking a "free-thinking attitude and waking up from a normal life of sloth and ignorance". Ivanka Trump retweeted this, stating "Taken!" Lilly Wachowski, a director of ''The Matrix'', responded to this exchange with "Fuck both of you".

See also

* Allegory of the cave
* Baader-Meinhof effect
* ''Candide''
* Coloured pills indicate paradigm shifts
** Black pill (disambiguation), pessimistic awakening
** Blue pill (disambiguation), blissfully oblivious
** Red pill (disambiguation), awakening paradigm shift
* Denialism
* Epiphany (feeling), Epiphany
* Experience machine
* False dilemma
* Hyperreality
*
* ''Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium''
* ''Páthei máthos''
* ''Quid est veritas''
* Reality principle
* /r/TheRedPill
* Simulated reality
* ''The Matrixs cast and crew were asked to read three books:
** ''Simulacra and Simulation'' (1981) by Jean Baudrillard.
** ''Out of Control (Kelly book), Out of Control'' (1992) by Kevin Kelly.
** ''Introducing Evolution'', (1999) by Dylan Evans, with an illustrated version.
* ''The Social Construction of Reality''

References

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1999 neologisms
2010s slang
Catchphrases
Dilemmas
Fiction about amnesia
Film and television memes
Internet memes introduced in 2010
Manosphere
Metaphors
Philosophical analogies
Film scenes
Science fiction catchphrases
Science fiction terminology
The Matrix (franchise)
Thought experiments in philosophy