Craig Rinne
Proposal for 2001 MRG Conference

FRONTIER DREAMS IN _THE MATRIX_

The displacement of the Western from its place on the genre map did
	   not entail the disappearance of those underlying structures
	   of myth and ideology that had given the genre its cultural
	   force.  --Richard Slotkin, _Gunfighter Nation_

Set in 2199 America, _The Matrix_ displaces the ideology of the
frontier myth into 1999 virtual reality science fiction.  The film
describes a post-apocalyptic future where artificially-intelligent
machines keep humans enslaved through the "matrix," an elaborate
virtual reality program that recreates 1999 civilization.  Except for
a small group of free rebels, all humans believe they lead normal 1999
lives, but in physical reality they are comatose power generators.

Of course, the free rebels fight the sinister agents, artificially
intelligent computer programs that possess unlimited powers in the
matrix, in order to free humanity.  The films casts this conflict as
an update of the frontier battles of Western films.  The evil machines
control the corrupt metropolis of the matrix-producing surface world,
the good humans have a measure of frontier freedom in the uncontrolled
physical reality of underground tunnel systems, and the conflict of
humans versus machines occurs at the frontier line of the matrix.

My presentation will not, however, simply explain how _The Matrix_ is
a modern Western; many science fiction films over the last several
decades have used the tropes and structures of Westerns.  Instead,
using further analysis of _The Matrix_ in comparison to Westerns and
other science fiction films, I will examine how the frontier myth in
Hollywood films shifts away from "The West" towards a self-aware
technological and ideological frontier.  _The Matrix_ presents the
matrix as a hegemonic superstructure that obscures the economic
enslavement of the physical base; only those individuals able to
escape the ideology of the matrix, master the computer technology, and
create their own belief systems in the frontier underground are then
able to re-enter the matrix and combat the machine agents.  I intend
to display how these elements of escaping ideology, mastering
technology, and foregrounding the fundamental importance of individual
agency constitute the American frontier myth at the end of the
millennium.

In order to display and support my intertextual and genre-crossing
arguments, my presentation will consist of a fifteen-minute "essay
video."  My theses will be explicitly conveyed through titles and
voice-over narration, but I will also exploit the audio-visual
properties of the video medium.  My video will combine original
footage and clips from _The Matrix_, other science fiction films,
various Westerns, and television shows and advertisements that refer
to the new technological frontier of the Internet.