When Reality Turns Science-Fictional: Capitalist Realism in The Matrix and Cyberpunk 2077

Abstract

In his book Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? Mark Fisher diagnoses the feeling of capitalism having established itself as an all-pervasive realism, any economic and political alternatives now seeming entirely unthinkable. To further explore this concept, this essay analyzes two examples from the cyberpunk mode of science-fiction, namely the 1999 film The Matrix and the 2020 videogame Cyberpunk 2077. Both the film and the game construct dystopian futures in which capitalism continued its never-ending chase for growth, their worlds riddled with exploitation, (bodily) invasive technologies, and environmental collapse. Interpreting both works as cultural artifacts, this essay analyzes how their dystopian worlds mirror Fisher’s concept of capitalist realism, how their respective narratives affirm or break with the realities that they construct, and, finally, how they highlight capitalist realism as inseparable from the information communication technologies of our time. Where The Matrix revolves around the necessity of hope and emphasizes that any reality is merely an ideological construct that can be torn down, Cyberpunk 2077 echoes the feelings of failure that often emerge under capitalist realism.