Ang theorizes that within the limits of a control society “that resistance to the dominant takes place” (Ang 178). This resistance “unsettle[s] but do[es] not destroy those boundaries” (178). In fact, this new movement allows for new ways for power to operate.
The Matrix exemplifies this post-modern relationship between control, resistance, and uncertainty. The machines control human beings by providing them with a virtual reality while the humans are constrained to pods, serving the purpose of energy generators for the machines. However, there are “free” humans, the resistance, Zion and the inhabitants of the Nebuchadnezzar. Within the rules of The Matrix, the humans are able to find movement by manipulating the rules; they defy laws of physics with Neo eventually being able to dodge bullets. The power structure here is no longer top down; because of the rigidity of the rules created by The Matrix, humans are able to surpass and rewrite its structure. There is an exchange in power in that the machines constructed the rules but the receiver (the resistance) is able to interpret these rules.
“Theorizing in the post-modern context has to give up on the search for totalizing and universalizing forms of knowledge and truth” (Ang 179). This is Baudrillard’s project, to theorize the way in which power operates in a hyperreal society of which signs no longer resemble the referent.
