In her twenties, Eréndira Ibarra assumed one of the few characters that gave visibility to the LGTBI community on Latin television. “I was born a bit behind closed doors. My dad as a producer in Latin America was always against the current. So, I became an expert in jumping out of windows,” the “Mexican actress raised in California” tells us via Zoom, as she describes herself. ‘Las Aparicio’ (2010) had a ‘second life’ on Netflix and we saw her alongside Kate del Castillo in ‘Ungovernable’. The producer is also one of the Latinas with the greatest projection thanks to the Wachowski sisters, first in the series ‘Sense8’ and now in The Matrix Resurrections (on HBO Max from this January 28).
“I’m still in ‘shock,’” she comments about seeing herself as part of Matrix. “When I saw that movie, as a girl, my entire universe moved. In other words, I found validity in my way of being, that feeling of not being alone in the world, that there are people who think the same as me. As an activist, she uses her social networks to talk about feminism and to denounce, even at the beginning of 2021 she published that she had suffered sexual abuse by an actor. “My lawyer and sister were the only ones who paid attention to me,” he declared at the time.
“Private is political in every sense,” he replies. The Wachowski sisters were ahead of the time artistically and inclusively and, in their personal lives, a few years ago they talked about their trans identity. Eréndira says that the Matrix set was a family and that there was “representation” in each sector. “They have somehow inspired me from the beginning.
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As a producer, I always say to Lana: ‘Oh! You spoiled me’ (laughs), because now the only thing I want is art and that is not necessarily what abounds in our industry, and dignity for creators and for diverse people, because three actresses can put in front of the screen and say: ‘This film is by women for women’, but in reality the director and all the people around us are using us as a formula. And we are more than a fad. That’s what I want to do as a producer, take diversity and inclusion beyond formulas.”
In the film, ‘Lexy’ talks about liberation and in ‘The Aparicio‘ played Mariana. “It marked me a lot, it was the first character that my sister and I developed, and it is a tribute to the women who made us as people, both from our identity, from how we see ourselves: me as a bisexual woman and my sister as a lesbian. It was possible to touch very difficult topics in Latin America. I feel that this is what I am looking for, I am tired of the protagonists who do not cause conflict. I can sit and cry all day, like 90% of traditional narratives do, but what a ‘gueva’ (laughs)”.
What would be the most important reading of the Matrix?
For me it is this liberation from the systems of oppression that keep us unable to be happy. A system is patriarchy, whether you are a man or a woman, you are a victim.
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And why do you think not many figures openly support feminism or inclusion?
There is the fear of losing the privilege. We think that we lose our identity, but in reality it has to do with a restructuring, we do not lose anything by giving rights to other people. The most important thing for me is to generate a life free of violence. I make a lot of calls to actresses and actors for social things and I constantly receive many “no’s” and I say: “Why is it so easy to talk about saving animals and so difficult to talk about human rights?” There is political confrontation and there is fear of accepting how the systems benefit us and how they affect other people.
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