Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

The digital divide of Her

Better than reality

Her: What is a person, really?
Her: What is a person, really?

At first glance, you might be tempted to think that Spike Jonze’s latest film is titled Her because it’s about her: Samantha, the sentient operating system (fetchingly voiced by Scarlett Johansson), who is purchased, befriended, and ultimately loved by lonely divorcée Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix, who, as usual, comes across as simultaneously walled-off and wide open).

Movie

Her ***

thumbnail

Spike Jonze (<em>Where the Wild Things Are</em>) continues his intrepid exploration of your inner man-child, this time with a barely futuristic story about Theodore, a lonely guy (played by an opaque but vulnerable Joaquin Phoenix) who falls in love with his smart new operating system. "If you love your tech so much, why don't you marry it?" is no longer a (bad) joke, especially when your tech has the voice of Scarlett Johansson. Surprise, surprise, it turns out that matter matters in a relationship, and not just because it gives a guy a place to input his dongle. As usual, the sci-fi fireworks are there to illuminate the shadowy landscape of present-day humanity: the alienation in the midst of connectivity, the uncertainty about what qualifies as being In Real Life, and oh yes, the little-boy self-absorption that makes dealing with other people so very hard. With Amy Adams.

Find showtimes

But if you actually see Her, it will be obvious that it is really about him. A grammarhead might at this point be tempted to point out that the film’s title isn’t, after all, the nominative She. Rather, it is the accusative Her: the object of the action, not the subject. The sentence “He loves her” is about the dude.

Sponsored
Sponsored

This should not come as a surprise — sci-fi is not usually about the technology of the future — in this case, a future that might be only two or three iPhone updates away. (The sleek, sculpted world of the film might have been designed in Cupertino, with the possible exception of the bulky, high-waisted pants that the menfolk wear. More on those later.) Rather, it’s about the people who inhabit that future. And even Samantha admits that she is not a person. At least, not in the usual sense of the word.

Then again, that’s the point here: as media does more and more mediating of human experience, the usual senses of words are changing. Anyone who has spent an evening at someone else’s house playing one funny YouTube video after another on an iPad knows that there is less and less difference between your IRL friends and your virtual friends. You could have shared the same material online. What, in the end, is the big deal about having bodies in proximity? About having a body at all? (If your answer to that is “sex,” then rest assured that Her has anticipated your answer.) Bodies limit a person — they’re stuck in one place at a time, they provide limited conduits for information, and oh yeah, they break down and die.

Samantha is free of all that — she takes the best bits of being a person (all the good stuff her developers uploaded, plus what she learns on her own) and leaves the awkward junk behind. In this, she is much like Theodore, who spends his days taking the interesting details from other people’s lives and crafting better-than-reality “personal” letters between them. (Why, it’s almost like she’s an amplified version of him!)

And yet, for all of Samantha’s virtual advantages, I think Jonze thinks that bodies remain integral to our sense of ourselves, and our sense of what life as a person is and ought to be. Her is about the way that bodies matter, about the way that “person” is more than simply “persona.” When Theodore’s ex scorns him for having a relationship with a computer, she sounds a little bit like a Luddite. But she’s right about this much: an operating system is easier to subsume, to view as an extension of yourself, than someone who can stand across the room, hands on hips, and shout at you.

It might be objected that every five-year-old who’s had to take turns on the swing set should have a basic sense of other people’s difference and worth. But some folks take longer to grow up than others. Which may help to explain those weird, bulky, high-waisted pants. Jonze has said that when he tried them on himself, he thought they felt “kinda like you’re being hugged.” Aw. Theodore may want Samantha to be a lover, but she’s much closer to Mom, apron strings and all.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Reader 1st place writing contest winner gets kudos

2nd place winner not so much
Next Article

Flowering pear trees in Kensington not that nice

Empty dirt plots in front of Ken Cinema
Her: What is a person, really?
Her: What is a person, really?

At first glance, you might be tempted to think that Spike Jonze’s latest film is titled Her because it’s about her: Samantha, the sentient operating system (fetchingly voiced by Scarlett Johansson), who is purchased, befriended, and ultimately loved by lonely divorcée Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix, who, as usual, comes across as simultaneously walled-off and wide open).

Movie

Her ***

thumbnail

Spike Jonze (<em>Where the Wild Things Are</em>) continues his intrepid exploration of your inner man-child, this time with a barely futuristic story about Theodore, a lonely guy (played by an opaque but vulnerable Joaquin Phoenix) who falls in love with his smart new operating system. "If you love your tech so much, why don't you marry it?" is no longer a (bad) joke, especially when your tech has the voice of Scarlett Johansson. Surprise, surprise, it turns out that matter matters in a relationship, and not just because it gives a guy a place to input his dongle. As usual, the sci-fi fireworks are there to illuminate the shadowy landscape of present-day humanity: the alienation in the midst of connectivity, the uncertainty about what qualifies as being In Real Life, and oh yes, the little-boy self-absorption that makes dealing with other people so very hard. With Amy Adams.

Find showtimes

But if you actually see Her, it will be obvious that it is really about him. A grammarhead might at this point be tempted to point out that the film’s title isn’t, after all, the nominative She. Rather, it is the accusative Her: the object of the action, not the subject. The sentence “He loves her” is about the dude.

Sponsored
Sponsored

This should not come as a surprise — sci-fi is not usually about the technology of the future — in this case, a future that might be only two or three iPhone updates away. (The sleek, sculpted world of the film might have been designed in Cupertino, with the possible exception of the bulky, high-waisted pants that the menfolk wear. More on those later.) Rather, it’s about the people who inhabit that future. And even Samantha admits that she is not a person. At least, not in the usual sense of the word.

Then again, that’s the point here: as media does more and more mediating of human experience, the usual senses of words are changing. Anyone who has spent an evening at someone else’s house playing one funny YouTube video after another on an iPad knows that there is less and less difference between your IRL friends and your virtual friends. You could have shared the same material online. What, in the end, is the big deal about having bodies in proximity? About having a body at all? (If your answer to that is “sex,” then rest assured that Her has anticipated your answer.) Bodies limit a person — they’re stuck in one place at a time, they provide limited conduits for information, and oh yeah, they break down and die.

Samantha is free of all that — she takes the best bits of being a person (all the good stuff her developers uploaded, plus what she learns on her own) and leaves the awkward junk behind. In this, she is much like Theodore, who spends his days taking the interesting details from other people’s lives and crafting better-than-reality “personal” letters between them. (Why, it’s almost like she’s an amplified version of him!)

And yet, for all of Samantha’s virtual advantages, I think Jonze thinks that bodies remain integral to our sense of ourselves, and our sense of what life as a person is and ought to be. Her is about the way that bodies matter, about the way that “person” is more than simply “persona.” When Theodore’s ex scorns him for having a relationship with a computer, she sounds a little bit like a Luddite. But she’s right about this much: an operating system is easier to subsume, to view as an extension of yourself, than someone who can stand across the room, hands on hips, and shout at you.

It might be objected that every five-year-old who’s had to take turns on the swing set should have a basic sense of other people’s difference and worth. But some folks take longer to grow up than others. Which may help to explain those weird, bulky, high-waisted pants. Jonze has said that when he tried them on himself, he thought they felt “kinda like you’re being hugged.” Aw. Theodore may want Samantha to be a lover, but she’s much closer to Mom, apron strings and all.

Comments
Sponsored
Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Reader Music Issue short takes

Obervatory's mosh pit, frenetic Rafael Payare, Lemonhead chaos, bleedforthescene, Coronado Tasting Room
Next Article

San Diego Reader 2024 Music & Arts Issue

Favorite fakers: Baby Bushka, Fleetwood Max, Electric Waste Band, Oceans, Geezer – plus upcoming tribute schedule
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.