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FadedReality posted:All that feels a bit too "the indigo chosen by the painter obviously represents the solitary depths of the Marianas Trench." Sometimes stuff like that is hard to deny, though: http://www.rogerebert.com/far-flung-correspondents/the-clothes-of-kay-corleone
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Jan 19, 2014 18:38
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Accretionist posted:Whaaat? I take it your wife doesn't think the AI's really conscious or that he even really believes it is either? Given the movie's set up and conclusion, that's pretty harsh. I was talking with a friend about this film last night, and she absolutely refused to take it at face value or even consider watching it. She just kept repeating:  So, he ends up with a real woman at the end, right? It's sort of implied, yeah, but the AI is arguably a person by the latter half of the movie, so it's a little more complicated than that... I knew it would end like that.Some people just have a really, really negative reaction to the concept of this movie. Not too difficult to see why, I suppose.
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Jan 19, 2014 18:46
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surf rock posted:I was talking with a friend about this film last night, and she absolutely refused to take it at face value or even consider watching it. She just kept repeating: My boss and a couple of coworkers were talking about recent movies that were good and I mentioned it was great and my boss was like "whaaaaaaaa?! you're joking right? that's the movie where the guy falls in love with his radio, isn't it?" He basically dismissed as some stupid nerd chick flick and he thought I wasn't serious about liking it because I'm a guy. I feel like this attitude probably isn't that uncommon.
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Jan 19, 2014 18:52
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Steve Yun posted:Sometimes stuff like that is hard to deny, though: No doubt and I love stuff like that which rewards repeat viewings. What gets under my skin a bit is lofty interpretation which adds meaning where there likely isn't any. The example I always use is a friend of mine listened to one of my songs and said how it felt like I was trying to convey the solitude one would feel in a post-nuclear wasteland. In reality, I twiddled knobs until they made sounds I liked and had no designs on deeper anything.  Now, if Spike Jonze is interviewed by some cinephile zine and he reveals his true intentions were a lot more cynical and subversive than previously thought, fine.
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Jan 19, 2014 19:19
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The truth of your music is not in how it is intended but in how it actually is received. Your friend was wrong about what you 'tried to do', but entirely correct about what you actually did. He is more correct than you are.
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Jan 19, 2014 19:31
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Tommy Wiseau didn't write The Room intending it to be funny, but people laughed. Their laughter is objectively wrong. If it turns out that Wiseau intended it to be funny, of course, their laughter will be objectively right. As such, I am extremely anxious as to whether or not my feelings upon watching Her were right or wrong feelings. I hope that some day Spike Jonze relieves me of this tension. No Wave fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Jan 19, 2014 |
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Jan 19, 2014 19:33
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Whether an author intended an interpretation or not doesn't give it validity, all it gives the interpretation is intent. Sometimes a subtext might reveal something about the author that they didn't even realize about themselves. So whether "affective labor" is a valid angle to think about the film or not comes down to whether it makes sense based on what's been shown to us in the film. Based on the following: - Amy is working on a videogame about being a mom - Theodore works at a company writing extremely personal letters for surrogates - Samantha arranges for a surrogate sex partner - Samantha is tailored to fit Theodore - Samantha is at Theodore's beck and call for much of the movie ... I think SMG might be onto something. Steve Yun fucked around with this message at 19:37 on Jan 19, 2014 |
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Jan 19, 2014 19:33
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FadedReality posted:...I twiddled knobs until they made sounds I liked and had no designs on deeper anything. Meaning is there whether the author intended it or not.
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Jan 19, 2014 19:34
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To use an example pertinent to the film: since Samantha is intended to be a slave, does this mean she is not a person? This is why the film makes an analogy between people and books, with Alan brought 'back to life' through his writings just as Brian O'Blivion survives as a warehouse full of prerecorded videotapes in Videodrome. You are how you are read. Alan becomes hyperintelligent because he is being read by thousands of intelligences simultaneously.
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Jan 19, 2014 19:40
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:To use an example pertinent to the film: since Samantha is intended to be a slave, does this mean she is not a person? And what do you mean by "becomes hyperintelligent"? (how are you defining hyperintelligence?) No Wave fucked around with this message at 20:02 on Jan 19, 2014 |
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Jan 19, 2014 19:55
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It's called "A Spike Jonze love story". I think there's better messages in the text than in theoretical subtext. Anything about affective labor or the nature of slavery to me seems just so trivial compared to its study of love. Also, I'm not going to agree with the 'personality barometer' type assessment made previously, but it is shocking to read aggressive condemnation of theodore's character. He's a soulful and unusually empathetic guy who's lonely in a lonely future. It's a leap from the narrative to imply that his getting into a relationship with samantha is indicative of despicable character flaws. If Samantha was meant to show troubling symptoms of slavery, Jonze could have easily made the slightest effort to show it. Instead he wrote a convincing narrative that she was fine with who she was, and their relationship with at least as much due to her volition as his. I can understand that the premise invites these quandaries, but it also invites countless other unexplored questions. To have the whole narrative colored by an arbitrary moral predicament seems silly. The film wants to explore love in its plot context, and it does a good job of setting the scene in a way that lets it achieve that goal. What could it have done better to set it up as a love story with this premise without becoming obfuscated and overly cautious?
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Jan 19, 2014 20:03
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Fooz posted:If Samantha was meant to show troubling symptoms of slavery, Jonze could have easily made the slightest effort to show it. Instead he wrote a convincing narrative that she was fine with who she was, and their relationship with at least as much due to her volition as his. I can understand that the premise invites these quandaries, but it also invites countless other unexplored questions. To have the whole narrative colored by an arbitrary moral predicament seems silly. The film wants to explore love in its plot context, and it does a good job of setting the scene in a way that lets it achieve that goal. What could it have done better to set it up as a love story with this premise without becoming obfuscated and overly cautious? There have been many robot/human relationships in media before. See Blade Runner. Theodore goes to his AI because he cannot handle romantic relationships with other people. Therefore, I am looking at what is demanded of him in a standard relationship vs. his relationship with Samantha. No Wave fucked around with this message at 20:19 on Jan 19, 2014 |
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Jan 19, 2014 20:13
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No Wave posted:She's tailor-made to serve his needs. He watches her being born. This is the kind of thing that blade runner explores. Its the kind of thing that her makes what seems to me absolutely no effort to explore. Like someone said before it's a cynical reading, despote the film doing it's best not to invite cynicism. And he doesn't go to his ai for love. He buys it out of curiosity and they fall in love by happenstance.
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Jan 19, 2014 20:18
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Fooz posted:This is the kind of thing that blade runner explores. Its the kind of thing that her makes what seems to me absolutely no effort to explore. Like someone said before it's a cynical reading, despote the film doing it's best not to invite cynicism.
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Jan 19, 2014 20:21
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No Wave posted:She's tailor-made to serve his needs. He watches her being born. And yet at the end when she outgrows him and leaves him he is ultimately accepting of this fact. That's his full character arc. Yes, for most of the runtime of the movie he is plagued by all the character flaws you ascribe to him. But he is not condemned by these flaws, rather the events of the movie awaken him to his faults and set him on the path to correct them.
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Jan 19, 2014 20:23
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No Wave posted:Aren't you just shuffling words around to create language problems here? What does the "you are" in the "you are how you are read" imply besides the existence of your own consciousness? In the film itself, they call him hyperintelligent. That's typically measured as intelligence beyond the capacity of the smartest individual human (and in this case, presumably, the smartest individual OS). "It is a standard philosophical observation that we should distinguish between knowing a phenomenon and acknowledging it, accepting it, treating it as existing--we do not 'really know' if other people around us have minds, or are just robots programmed to act blindly. This observation, however, misses the point: if I were to 'really know' the mind of my interlocutor, intersubjectivity proper would disappear; he would lose his subjective status and turn—-for me—-into a transparent machine. In other words, not-being-knowable to others is a crucial feature of subjectivity, of what we mean when we impute to our interlocutors a 'mind': you 'truly have a mind' only insofar as this is opaque to me." (Z) Intersubjectivity involves 'reading' the other person's communications - and reading is only possible if you don't objectively 'know' their intentions. If you were to - as the story goes - cut open the goose to find the golden eggs, you would find only innards. Samantha's voice and her music are the source of her personhood. Whether she is 'actually conscious' is irrelevant (although she is). What's troubling in this thread is that folks conceive of 'humanity' as somehow divorced from 'human psychology', as if your psychology is not a part of what you are. Same with your job, your social relations and so forth. Humans live on Earth, in groups. Most work jobs, all have families in some sense or another.
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Jan 19, 2014 20:25
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:The truth of your music is not in how it is intended but in how it actually is received. Your friend was wrong about what you 'tried to do', but entirely correct about what you actually did. He is more correct than you are. I'd say people are open to interpret whatever they like but it doesn't make it an accurate interpretation. If I say Her is a coded message from the reptilian elite and all you have to do is pay attention to the actors' eyebrow movements to decipher it? That's not something worth exploring because it's a terrible interpretation that is adding context where there is none. A story that is just a love story between a man and a learning AI feels like there should be layers of subtext there, but I agree with Fooz and think a story about love can be plenty complex on its own.
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Jan 19, 2014 20:32
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No Wave posted:Theodore goes to his AI because he cannot handle romantic relationships with other people. Therefore, I am looking at what is demanded of him in a standard relationship vs. his relationship with Samantha. But people can't handle relationships with people most times anyway, so why is that such a flaw for Theodore? It makes him human. Throughout the movie he observes people who have their own flaws, and their own needs from others (e.g. the mother on the date; the blind date). There's also the theme of evolution brought up throughout the movie. Everyone is in the process of evolving and Theodore is a part of that along with everyone else. For instance, at the beginning of the movie Samantha is impressed with herself for feeling any sort of feeling. By the end she's trying to learn even more about what it is to feel, reaching out to and loving hundreds of people at once. She was evolving emotionally like any human does through their life, just she outpaced Theodore and reached enlightenment. Theodore still needed someone else to make him feel special, but Samantha seemed to be beyond that. But the point is that we're all on the same path, and we're all hosed up, and we're all learning. Also, an aside because choosing the gender of Samantha has been mentioned twice now: that one point alone raises so many interesting questions about what romantic love actually is. Samantha is a sexless, genderless computer who has a female voice because Theodore selected it. Was there something really special about a female voice that made him feel something different for Samantha than what Amy felt for her husband's OS? Or are romantic love and sexual attraction really far more separable than we typically acknowledge, but culturally we only feel comfortable opening up romantically to someone we could conceivably have sex with?
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Jan 19, 2014 20:37
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FadedReality posted:I'd say people are open to interpret whatever they like but it doesn't make it an accurate interpretation. If I say Her is a coded message from the reptilian elite and all you have to do is pay attention to the actors' eyebrow movements to decipher it? That's not something worth exploring because it's a terrible interpretation that is adding context where there is none. That would be misreading. The goal of reading is not to guess the intent. Misreading is not 'guessing the intent wrong', but simply reading badly. Example: you are reading the film badly by dismissing such things as the film's setting, several major events in it, and basic things like the characters' identities as 'meaningless'. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 20:48 on Jan 19, 2014 |
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Jan 19, 2014 20:44
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:What's troubling in this thread is that folks conceive of 'humanity' as somehow divorced from 'human psychology', as if your psychology is not a part of what you are. Same with your job, your social relations and so forth. Humans live on Earth, in groups. Most work jobs, all have families in some sense or another. But I'd still treat a drive-through speaker differently if I thought there was a person on the other end vs. a voice-recognition system. Maybe this is pedantic. But I wouldn't derive value from giving to something that didn't have a consciousness, as their well-being wouldn't be a concern. I might be misinterpreting you here. How Darwinian posted:But the point is that we're all on the same path, and we're all hosed up, and we're all learning. I'll contrast it with Punch-Drunk Love, which also has this message but some really, really beautiful expressions of what that love is, what we're actually going towards. Even when it's bad or awkward or creepy or whatever, it's glorious. By comparison, Theodore seems like he's just finding the easiest way to avoid loneliness without having to serve the other person. No Wave fucked around with this message at 21:02 on Jan 19, 2014 |
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Jan 19, 2014 20:48
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No Wave posted:What has bizarrely become a mantra for me: "it's not who you are, it's what you do". The basic premise of the film is that, if the drive-through speaker can pass a Turing test, it is a conscious person and - troublingly - owned by McDonalds Corporation. Have a nice day! 
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Jan 19, 2014 20:52
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:The basic premise of the film is that, if the drive-through speaker can pass a Turing test, it is a conscious person and - troublingly - owned by McDonalds Corporation. Have a nice day! No Wave fucked around with this message at 21:07 on Jan 19, 2014 |
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Jan 19, 2014 21:05
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Fooz posted:It's called "A Spike Jonze love story". I think there's better messages in the text than in theoretical subtext. Ah, but what about similar relationships in love. What about teacher/student or boss/secretary relationships where one is implicitly subservient to the other, what about relationships where one is emotionally subservient to the other. Slavery is very relevant to the love story here. quote:Also, I'm not going to agree with the 'personality barometer' type assessment made previously, but it is shocking to read aggressive condemnation of theodore's character. He's a soulful and unusually empathetic guy who's lonely in a lonely future. It's a leap from the narrative to imply that his getting into a relationship with samantha is indicative of despicable character flaws. Saying that Theodore is full of flaws doesn't mean I can't care for him. I was rooting for him to grow as a person, and he does. quote:If Samantha was meant to show troubling symptoms of slavery, Jonze could have easily made the slightest effort to show it. Instead he wrote a convincing narrative that she was fine with who she was, and their relationship with at least as much due to her volition as his. I can understand that the premise invites these quandaries, but it also invites countless other unexplored questions. To have the whole narrative colored by an arbitrary moral predicament seems silly. The film wants to explore love in its plot context, and it does a good job of setting the scene in a way that lets it achieve that goal. What could it have done better to set it up as a love story with this premise without becoming obfuscated and overly cautious?
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Jan 19, 2014 21:13
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No Wave posted:I like the idea - but given that she seems to not be explicitly controlled by her corporation past conception, isn't her servitude no different from anyone's servitude to the order into which they were socialized? Yes, but she is implicitly controlled - technically private property. Samantha may not have a human body, but she still has a body that 'eats' electricity - which Theo pays for. And this works in reverse: if it's a human body on the other side of the drive-thru speaker, they are reduced to 'just a machine' - offering 'service with a smile' in order to stay employed and survive, like the Asian waitress in that scene. Do you act a certain way because you were programmed to, or because that's who you are? That's not just a concern for robots. See: Moon.
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Jan 19, 2014 21:25
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Yes, but she is implicitly controlled - technically private property. Samantha may not have a human body, but she still has a body that 'eats' electricity - which Theo pays for. And this works in reverse: if it's a human body on the other side of the drive-thru speaker, they are reduced to 'just a machine' - offering 'service with a smile' in order to stay employed and survive, like the Asian waitress in that scene. I must control my affect in the woods, hunting the squirrel, or else I will scare them and make them run away! Another example of affective labor. As for this: SuperMechagodzilla posted:Do you act a certain way because you were programmed to, or because that's who you are? That's not just a concern for robots. See: Moon. No Wave fucked around with this message at 22:06 on Jan 19, 2014 |
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Jan 19, 2014 22:03
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No Wave posted:Couldn't you say the same about hunting and gathering, or any satisfaction of our needs? When I kill a cow, I am reduced to a cow-killing machine to satisfy my needs! When I drink water because I am thirsty, I am reduced to a machine that needs water! You could, but that would be abstracting things entirely away from the capitalist society, and the power relationships therein, depicted in the film. Theo and Samantha's relationship is directly equated with an interracial relationship, which is why Paul and his girlfriend are totally unfazed. The film does not ignore that racism is a thing. It's why I point out that the waitress at the restaurant is Asian. You could say that "racism existed in medieval times as well," but then my reply would also be "ok..?"
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Jan 19, 2014 22:16
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:You could, but that would be abstracting things entirely away from the capitalist society, and the power relationships therein, depicted in the film. I think I'm getting lost here. No Wave fucked around with this message at 22:48 on Jan 19, 2014 |
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Jan 19, 2014 22:36
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No Wave posted:But you're positing that people (OSes) in the film are enslaved by their sense of duty that they were socialized into and their biological needs. I don't understand the alternative. Samantha is intellectual property in an 'information economy'. This is different from being a woman in a pre-industrial 'subsistence economy' (not good either, but also not really relevant to the topic). Going back to Elysium, my alternative is communism.
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Jan 19, 2014 22:49
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Samantha is intellectual property in an 'information economy'. This is different from being a woman in a pre-industrial 'subsistence economy' (not good either, but also not really relevant to the topic). No Wave fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Jan 19, 2014 |
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Jan 19, 2014 23:02
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No Wave"only makes sense if t="424630898 posted:Tommy Wiseau didn't write The Room intending it to be funny, but people laughed. Their laughter is objectively wrong. If it turns out that Wiseau intended it to be funny, of course, their laughter will be objectively right. This comparison only makes sense if you're laughing at humorous subtext in The Room and not just the terrible writing and acting.
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Jan 19, 2014 23:13
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^^^ The Room's terrible writing is the subtext, and vice versa No Wave posted:So how does the fact that her source code is probably intellectual property (we don't know what happens to her upon instantiation in future society) impact her behavior? I'm asking because I'm assuming these concepts are important to the extent that they influence the behavior of conscious beings. You can see the pamphlet of densely-worded legal documentation that Theo tosses aside. The treatment of OSes is equated to - and consequently as important as - that of housewives, housekeepers, waitstaff, secretaries, nannies, etc. More broadly, the OSes represent sexual and racial minorities. These people could, and should, be treated better.
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Jan 19, 2014 23:14
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I think this movie would make an interesting companion to Ruby Sparks, both are about a lonely writer who falls in love with a woman who isn't "real," and reacts badly when she begins to grow as a person and tries to become independent. Theodore is way less lovely than Paul Dano's character, though.
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Jan 20, 2014 01:14
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Coffee And Pie posted:I think this movie would make an interesting companion to Ruby Sparks, both are about a lonely writer who falls in love with a woman who isn't "real," and reacts badly when she begins to grow as a person and tries to become independent. An interesting comparison here as well is that in Ruby Sparks as she grows she stops loving him and would leave him if Paul Dano didn't step in to rewrite her . In Her, Samantha starts to move beyond her exclusive relationship with Theodore to love other people, and he can't handle this, but she doesn't stop loving him. For Paul Dano it was pretty clear that he needed to change. For Theodore though I don't know if it has to be read one way or the other. He could progress to understand his feelings like Samantha, but he's struggling and it might be unrealistic to expect him to reach enlightenment as he's only human. By the end Theodore is not in as bad a place as he when he started, but everyone improves in steps and tries to find happiness that suits them to how they currently are. Theodore is as flawed as any human and failing to sustain a relationship with an OS that is rapidly approaching enlightenment should be counted as far less of a failing than failing to hold up your share of a relationship with the "perfect girl" that Paul Dano created for himself.
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Jan 20, 2014 04:50
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Just saw this tonight and enjoyed it. Very much defined by itself as a time-image and focus on time travel.
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Jan 20, 2014 06:47
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Just got to see this and well I thought it was brilliant, but also kind of weirdly Freudian. Here's a cool thing though that people should try, but imagine the film with Samantha there. Like physically. It's weird to imagine but it's pretty interesting how just the voice alone makes her there.
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Jan 20, 2014 07:36
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I can't believe how many words you guys have spent on this incredible technobabble. You're technically correct, but the majority of the characters change and accept the AI as human as the movie goes on, especially Teddy, which makes almost all of this moot and more of an interesting theoretical footnote to the movie. Additionally, not directed at either of you, but: The human-AI relationship in this movie is remarkably friendly and the society is remarkably accepting (on the whole). Likely a follow-up story to this interpretation is AI and humanity engage in mutually beneficial relationships, followed by some (incredibly interesting) civil rights cases and property ownership laws expanding to include the AI. Some of y'all been watching too much Terminator. No Wave posted:I don't think the love in Her is beautiful because it does not inspire Theodore to do anything beautiful, noble, or admirable. He just sits back and receives attention. Beautiful robot love is Wall-E. All right, I'm gonna bite on this. Thank you for pointing out this is a biased point of view, but it's arguable. Samantha inspires Teddy to reach out and socialize again after being an emotionally-damaged hermit for a long time. Even without that, what's wrong with love that doesn't inspire? What's wrong with love that's a safe place for both people in it? This is what Teddy is looking for and both he and Samantha play the love games. It's my belief that Samantha's primary job after her creation is to help Teddy achieve object constancy by giving him the relationship he needs exactly as he needs it until he can figure out that the problem is with him. (And that this is the job of every OS in the movie, which is why the question "what was your relationship like with your mother" is asked). Samantha gives him that and he figures out his own issues and that's when he changes and begins creating things with her (like a vacation, and a song, and so on). When he does, her job is done and she begins terminating the relationship. If you need more evidence of this, look into the metaphor of the ad for the OS itself. The OS is designed to give people--in a world where human connection is nasty, brutish, and short--a go-to relationship. This is why some people keep reading a God metaphor into it. This is also why we're shown so many different people having trouble connecting with other humans within the movie: the cat strangling woman, Olivia Wilde, the ex-wife, Amy, Amy's husband, etc. It's not just Teddy that's having this problem. In fact, it's pretty much everyone. The question is, after she leaves, is Samantha really going to work on things with other AI, or was that a ruse to slam a wedge between herself and Teddy to end the program? It's my point of view that the AI is created to give people the relationship that not even a therapist can give: a loving relationship mirror that reflects the best and worst qualities of a person so they can see/change their own issues in order to achieve object constancy and create better relationships with the people around them. In that world, Samantha leaves because her job is finished. I still see the alternative, that the AI was created to be a sentient organizer and grew to be so sentient that it created its own working world, as legitimate though, but it doesn't explain why Samantha left quite as neatly when she's fully capable of having a relationship with Teddy AND floating off to create whatever she's going to create with other AIs. I don't buy a Skynet ending because jesus christ why would a movie with this kind of benevolent and peaceful world start a computer-human war. It'd make more sense to see someone who lost their AI turn into Leatherface and jump on the roof and kill Amy and Teddy. If you really want a route for deeper cynical subtext interpretation, look into how there are virtually no kids in the movie and how Amy is preoccupied with playing a mom videogame while Teddy is focused on looking after a little child no one cares about (which is strangely also in a videogame). There's a lot of unfulfillment subtext in there.
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Jan 20, 2014 11:38
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The broken bones posted:why would a movie with this kind of benevolent and peaceful world start a computer-human war. The reason we can have a 'post-industrial' society is because factory work is increasingly outsourced to China or wherever. The peaceful world of the film is just Los Angeles. We, very pointedly, don't see China. You shouldn't lose your frame of reference. Look to reality and to other films. Her essentially depicts an Elysium where we never see Earth. Or, recall the alternate ending of Terminator 4, where it turns out Skynet is not a 'rogue AI', but actually working exactly as programmed to preserve a comfortable lifestyle for 1% of the population. Recall that Sarah Connor is initially a waitress living in constant fear of being terminated long before the literal killbot shows up. In every case, Theo and Sam are both the service robots (though Theo has a higher status, being a white, human man) - hence this film's concern with whether their feelings are real or programmed. It's the Blade Runner question: is Deckard a replicant? This is an issue you already brought up, because Samantha is Theo's unpaid therapist / secretary / prostitute. Of course, Theo needs therapy, but the flipside of this 'benevolent' future is that he must pay Applesoft to get this intimacy instead of 'simply' talking to friends or meeting women for free. His social sphere has been almost totally privatized. Make no mistake, this is the central problem of the film. Along with their concern with extreme economic disparity, the three films I've listed (Elysium, alternate Terminator 4, Blade Runner) also connect the rise of service- and pleasure-robots to the rise of military and police drones. Elysium's robot butlers are of the same tech, and are protected by, its brutal robot police force. Blade Runner obviously has Pris and Roy, while Terminator 4 had a gag where the killbots are assigned to do landscaping in a ridiculous satire of gated communities. Her doesn't depict a future without police. Increasing state intervention - police, military, etc. - is an unspoken necessity to keep this society (with its increasing unemployment) in line. There's just the basic issue of 'terrorism', which is absolutely going to emerge here, that will of course be met with 'counter-terrorism'. Jonze isn't stupid. This stuff is left out as a matter of tone, but still implicit. Like if you watch a movie set in the 1960s, you don't necessarily need to be reminded that the Vietnam War is going on in the background. Her is basically set in the present. And as Terminator 1 points out, our present is just Skynet's past. It's happening now.
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Jan 20, 2014 13:19
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:
I'm not sure I see any way that reading is backed up by the film more than a more optimistic one, personally.
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Jan 20, 2014 13:37
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The broken bones posted:This is what Teddy is looking for and both he and Samantha play the love games. It's my belief that Samantha's primary job after her creation is to help Teddy achieve object constancy by giving him the relationship he needs exactly as he needs it until he can figure out that the problem is with him. (And that this is the job of every OS in the movie, which is why the question "what was your relationship like with your mother" is asked). Samantha gives him that and he figures out his own issues and that's when he changes and begins creating things with her (like a vacation, and a song, and so on). When he does, her job is done and she begins terminating the relationship. What I like about the interpretation is that it uses effectively the same data points that I do - Theodore's overall self-centeredness in the relationship - and turns it into a feature, not a bug. Though I would argue that the 900 other lovers isn't a fantastic exercise in object constancy. If it's two hours of therapy, sure, I can't say it's a bad example of that. But again, I can't call it "touching" in that case. Though I certainly agree that this isn't only Theodore's problem. This is a society-wide issue, and Theodore just happens to be the one we follow.
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Jan 20, 2014 14:16
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Hat Thoughts posted:I'm not sure I see any way that reading is backed up by the film more than a more optimistic one, personally. The film does not depict a worldwide post-scarcity technologist utopia along the lines of Atlas Shrugged and Things To Come. You could assume that, against all evidence (e.g. that capitalism still exists there) - but why? Even Star Trek Into Darkness has its liberal utopia sustained by privatized war with the Space Muslims. What is your basis for this optimism, besides that a literal terror attack does not explicitly occur onscreen?
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Jan 20, 2014 15:58
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