Spike Jonze’s “HER”, a Search of “ The Perfect Woman" (Movie that has deep connection with Literature)

      The creation of robots and artificial intelligence is a topic that is popular in contemporary art music and film. Today fiction and reality feel closer to each other than ever. In 2018, Claire Boucher (also known as “Grimes”) released her song “We Appreciate Power” in which she sings “you are not even alive, if you’re not backed up on a drive” referencing the idea that brain uploading is the future of humanity. However, there is an interest in artificial intelligence in general, there is more specific fascination with the artificial woman and throughout the history of films men’s idea of being able to create “the perfect woman” has been depicted extensively. For example we can go back to German expressionism in 1927 when a film like “Metropolis” was created. In this science fiction, the inventor C. A. Rotwang creates a human-like machine in the form of a female body. Similar films are still being made even today such as the movie Ex Machina (2014) in which a robot in a woman’s body with AI has been created according to a male character, Celeb's pornographic search history of his computer. From the creation of “Metropolis” in 1927, this genre is constantly evolving in pace with the changes of society but many women's characters still seem to be designed after patriarchal structures that characterize our society. Julie Wosk writes, “Men have long been fascinated by the idea of creating a simulated woman that miraculously comes alive, a beautiful facsimile female who is the answer to all their dreams and desires” (9). She thinks men’s idea about how a woman should be or “the perfect woman” that have been recreated in literature and film comes from the myth about Pygmalion recounted by the ancient Roman poet Ovid in “Metamorphoses”. In this story we meet the sculpture, Pygmalion who is dismissive of woman because of nature's defective creation of feminine spirit. Instead he creates a beautiful sculpture of a “perfect woman” and falls in love with his creation. He prays to Venus to give him a real woman that looks just like his sculpture. Venus answers by transforming his sculpture into a real woman named Galatea.

     The purpose of the present thesis is to investigate how the artificial woman is always portrayed in science fiction through a detailed analysis and special reference of Spike Jonze’s film “Her”. We will discuss on the question of is there any ways to break the gender boundaries and power schemes in this kind of posthumanist film. Because this popular genre presents a world that is not similar to our own. Therefore it has larger freedom and opportunity to transcend boundaries and to break our society’s norms. But despite this possibility, we meet our own power schemes and values in these films including “Her”. This is an important topic to discuss because film is a medium that reflects not only our society but also it is involved in shaping it. In the analysis the goal is to start from a feminist perspective which is most relevant to focus and purpose of this discussion and therefore different inputs in feminist film theory will be used to lead our discussion about how “Her” creates the portrayal of women. Most importantly here comes Laura Mulvey's theory on “male gaze” and Julie Wosk's “the perfect woman” and myth of Pygmalion. But I have tried to create one delimitation that feels reasonable for the time frame and space for this discussion. This paper will particularly focus on men’s desire to create “the perfect woman” which I think is one of the main problems discussed in this paper.

     In future Los Angeles, We meet the lone Theodore (played by Jaoquin Phoenix) who works as a letter writer and is in the final stage of his divorce. Theodore decides to buy a new operating system "OS 1" which is named Samantha and is humanized through a woman's voice (played by Scarlett Johansson) with whom he develops a romantic relationship.

     Though the created artificial woman in the film "Her" is in many ways similar to the myth of "the perfect woman" but we never get to see any female body in the film. Instead the operating software in "Her" is only humanized by a female voice. Still the fantasy female Samantha in Spike Jonze's "Her" is "offering words of comfort and virtual orgasms to the lonely Theodore" ( Wosk, 30). The character Theodore works as a professional letter writer and writes loving letters to the people who do not have the ability to express themselves. But in the film he himself seems to be unable to express his own feelings. So these letters become contrasted with his own tangled love life and his isolation from other people. At the beginning of the film Theodore like everyone seems to be inside with his mobile and commands his mobile to play a melancholy song. While he starts to walk, we see how his operating system with male monotonous voice informs news and promotional emails that Theodore commands to delete. 

     Then he asks his operating system to scroll past news until it mentions that "sexy daytime star Kimberly Ashford reveals provocative pregnancy photos" (Her). Theodore sneakily picks up the phone and checks on. It is clear that his current operating software does not understand properly. It does not find what he is looking for and does not fulfill any major personal function. 

     Through in the film we see romantic flashbacks from Theodore's previous relationship with Catherine (played by Rooney Mara). They seem happy together. They tease, flirt, and are loving to each other. This contrasts to Theodore's lonely apartment and the empty bed he goes to sleep. He is looking the night after someone to talk in a chat room and browse for women nicknamed "Sexykitten". They start having phone sex and we see how he starts to imagine about "sexy tv star Kimberly Ashford" whom nude pictures he saw previously. Their sexual conversation ends when the woman tells him "to strangle her with the dead cat" (Her) which makes Theodore uncomfortable. This conversation shows yet another reason why he needs someone who can understand him and can fulfill the requirements, he has, a "perfect woman" or in this case a perfect operating system. The next day, Theodore sees an advertisement for "the first artificially intelligent operating system" (Her) called "OS1" and the commercial introduces it as "an intuitive entity that listens to you, understands you and knows you, It's not just an operating system, it's a consciousness” (Her). In many ways, this operating system resembles the fantasy of “the perfect woman" who can fulfill man's every wish. Obviously, this is not an operating system for men only but the film builds and focuses on the man's longing for "the perfect woman". Theodore's place in life right now, at the end of a divorce is in need of one woman in her life. This causes Theodore to get stuck for this new operating system that promises him to understand better. After installing his new software on his computer, he is asked some questions so that his operating system could perform right based on his personality and needs. For example, he is asked about her relationship with her mother which Davina Quinlivan thinks "Certainly, the question regarding Theodore’s mother, especially, is characteristic of Jonze’s postmodern, deadpan style, wryly acknowledging the Oedipal symbolism which might underscore a male fascination with the female voice” (301). Theodore decides on a female voice for his new operating software and then we hear the softwares adopts Scarlett Johansson's voice and gives herself the name Samantha. Although the female body is absent in "Her", we never feel that absence. Sophia Nguyen writes in her article "The Posthuman Scar-Jo", Scarlett Johansson has the voice described with words like "honeyed", "velvety", "smokey" and "dry and dirty" and we "could imagine her voice leading an autonomous existence... Even if it didn’t invoke flashes of the physical being who houses it, our collective projections fill the space where Johansson isn’t." Like Theodore's putting a face on the woman he is talking to in the chat room at the beginning of the movie based on nude pictures of that famous TV star, we put Scarlett Johansson's. The voice of Theodore's previous operating system and the "SexyKitten" from the chat room contrast to Samantha that is radiated through Johansson's voice. In other posthumanist films with similar themes, the focus is on its beautiful female body, perfectly created according to "male gaze". For example "Metropolis" or "Ex Machina" can be given but in these films we need a body to be human but in "Her" we see Samantha becomes "human" without a body and thus love seems to be able to go beyond the boundary of bodies. Samantha becomes sexualized and humanized through the women's voice. 

     Laura Mulvey, thinks that classical Hollywood film is always constructed around the satisfaction of the "male gaze" that would determine the female body as spectacle and object. A situation that has hardly improved despite the advancement of technology. It is true that Samantha tries to develop herself into a subject of her own which creates a lot of driving force of the film but despite this, her development does not seem to be visualized but in the end, it's the man's development that is the most important. It's Theodore's life that needs to be fixed and for that he needs a woman to help him. It seems revolutionary in theory that a created woman is allowed to develop with its own consciousness, desire and will, to become a subject of her own, but the film seems unable to show this development. Quinlivan points out that there are parts of the film where Samantha's voice represents a rare contradiction of traditional gender representations in the science fiction genre. She takes, for example, a scene where Theodore puts her mobile into his breast pocket and points the camera outward from himself so that Samantha can feel bodily and then Theodore runs through the subway and through the city prisoners with Samantha's gaze and their intimate ties to each other shows the embodied dimension of Samantha's experience. Quinlivan writes that "Samantha’s voice is anchored within this scene as its central subject and the sound of her vocal gestures, her curiosity and delight, in equal measure, both reinscribe her subjectivity and mediate a new form of physicality now attached to her voice” (305). And Which breaks "the film’s distinctions between on-screen space/off-screen space and disembodiment/embodiment” (305). In this scene, it's clear, it's not Theodore's gaze which is important without the world being focused on Samantha's "eyes". We also hear music that Samantha composed for Theodore which she likes to photograph for their relationship. 

     Quinlivan says that "the music performs a synaesthetic alchemy, evoking an image, a photograph, a visible realm, through sound” (306). Theodore's attempt to help Samantha to see his world through mobile camera is a confirmation of a more positive one and meaningful meeting between men and women and breaks with the traditional norms of Hollywood movies. 

     After just a day, she knows exactly what he needs unlike his previous operating system that never really understood him. Samantha is independent and more intelligent than a real person. 

     During his first conversation with Samantha, Theodore tells her that "everything just feels disorganised (Her). In response, Samantha asks if she can check out his hard drive and begins to sort out what he needs to save and what he needs to delete. Like his hard drive, Theodore’s life is a mess. With hard drive as metaphor, Samantha emerges into his life to clear away all messes so that he can see with clarity and start to assess what is important and what can be left behind. Samantha is portrayed as "the perfect woman", she is unlike his former wife Cathrine "less complicated" and without any requirements. During a lunch with Cathrine when Theodore finally decides to write on the divorce papers and he tells Catherine how much happier he is when he meets Samantha who is "excited about life" (Her) in direct contrast to Catherine who has experienced mental health difficulties. Catherine surmises that he no longer has to deal with issues such as those of his partner’s depression since he now has the convenient solution of being "madly in love with his laptop” (Her). Like Pygmalion, Theodore is dismissive of "the numerous defects of character Nature had given the feminine spirit” (Ovid, 350). Samantha becomes Theodore's Galatea and soon he falls for ‘his creation'. Though Wosk thinks that "These simulated women were often shaped not only by men’s fantasies but also men’s beliefs about women themselves— their inherent traits or “nature,” their usual behavior, and their proper (culturally assigned) social roles” (10).

     

     The film “Her” provides a credible future vision of our society in which technology takes up people’s focus and they seem to live in their own bubble. As people are unable to communicate with each other, We are introduced with new digital services such as ‘BeautifulHandwrittenLetters.com’ in which Theodore works. We can understand that “Posthumanism” has created a concern about the possibility of removing man from his central role in society and see how technology is becoming something threatening and taking control of us. Thus, “Her” not only becomes a love drama between a man and a “perfect woman” but also it shows one kind of dystopian depiction of technological progress which creates one kind of insecurity and a scary thought of the characters and makes them question their technical everyday life. This uncertainty and ambiguity are similar to E.T.A. Hoffman’s story “The Sandman” which Wosk discusses in her book. "Her" shows how new technology can  affect our society and human relationship in different ways. The technical woman in Her does not try to kill humanity or to become a monster like other movies but yet the machines eventually have to disappear in order that they no longer take place in our world. Samantha explains in the movie how excited she is of her own development and that she "became more than they programmed her to '' (Her). But it is Theodore's development that is ultimately visualized and explained through his email to his ex-wife.In this email he explains to Catherine that he will always love her as they grew up together and ends the email by writing "There will be a piece of you in me always" (Her).This email rings Theodore's progress and development in the film. Throughout the film, Theodore has worked to write other people's love letters but seem to be unable to express his own feelings for other people. It is not until the end of the film that he seems capable to express for the first time his own feelings and write his own love letter to his ex-wife Catherine. The enclosed world that Theodore lives in therefore seems to be relaxed towards the end when Samantha and the other operating systems disappear. Thus even when Samantha leaves him in his solitude, she must be a means of his self-realization.

     Theodore knows from the beginning that Samantha is not a real one but don't really realize it until later in the movie when their differences become more and more tangible and when Catherine points it out during their lunch that Samantha is just a computer. He then becomes questionable and doubts his choice to be with an artificial woman. In our society the human standards stand for what is "normal" which creates a generalized standard and a clear distinction to "the others”. Then what is normal for humans are ascribed to these artificial beings as in "Her", Samantha and when they do not follow these standards they become "the others". 

     At the beginning of the movie, Samantha seems supportive, lively and curious about Theodore and his life. Then she begins to make demands, to show her own opinions and most importantly when Theodore finds out that he is not the only one, Samantha is talking and there are another 8316 people whom she is attending and she has fallen in love with over 641 of them then suddenly the myth of "the perfect woman" breaks. Theodore at the end realizes the created woman is not perfect and without the "human" flaws that he first thought. So the image of "the perfect woman" and the relationship they have built up, collapses completely. As she does not follow the human lines, she is no longer seen as a human being, but as "the other".

     By using historical comparisons and through the lens of feminist film theory, the portrayals of similar characters and stories throughout ages have given the essay a broader understanding of how the created woman has developed and adapted to our new technical society and has always recreated outdated myths about the female gender and body. These robots do not have human sex. They are forced to be part of our gender power system. In “Her”, Samantha is assigned to a gender and adapted it to satisfy male character Theodore. When an operating software experiences our world through a specific body (or in this case one Female voice) receive the different reactions of the people depending on the gender they are. Throughout this long discussion it may seem appealing to break the gender boundaries and power regimes through cyborgs like Samantha but usually it stays in reality just a utopian fantasy. We know the film can too be involved in influencing our future and how we look at the woman and how we portrays them in posthumanist emblematic films is important for asking questions about how we want our own future to look like. Because world is already full of misogynist and therefore we must try to stop this on all different levels, even in the film. Everything that is shown in film will of course never happen in reality, but it helps us to seek answers of some crucial questions such as how to stop posthuman from becoming inhuman? And making use of Posthumanist thoughts in film allow us to get closer to these questions and to see how we want to build our world that is becoming more and more technologically advanced.