An object that, it is promised, will “listen to you and understand you” and have a personality designed explicitly around your needs. Feminists have spent decades trying to explain concepts like “objectification” - the reduction of a person to a tool for another person’s gratification or use, typically sexual - and now, as a reward for all our hard work, we’re faced with a “Movie of the Year” in which the ideal woman is, literally, an object. Not so much, if you’re the woman and/or owned. She cleans up his mess and then tells him he’s funny. Heaven! With Theodore’s permission, she analyzes thousands of his e-mails (in less than a second) and dumps all but the 80 or so she identifies as important. Kenneth Turan at LA Times notes that Samantha’s appeal consists of “a voice that tells you immediately that this is an entity who really cares about you, you and only you.” And, at New York Magazine, David Edelstein seems entranced by Samantha’s dedication to servitude: Club’s rave review doesn’t mention much about Samantha and gender roles beyond praising Phoenix’s “wounded American maleness” and the “waves of vulnerability” which emanate from his person. Scott Tobias, the reviewer, blithely notes that Samantha, the OS, “subtly builds around inputs and thus understands him and appreciates him more than any human could … she’s an extension of him.” The A.V. It’s the first new film to receive a five-star review from well-respected film site (and Pitchfork spin-off) The Dissolve, which also named it the Movie of the Year. That last sentence may sound sensational, but critics’ unthinking acceptance - and even praise - of Her ’s sexism is enough to drive a woman to full-scale hyperbole. Her is artfully shot, exquisitely acted and often extremely moving, but when looked at in the cold light of day, its central premise - a man in a relationship with his sentient computer operating system, who happens to speak aloud in the voice of Scarlett Johannson - is just about as “romantic” as a documentary on human trafficking. “I like to cry sometimes,” Theodore replies.īut no matter how sensitive or tearful Theodore is, all that doesn’t stop him from fucking a woman that he has purchased so that she can provide him with unpaid labor. And when Theodore is walking home from work, he requests his MP 3 player to “play a melancholy song.” At one point, Theodore is having an in-depth conversation with an interactive character in one of his futuristic video games - Theodore feels sorry for the video game character, because it has no parents - who says, “I hate women! All they do is cry!”įeminists have spent decades trying to explain concepts like 'objectification'-the reduction of a person to a tool for another person's gratification or use, typically sexual-and now, as a reward for all our hard work, we’re faced with a 'Movie of the Year' in which the ideal woman is, literally, an object. When Theodore has anonymous late-night phone sex, he feels obliged to stay on the line and help his partner climax, regardless of whether or not he is aroused. According to various other characters in his movie, he’s a “sensitive guy,” a “puppy dog,” a dude who is so very in touch with his feelings that he is in fact “part man and part woman.” Theodore, who’s played by Joaquin Phoenix, is apparently so empathetic that he can earn his living writing other people’s love letters. We know this for a fact, largely because other people in his fictional universe have a tendency to stop and notice aloud how sensitive he is. Theodore Twombly - the hero of Her, Spike Jonze’s new romantic drama - is a very sensitive man.
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