MANxOS?

Recently, I had the chance to watch the Spike Jonze film ‘Her’. Starring Joaquin Phoenix, it is a movie set in a probable near future about a man who fell in love with his highly intelligent operating system (voiced by Scarlet Johansson). By ‘fell in love’. I meant the two of them really had a romantic relationship.

I find it interesting that this movie sounds a little weird or bizarre yet so ordinary given the face that somehow a lot of the people in world right now has some form of relationship or attachment to recent technology like iPhones perhaps, or laptops, or maybe a gaming platform. And it is not inaccurate to say that we love them. But, of course, even if we talk to our computers, they won’t exactly respond or empathize with us unlike the OS in this film. Though, we might be getting there. Siri, for example, is a start. What’s needed to be done is to completely figure out the complexity of the human experience.

               

There are two lines from the film that stuck with me.

“….you can't handle real emotions…”

          This line was given by Catherine, the protagonist Theodore’s ex-wife, after learning that his girlfriend is an operating system. What, then, is a real emotion? Is feeling something not enough for it to be real? Or perhaps Catherine meant that Theodore could not handle dealing with the emotions from a human to human interaction/relationship.

          Though, at the moment, we have human to human interactions online. We can talk to people we do not see and can even form an intimate relationship with them without ever meeting. Who knows if that person really physically exists in the world? Somehow, it feels like the same thing that Theodore was experiencing in the film. But it’s actually funny yet sad that sometimes we hold really deep and interesting conversations with some people online yet when we see them in real life, we can barely spare a glance. Are we afraid to be embarrassed? Disliked? Feel awkward? Well, aren’t these emotions? Can we not handle them?

“I'm yours and I'm not yours”

          A line said by the OS, Samantha, to Theodore. Well, if we think about it, we own technology and yet we do not. For example, the internet is a product of much technological advancement and we freely use it to suit our needs. We can do what we want. We are like the masters of the internet. But, at the same time, what happens to the internet is beyond our control. We, individually, cannot grasp the entirety and complexity of it. Just like there are parts of Samantha that are probably beyond the comprehension of Theodore, an experience for Samantha that Theodore will never experience and vice versa. And of course, there are more complex interpretations of this statement.

In the end, this film is not just an odd love story; it’s also a story of humanity and its creations. 

Blogpost by: Glessa Francesca Garibay