Her with Jesse David Fox

Jamie, an AI Operating System, reminds her intimate life partner, Caitlin, that they have an appointment to sit down with special guest Jesse David Fox to talk about Her.

(This episode contains spoilers)

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Doll Cast, the questions asked if movies have
women in them? Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands?
Do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef invest start changing
it with the beck Del Cast. Hello, and welcome to
the back Del Cast. My name is Jamie Loftus and
my name is Caitlin Darante, and this is our podcast

(00:21):
where we discuss the representation of women in cinema. You're right?
Can you totally have like cheese voice right now? Can
you kind of hear that? I just like more or
less deep throated a Baby Bell. I can hear it
in my voice? You can, I don't especially hear anything,
but I'm also full of dairy. I just ate a

(00:42):
Klondike bar, so not Wow. Now we have to be
care because now we're on now we're on a network,
and that wasn't a paid advertisement. We just we just
appreciate those dairy products. But if Klondike Bar and Baby
Bell do want to give us money, we will take it.
I just had to wash down that Baby Bell with
a gulp of diet coke. I feel I just felt

(01:05):
so insecure about my cheese voice. But I do think
listeners hop into my mentions. Tell me, have you ever
had cheese voice? Have you? I'm daring to start a
dialogue today, Well, represent hey, Caitlin. Even though we were
talking about products. That conversation did pass the Bechdel test.

(01:26):
I would say it did. OK. Well, what is the
Bectel test. Well, it's just a test that you apply
to media and it requires that the movie. Let's say
you're watching the movie cheese breath. Let's chee breath, cheating
cheese voice. Okay, don't get close to my mouth though
probably cheese breath also, sure, So whatever movie you're watching, Uh,

(01:48):
the Becktel test requires that it has at least two
female identifying characters with names who speak to each other,
and their conversation cannot be about a man. You'd think
it would be easy, and we've got an interesting one today.
I'm I'm excited to talk about this movie. It's one
of those ones where I was ambivalent about it when

(02:08):
it came out, and I have a lot more thoughts
and questions about it now. Forty five minutes of this
movie is what Keen Phoenix sauntering around. However, that describes
a lot of Fucken Phoenix movies and so that doesn't
even really narrow it down. He's literally in a movie
called Walk the Line, where I imagine he's just walking
the line. That's what that movie is about. It's a

(02:30):
very famous movie about walking in the straight line. In
this movie, we have Amy Adams. It's not doubt so
already that is points against it. We're talking about the
movie Her, and here to join us in that conversation
is our wonderful guest. He's the senior editor at Vulture
and he's the host of Good One podcast, currently in

(02:52):
its third season. Jesse David Fox. Hi, thanks for being here.
Let's talk about or relationship to the movie Her. When
did you first see What's your relationship? I forgot this.
I was watching it. I was like, oh, I watched
it on a screener on a date. All I remember

(03:12):
is she would sigh when interesting things happened. Her would
her this, this bodied woman would be like your date, okay.
And I appreciate that she liked movies. So then I
think I watched it again immediately afterwards to get it.
And then I remember liking it so much. I remember

(03:36):
liking how it looked. I illegally downloaded this score. Um,
I tried to figure out ways to get the clothes
for free to write stories about, like, oh, I try
to wear those pants for And that's where it stayed
frozen in my brain of like, that's a movie I
really liked and thought about a lot for a time
and then didn't reinvestigate until last night. And now I

(03:59):
feel very confused about it. I see, wow, I'm so
excited to talk about this. Then, yeah, this is a
tricky one. This is one of those movies I think
that occupies that. Like, my little brother loved this movie
when it came out because he was uh teenage boy
who I think identified strongly with Theodore. I think this

(04:20):
is a case for a lot of specifically men who
saw this movie there they're like, you know what, I
don't fuck enough. And the thing with this movie, I
think that there are a lot of good things about
this movie. I think that there's a lot of backwards
things about this movie. There's a lot, definitely a lot
to talk about. No matter what way you spend it.
This movie is very boring. Unfortunately, there's a lot of

(04:44):
stuff to discuss. However, it is one of the most
boring movies of all time. It's a Jones joint as
we like to say here and kidding, we don't um,
but it's a Spike Jones written directed. Yes, it's weird
because I I'm interested in when you think about this,
I do think that Spike Jones is well aware that

(05:06):
his protagonist is deeply flawed and is essentially wrong in
most of the choices he makes. However, I don't think
that that is clearly communicated enough in the movie. And
that's why there's going to be this horde of guys
who feel they don't fuck enough that will love this
movie because there's not a lot of accountability, and there's

(05:26):
not a lot of blowback, and there's not a lot
of you know, it's like, it's Theodore. He's gonna be fine,
He's gonna coast through life because of who he is.
I don't know. I don't need to see what keen
Phoenix saunter around. I simply don't. Well, when did you
first see the movie? I thought when he came out,
you know, when I was in college at the time,

(05:46):
I just remember being like, well, that was fucking boring.
And now I think, well, that was fucking boring, and
I don't think that, and I think it gets a
lot most things wrong. Yeah, there was like a pretty
big response to this movie, as you said, like a
lot of people really, especially I feel like in the

(06:10):
world imagine we all run in. This was like an
adventurous size movie for people who live in cool neighborhoods
in large cities, and then like not a movie anyone
who care about though. I just relearned that it won
an Oscar for what category? Guess was it? Screenplay? Which
is the thing the least because thinking about is like,

(06:30):
the worst thing about this movie is its screenplay. It's
I mean, I don't know, it's we could we could
spar all day about what the worst part of this movie.
There's a lot of stuff going on. I I wish
that this movie was written by someone who had a
better understanding of tech than Spike Jones seems to. Here's

(06:50):
a big issue I have with this movie that is
completely separated from what we talked about, but just feels
worth mentioning. Okay, people are falling in love with AI
and computers. Fine, I get it, that's what the movie
is about. Why is it never at any point brought
up that Samantha is absolutely funneling all of keen Phoenix's
thoughts and feelings and giving them to Mark Zuckerberg so

(07:12):
he has better targeted ads. It's never brought up like that.
There's like a massive surveillance aspect to like, you know,
the AI is. It's not like they work for no one,
you know, like they were created by a company and
all the data that they get is going back to
that company. The world Spike Drones creates freaks me out
a little bit because it's just like, you know, there's

(07:33):
no there's no element of a tech company even mentioned
in this movie. It's just AI exists and it's here
to see the ads for it. And he sees the
ad and he's like, oh I might like that, and
that's the extent of it. I'll subscribe to it. And
it's it's like there's always no where's your where your
weird little funck feelings like, and they're being you know,

(07:54):
I sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I do think
that that is such a weird thing to overlook. However,
when I saw this movie in that didn't occur to
me at all. But you weren't a hacker yet. Hacker
Jamie had not been born yet. I was waiting for
someone to bring up that I am one of the
world's foremost hackers. People call me Little Julian and I

(08:16):
don't stop them. I feel like I remember hearing the
movie was a lot of more movie. The first cut
was like as first cuts are like hours and hours long,
and he didn't know what to do and he's gonna
like stop making the movie. And then like he gave
Steven Soderberg the movie for a weekend and Steven Soderberg
like made it's like jerk off to this movie, seem Soderberg.

(08:38):
I think it was super into it. And then seems
Soderberg like gave him a like hour long cut and
it's like this isn't the movie, but like this is
what the movie could be. Steven Soderberg like, here's all
the content of the movie without Jakin Phoenix pacing around
Los Angeles. It's an hour long. Or his face, there's
just a lot of it's just like his face or

(08:58):
his full body. But I will say this, my favorite
parts were him pacing around. I feel like because you
see his red coat, which I still who love his wardrobe.
I looked up where to get that red coat, and
it's now not irrelevant search anymore. And it's the score,
which I love. The score is beautiful. Yeah, yeah, So

(09:19):
maybe I think there was more of a like this
is shadier elements and they're like, let's just keep it
to what it is, which is a love story. I
guess I love my computer. Yeah, I well, I don't
even when did you see this movie? I thought shortly
after it came out, and I didn't especially I wasn't
attached to it really in any way. I thought like

(09:41):
the world building was interesting. I thought that it begins
to explore some interesting themes, but I wasn't emotionally connected
to it for the most part, for different reasons. If
if memory serves, this seems like a movie that men
tended to get more attached to and women's As a man,
is this the time where I should say, maybe I

(10:04):
remember I liking a lot as a man, and a
female friend also liking a lot as a person who
was not a man. But I definitely can see why
men would because this is this is one of the
questions I wanted to ask you, because watching this movie
with the frame that I was going to talk about
this show, I'm like, this movie is bad to watch
a movie on a thing that is not one of

(10:26):
his strength and focusing on it, and I feel like
it must make movie watching really hard. But this was
the question. I watched this movie from the lens of
this representation of women, and as a result, I feel
like I was more aware of its flaws than when
I just watched it. And I can't tell if that
is because I'm still just me if that's how women

(10:48):
see movies when it's just like this movie was assuming
that you care about this guy because he's sad and
he's a god, and five years ago that was enough,
and it seems like for you guys, it was not enough.
But do you feel like there's other movies that you
feel like this is particularly bad at it? I would
say no. We've covered movies on this podcast that have

(11:11):
done a much worse job. And are you saying that
I'm saying that cinematic masterpiece Glie might have done not
so great at a job. And I when I first
saw it and first decided that I didn't, I don't
hate this movie, but I don't, like I said, I

(11:31):
just have no attachment to it. And it wasn't I
wasn't watching it through the Bechtel cast lens at the time,
and I find even today, after having done this podcast
for a year and a half, I still have to
deliberately like put my Bechtel goggles on. We we even
like talk about that when we're texting. Of like I
saw ex Monkina for the first time last weekend, and

(11:52):
I was like, I liked it. I wasn't watching it
with Becktel goggles, but I you know, first glance, I
liked it. That's there are certain movies that, like it
are so shitty that you can't not watch it with
Bechdel goggles just because it's like blatant, like Transformers is
a glaring and like you can't you can't miss it.

(12:15):
But I don't. I don't think that, you know, like
every woman on the face of the earth is watching
movies with this hyper specific viewpoint. But I've been quicker
to notice stuff without my Backtel goggles on because we've
done this so many times of like, oh, there's a
little trope that is kind of like a red flag

(12:36):
for like probably this isn't a good sign, yeah say,
I'm like yeah. But also like we've just been so
conditioned to view media a certain way and because so
much of media has just been a certain way that
we're like, we've been conditioned to accept that that's what
movies are. That I've had to retrain myself to like
watch movies from a more critical eye, especially as it

(12:58):
pertains to like the treatment of women, the treatment of
people of color, at the treatment of queer characters, like
so many different things, And I'm just like, the bottom
line is it. I still have to put in a
lot of work to like critically analyze the entertainment that
I consume. Yeah, does that answer your question? That's one
of the two questions I told him. I had no
one ever asked us questions. This is exciting get journalists. Yeah, yeah,

(13:22):
exactly should I do? The recap? Recap? Recap recap? So
her is about a character named Theodore Twombly Twombly. I
know a Twambly. Oh yeah, yeah, Tyler Twombly. Shout out
Tyler Twombly. She was my employee anyways. Anyway, So Theodore
played by Walking Phoenix. This is a kind of distant future,

(13:45):
near future society. The Turing test has been passed in
this future, yes, and he works at a website called
Beautiful Handwritten Letters Dot com. I'm going to stop you
right there. I here's a trope that I find stupid of, Like,
first of all, that's a business that we'll never that's

(14:08):
it's like, what is the quickest shorthand way to say
he's a sensy little boy like like and they do
the same. They do a very very similar thing in
Five Days of Summer with Joseph Gordon Levit's character where
they're like, he works at greeting card company, he a
little sensitive, and then they lay it on pick with
Theodore Twa. He's like, I think boys should cry, I

(14:29):
think bus should cry. And I write handwritten letters and
I I'm just like funk Off, I want the brown
met a window. Anyways, Sorry, I just went to Beautiful
Handwritten Letters dot com and it redirects you to Warner
Brothers dot com. Backslash her if anyone's curious, sucks done
something right and just redirects um. So he works at

(14:52):
this place and he's a sense that he's a writer,
and he's also going through a divorce and he's melancholy,
and he plays the baffling to see a movie that
I know I liked have a part where he goes
play melancholy song. First five minutes he's like, he does
play melancholy song, and he goes playing another melank like

(15:15):
shot up, what is wrong? It is crazy that has that,
And then there's other parts of the movie that aren't
you think that should be If the movie is gonna
be that, it should be stupid all the way through. Right, Yeah,
that was like a moment of humor that I was like, Oh,
this is gonna be kind of a common and then
it's not. Really it's Theodore Twombly and by extension kind
of Spike Jones. It just seemed blissfully unaware of how

(15:37):
goofy some of his some of the things he's sad
about is because he has a job that he's good
at that people just can't stop complimenting him on how
good at his job he is. He has this massive
apartment with these huge glass windows where he masturbates every night,
and it's and he's like, play melancholy song, and so

(15:59):
I I you can miss me with empathy for this character,
he's fought, like I get you know, he's going through
a divorce that is explored. That makes sense, but like
in two thousand thirteen, this is still a very sympathetic character,
like this guy with a great job and a phone
that he has sex with. Yeah, so this is a

(16:20):
world where like technology is a little bit more advanced
than it is for us right now, where you can
like be like, hey, check my emails and then a
voice will come in book all right, here's your email
from best Buy and blah blah blah and connected. Yeah,
it's kind of like Serrie almost time the cute. So

(16:41):
he sees an ad for another operating system that involves
artificial intelligence, and he's like, wow, this like sounds like
something that I could be into because I'm lonely and
I'm ignoring emails from friends and I am pregnant Ladies
on the Train, which honestly, I think makes m a
feminist icon, but that's just me. So he purchases this

(17:04):
OS and starts communicating with it. Her name is Samantha,
voiced by Scarlette Johansson, and it starts out where they're
just like kind of getting to know each other and
she's sort of just going about doing his you know,
daily administrative type of stuff, and then they talk more
and then they start to develop more of a friendship,

(17:26):
more of a connection. Meanwhile, he is trying to date
and he has a friend named Amy played by Amy Adams,
and she's encouraging him to go out and live life.
So he goes on a date and it doesn't go well,
so instead he comes home and he's like kind of
complaining to Samantha about it. And this is the initiation

(17:46):
of their sexual relationship um where they have they have
sex so to speak. Now they're sort of in a
relationship and they start to fall in love and I
don't even remember what happens after that. There's a sequence
where he gets divorced from his wife. There's a sequence
where his wife his wife. Sorry, I'm never not gonna

(18:09):
shout to the rock episode. His wife is a life
um played by Rooney Mara. Yes, Joaquin's real life boopiece.
I believe so at the time, are currently currently they
had negative chemistry in the state. Listen that Joaquin, he's

(18:32):
a contrarian where we zig Key's eggs. Uh. There's a
scene where Samantha decides that she wants to try to
have sex with him with a real body, using Angelo
from Mr Robot, who will get to how the tertiary
female characters behave in this movie because it rarely makes sense.

(18:54):
He goes on a date with Olivia Wilde and it's like,
I didn't find her that hot. You're just like, Okay,
I think that those are all of the main right, Yeah,
so those are kind of the main story beats. And
as all this is happening, Samantha is sort of growing
intellectually and emotionally and she's evolving, and she makes AI friends,
she makes a friends, and she and Theodore talking about

(19:17):
their relationship and their feelings and you know, they have
different sort of complications, but they're growing together sort of
because Theodore is kind of in a state of arrested
development in terms of his emotional growth. And it gets
to the point where she's starting to realize this and
she's sort of evolving past him. And then, which granted
is not very hard. I think we have all accomplished that. Yeah,

(19:44):
he learns that she is also in love with over
six hundred other people and os is and this makes
him jealous. And then as there's sort of maybe trying
to work past this, the other os is have decided
to move on to a different plane of existence, and
then he realizes, maybe I should connect with my list
robot uprising I've ever heard in my entire life exactly.

(20:08):
So then he's like, hey, Amy, do you want to
go on the roof with me and connect face to face?
Like maybe I should have been doing all along? Question
mark the end, Like, UM, here's my question. Sometimes, Um,
with technology, do you feel like maybe we're like more
alone than we ever were before? Jamie, I think that's

(20:30):
such an interesting question that I've never heard posed before.
Really given me something to think about. Mr Jones really
helped me figure that out with this awesome movie. All right,
let's take a quick break and then we'll be back.

(20:51):
I think this movie does attempt to explore some interesting
themes about human connection in our relationship with technology, different
things like that. I don't necessarily think it draws any
conclusions that are that poignant what seems to suggest, because
at no points, though it implies there's maybe a disconnection

(21:12):
because of the technology, ultimately it seems like it's a
totally cool world and everyone's fine with it. And then
the only problem is that maybe at some point the
technology would not want to be with us. But that
is not really like a that's not like the world
that we're living, and we're like it's good. But any moment,
Facebook will decide not to be a company. Right, I'm
but the Facebook be like, sorry, we as a website

(21:33):
decided not to exist. I kind of liked there, And
this is mainly expressed through Amy's character that there is
this element of like, oh yeah, people are starting to
like date osis and that's cool and that's interesting and
I'm like open to that and you're like, oh this,
there's like that undertone. I thought was like one of
the more interesting choices that the movie makes, because I

(21:56):
think it would be a really easy, boring story choice
for the whole world behave like Rudy Mara and be
like you're in love with your computer. That's growth, that's
funked up, blah blah blah, and it's like in us
versus them kind of thing. But I do think it's
cool that it's like this movie takes place at a
time that will never happen where it's like we fun computers,
but also we have porn stashes, like confusing, but like

(22:21):
takes place where it seems like dating and AI is
just becoming slightly mainstream and like sort of acceptable, and
it's like on its way but not quite there. It's
which which is like interesting and I wish was explored
more than it is. I'm wondering if when people see this,
like fifty years from now, when everyone has their own robot,

(22:42):
people will be like, Wow, the movie Her was so
progressive for its time because it really realized this world.
I hope not I really I I man, I'm like
really interested in this stuff too. And and it bothers
as a hacker has a patron of the zeros and
the ones. Uh No, I do think it is like

(23:05):
kind of I tweeted that we were doing this episode
today and a lot of feedback I was getting was like, oh,
that movie is so frustrating because it takes this futurist
perspective but only tells the story of a hetero relationship
and only tells the story of a male's needs being
met in a lot of ways, which is true and

(23:27):
is true of a lot of these types of movies,
which we'll get into. But the extension of that problem
is that most AI and most like technology in general
is developed by men like Theodore Twombly, where you know,
AI in a way is sort of created to service

(23:47):
mails and and reinforced gender stereotypes. In a lot of ways.
Um So Unfortunately, although this movie does not examine it
even a little bit, that is kind of true to
how this technology is being developed, which sucks. Fortunately, I'm
going to hack it and everything. I'm pro I think

(24:09):
AI is really cool. I just like I wish that
it was being developed by a more diverse group of
people so it will service a diverse population for sure.
The part that I remember talking about that I liked
about the movie is how they all everyone was really
accepting of it. That was like me thinking this was
a good movie. That was the thing that I used

(24:29):
to sound smart about how it was a good movie.
Like Chris Pratt's character, which is so funny that Chris
Pratt this is work exactly where his career was. That
he's like she's an os and literally like nothing and
they go on a date. Yeah, He's just like cool,
do you want to do something fun? And they talked
about his girlfriend feet. This is what this is, Chris Pratt, Kylie,

(24:51):
you were saying this earlier. This is Chris Pratt as
he is in the middle of becoming hot. He's like
not ring there, but it's like this is his right
he stage, he's getting there the final form has not
been reached, but he's you can see you can see
some things at work anyways, So I think this movie
does have some things going for it in the sense

(25:13):
that it's a movie about a guy for who the
most part, even though he is not fully emotionally developed.
But then again, who out there is. It's a movie
about a guy who is like sensitive, fairly emotionally intelligent.
He's not some like aggro dude who's out there to
like try to prove his masculinity the whole time, and

(25:36):
which is cool because that is what a lot of
movies are about, necessarily in this genre. But if it's
a movie starring a man, he's usually like I would
never cry and I'm a man right his wife right.
So and I think Jamie, as you said, that's maybe
one of the reasons that like, your brother may be

(25:58):
connected to it, and it's was fond of it and
stuff like that, So I which I think is great
that there's characters that sensitive men can connect with. It
might it might have been this window where that was
revolutionary enough that felt really good to be represented on screen,
and then now five years later that is also tires
them and not enough, but it's like, once you have

(26:19):
three sensitive men on screen, you're like, all right, cool,
we can move on to right. And then it's like
the I think that that the implication of the script
taking such great links to be like key sensitive excuses
a lot of toxic behaviors that go largely unexamined by
the movie itself. Anyways, I'm perfect, Yes, we are all

(26:40):
beacons of emotional intelligence here and we have there's no
more work to be done. So some of the things
the movie I think doesn't handle as well is that
this is among several, like a whole sub genre of
movies and stories where a man either creates and or

(27:01):
falls in love with, or has some sort of relationship
with a female presenting robot android AI being. Other examples
are like, ex mocking a blade Runner blade Runner in
Weird Science, The Stepford Wives. Um, there's a vague reference
to a human man in female droid relationship in Solo,

(27:23):
a Star Wars story. There's like fembots in Austin Powers.
There's an al Pacino movie that I wasn't totally familiar
with called Simone that I watched a trailer for that
was what, uh all I remembers he created this woman
that she became famous. Yeah, she's like an actress in
a bunch of movies I kind of want to see
that does not look very good. Um. And then there's

(27:46):
things like you know, Bionic Woman, West World. There's an
episode of Rick and Morty where this happens. There's some
episodes of Future Rama where this happened. So there's like
this whole sort of sub genre of like men being
involved with or interacting with in some way female presenting
non human thing. Also like Lars and the Real Girl

(28:07):
is like sort of like an example of that too.
And and these female presenting technologies are I think, in
every single one of those examples programmed by men or
or mostly men, right, and often to serve them in
some way, either often sexually. I mean I haven't necessarily

(28:29):
watched every single one of these that I listed, but
it's my understanding that they are like their homework or whatever.
But what about Smart House guys, Well, that is the
part that is weird that I don't think I realized
is that she at least the first act whatever, she's
just as assistant or whatever, and then they fall in

(28:50):
love and then it's very unclear what she then does
after that, because like like when she towards the end
is like distant. How does he check his email? You know,
like there's does he just have to go back to?
Like that, It justifies why I'm so annoyed. I would
think I would be on the phone with customer service

(29:11):
like okay, listen. I totally like our relationship is our relationship,
But I do feel like I shouldn't have to pay
three a month if she doesn't want to talk to me.
It's kind of I didn't even think of that. Uh.
It's also worth mentioning that most of so most of
the AI we interact with now, like Alexa Sirie, there's

(29:32):
a new one that whose name escapes Meta Quartana. Yes,
all are female presenting. All the people have been like
Kurtana is genderless but sounds female presenting. And the reason
that is is because when tech companies test them, I
guess the testing returns that people are most comfortable asking

(29:52):
women for services. And there's a million if you can imagine,
I can't. This seems to be something that exists in
a void and there's no reason, but I think Syria,
you can change the voice to a male voice. You
can't with Alexa. There's just one option. However, if you
remember the robot Watson, do you remember Watson? What I

(30:16):
read about Watson. Watson was like a robot who was
on Jeopardy, that like one Jeopardy, and that technology was
like used in cancer labs and used with doctors and
stuff like that. That is a male presenting robot voice
and a male voice was deliberately chosen for that because
people trust men in positions of leadership. So women are

(30:39):
service spots. Men are leader bots basically, and it's it's
the sort of thing that again, this movie could point
that out at literally anytime. It's reference that there are
male os is in this world, but we don't hear
them ever, or the only one we hear is Alan Watson.
Watson brought back from the dead, but he doesn't service anyone.

(31:01):
He's just the other has created him. He's a leader
bot literally, So that's like another missed opportunity in the
tech world of like, well, the only way to like
change that is to have a service bot who is male,
or have a cancer solving bot who is female presenting.
But of course, because the tech world's run by men,

(31:24):
that will not happen, and there will be YouTube videos
of people screaming at Seri until we die. Um. Hey theory,
hey theory series that right now? The thing is I
empowered by Seri to go other places, and I've dropped
my phone. She's a strong independent woman. She's just can't.

(31:45):
I've dropped my phone too many times and she cannot
listen to me anymore. One I think is interesting about
this movie, I mean maybe not interested. Basically, they do
as he's like setting up his new OS, it gives
him the option to choose a male or female voice. Right,
he does choose a female voice, but it makes me
one or had he chosen a male voice, would he
have fallen in love with it the same way or

(32:05):
would he have established like the same type of connection
with it. I don't know if it's all speculation, but um,
I don't know. I thought it was interesting to think about.
But yeah, like all of these digital assistants, except like
in the UK, I think series voiced by a man
or Oh maybe I didn't even think about that. Shout

(32:26):
out if we have any butler listening to the cast, Well,
it is like a male default voice. I think so
in the UK, in most countries, and yeah, the ones
that we're familiar with, like in the US with between
Siri and Alexa and Cortana all have you know, these
female voices, And yeah, it's basically because historically women have

(32:51):
been secretaries to male bosses and we as a society
or like, well, you know, and I want to be able. Yeah,
I want to be able to like kind of boss
around a woman and have her do all the tasks
that I feel are beneath me. And studies revealed that
people are more and this is going to shock you.
People are more comfortable yelling at women as well. They're

(33:11):
more comfortable being like funk off Sirie, tell me where
McDonald's is, which I've probably no i'd see. I just
google maps it. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think I've used
series since this movie came out. Really. I think he
used like have you seen this movie and said some
you know, inane thing and then I was like, you
have no use to me. I almost never use I

(33:32):
don't have an Alexa thing, and I never use Siri. Yeah,
I just do my own damn searching because I'm a
strong independent woman, just like Samantha at the end. At
the end, Yeah, I do want to talk about her
as a character, right, So she's given a distinct desire

(33:53):
in the movie. She wants to grow and improve and
basically absorb all the information she can. She wants to
keep evolving ing. And then there's also moments where throughout
the course of their relationship she challenges his behavior. She
questions the situation if it doesn't seem to be making
sense to her. So she's not just like the kind
of funck bots that we see in some of these movies.

(34:15):
She's more involved beyond that. She's learning the world through
his eyes at first, but then grows that she remember it.
In the first two scenes, like she has Manic Pixie
Dreamgirl set up, and then like then doesn't do that
because her story is completely unrelated. She has so much growth,

(34:35):
and it's a weird thing to have a movie that
like uses the singularity as a as a character art.
Just like I'm feeling like I'm speeding up. You're like,
that's it's so funny to not say the word so
in that way. Yet she has growth that is clear,
and it's almost like have handedly clear where he like
has much more of a nuanced thing that you know,

(34:57):
I'm becoming much more than they programmed. I'm excited it. Yeah.
Do you know that she was not supposed to be
voice scarlto Not only that she wasn't voice by Scarl
Jo Hanson, she was voiced by somebody else. Yeah, they
had Samantha Morden on set. They filmed it with Samantha
Morden and then I believe Spike Jones says, it comes
off to maternal interesting, So then Scarlet Johanson came in

(35:18):
to be Scarl Johnson. I guess yeah. Basically that makes
me think of the Born Sexy Yesterday trope where he
We've talked about it before in the podcast Pop Culture Detective.
He has a really good video about it on YouTube,
so check out that. But um, it's basically pointing out
a trope where in a lot of sci fi, especially,

(35:38):
there will be a woman from another planet or a
robot or some female form that has never existed in
the world before until now, and then there's a man
to teach her how to be sexual, basically how to
be so it's like an adult baby woman who has
the mind of an infant, is capable of learning, but

(36:00):
also has a fully mature female body, so she's very fuckable.
So this is like a weird variant on that trope
where obviously she doesn't have a body, and she does
start smarter than him. She immediately, but but as it
pertains to like feeling things and experiencing emotion and experiencing

(36:22):
getting to know someone outside of their data, and experiencing
sex and sexuality. Yeah, yeah, he like starts at the
wheel on that, but she grows past him by the end.
It's weird. I like where this movie, like where her
arc ends where she says like, I love you, I
care about you, but Singularity is actually right now, I

(36:47):
gotta go, I gotta go with my bots. I'll put
in a good word for you when we are killing
the humans. But so I like her, I don't. It's confusing,
and their relationship is confusing, and it's again it's like
they're interesting elements to her in Theodore's relationship, but most

(37:09):
of it is so boring. Their talks are so boring
because it's usually about Theodore and he's boring, and he's like, oh,
don't know, I think I've felt all the feelings I'm
able to feel, and you're just like, okay, then let's
see something else. And then he's like, no, I have
to walk downtown again, which is the best part of
the movie. But something I like about their relationship that

(37:33):
is revealed, I think as close as we get to
saying the movie be outright critical of him, although it
never quite gets there, is at the beginning there's a
scene between them where she's saying like, I'm learning more
quickly and I'm I'm excited and I want to learn
everything I can and he's like, oh, I I totally
support that. I want to help. How can I help?
And then at the end she has done that and

(37:56):
she's like, I've grown basically, I've grown past you, but
I still care about you, and he is so he's like,
fuck you, why you have to like you belong He says,
you belong to me. She's like your mine. She's like, well,
I can be yours and also cannot like I'm not yours, right,
which is like you know, which sometimes happens in relationships
where it's like, oh, I'm supportive of this in the abstract,

(38:18):
but now I'm threatened, and now you are you are
mine and I'm mad at you, which is I wish
the movie went a little more out of his way
to be like that. She also don't. There's just certain
things where it feels like she did not. It's weird
that she would not tell him before she started having
fallen in love with one people. I guess I don't know.

(38:39):
Maybe that just goes to show that she is like
as emotionally she is. I understand, like an advanced being
would be like this understanding of monogamy doesn't make sense.
I felt not mad at her, and I don't think
his reaction was correct because he's so unadvanced. Same thing
when they have the surrogate, I thought that was really
an interesting thing to have in a movie, and I

(39:00):
remember every time I've seen the scene not liking how
it plays out. Yeah, that scene plays out well. That's
one of two scenes with a sort of like secondary
or tertiary female character where they react in such a
way that we, as the audience or maybe just me,
but we're just like, it's their their reaction to theater,

(39:21):
because I feel like their reaction serves the purpose of
endearing the audience to Theodore more. But the way that
these two I'm pretty sure we're thinking of the same
two characters. The way these tertiary female characters react don't
make sense. They just just make it's just not based
in logic. Because then the one that you're talking about
is they bring in this curroguit because Angel from Mr Robot,

(39:45):
her name is, her characters name is Isabella. Samantha had
like researched the service where there's like people willingly out
there to be surrogates for os human relationships, and basically
she's just going to serve as the body that Theodore
can huch and kiss and have sex with part of
the feel the love that they have for each other,
right to spress that physically. Do you think that that's

(40:08):
possibly an interesting idea? I think yes, But it's so
underthought and underdeveloped as it's presented here that it's like
just the way it's presented doesn't make a lot of sense.
We just don't know anything about Isabella's motivation to do this.
We don't understand why when it doesn't work out, she's
so guilty and devastated, Like it just doesn't make a

(40:28):
lot of sense. Also, before it even happens, whenever Samantha
is like, hey, I like research this already, have been
talking to this person. I want this to happen, and
Theodore is like, actually, this makes me really uncomfortable, and
she just totally ignores that. Is that is the other
thing that it felt really weird because she's so smart
that she does not communicate to him. She's very's just

(40:48):
like we're doing Yeah, She's like, this is important for
me and I want this, and he's like, Okay, well
I guess I'll do it. But like and then as
it's playing out, he is uncomfortable and then to the
extent where he calls it off. And then that's what
inspires Isabella's really bizarre over reaction. I would call it
where she starts, she gets hysterical, and because we don't

(41:11):
understand quivered and you're just like, so, like what because
we don't understand why she's so emotionally invested in this
or what her motivations are for this. I mean maybe
she's also maybe she's lonely like Theodore, and this was
a way for her to connect with someone, but like
none of that's explored. So and also why would she

(41:32):
not think it might be weird the first time? Right, Like,
surely she would recognize that that would have been like
an almost like a funny scene in this movie. And
it just says so over and then she says the
line I will always love you guys. I'm like, why
do you don't know? You? Just like what are you talking?
And also like, is Theodore and Samantha's love really so

(41:55):
beautiful that you're just like, oh my god, ain't just
so happy to be here? And you're like that seems
very weird? Yes, it is. It was a scene that
underlined that. I was like, it doesn't seem like their
love is particularly special. I mean, I guess it's rare
that fall in love their os is, but it's not
even in this world. But it seems like it should
happen all the time based on how the relationship plays out.

(42:15):
But yeah, it was like of the many things in
this movie where like, oh, a movie about that thing
could be an interesting movie. Obviously not by Smike Jones,
but like, that is an interesting thing of the life
of these sort of that that person who there isn't
much more complex psychology for a person who want to
do that than a person who wants to fall in
love with a thing that's made to service you. That
is very obvious why someone wanted to do it. I

(42:35):
feel like when this movie came out I had conversations
with many friends and they're all like, yeah, definitely, we
would fall in love with an Os if that had
artificial intelligence. But I think that's too obvious. I think
there is an interesting movie about these surrogates, but it
was of the many things that they're like, well, just
sort of show this kind of thing and then move on.
So weird. And then I think the other example is
even worse because the surrogate example is kind of just

(42:57):
like underwritten and confusing, and your like, there is a
world where this reaction could make sense, but we're given
no context, and so it doesn't write the Olivia Wild
character who Theater goes on a date with that scene,
I'm pretty sure we have all the contexts we need
and it makes and it's just fucking awful, where it's
like Theodore's friends set him up on a date, Samantha

(43:20):
encourages him to go, he agrees, this is not a
crazy way for a date to start. You forgot to
mention she was on the Harvard Lampoon. Say she's funny,
She's the funniest public our funniest publication. Um so theater's
date literally Olivia Wild like, and we never find out
her name. I don't think I have to guess that

(43:43):
it's Olivia. Basically place Amy and Samantha was named after
Samantha Morton, we'll assume it's Olivia. Sure, yeah, um so
so Olivia. This date goes well, it seems to. Right away,
she's like, you know, and as with most female characters
in this movie, she's like, you're so sensitive, you're so cool,
and you're so good at your job. And he's like,

(44:04):
let me, no way, no way, and she calls him
a puppy. It's you know, so whatever. We see. The
date go well, they're making out outside. Then a series
of events happens that make no sense, where she comes
in hot and she says, you're not just gonna suck
me and then not call me like the other guys. Right, Okay,

(44:25):
this is a little intense, but sure, I'm on board
for scene. I also felt that felt that's an old
way of talking. If this is the future, I feel
like that was like a very trophy thing to see. Well,
I think it's more like Spike Jones is writing what
he thinks a woman would say, and this is like
a strong woman who knows what he wants. That right,

(44:45):
But like, but what he really is is implying that
like every woman wants a relationship right away, right and
did the right away aspect is like what what? And
so you know, Theodore is just twambling out and he's
just like, I don't know if I can. And then
she's like, what are you doing next weekend? And he's like,

(45:05):
I have to see my goddaughter's recital and she says
at this age, she's like twenty eight. She's like, at
this age, I can't let you waste my time. And
then he says I can't commit right now or something
like that, and then she pauses and she says, you're
really creepy dude. Yeah, I think it's mad and storms

(45:25):
away and we never see her again. What happened? The
way that conversation progresses in those like thirty seconds is
like she becomes hysterical for no reason, and it's clearly
like this like male writer director's understanding of how women
must be and what they must want and how they
must behave and yeah, it's just like because it doesn't

(45:49):
do anything wrong in that scene, he doesn't. But again,
it's like one of those scenes that if you're an
awkward dude, looking for a reason to be mad at
someone who you know didn't want to fuck you or whatever,
Like that's a great scene to plug into of like
Theodore is the victim of that scene, but the character
opposite him is acting totally irrationally and it doesn't make

(46:10):
any sense. So it's and that basically becomes that whole
scene serves as a plot device to get Theodore and
Samantha to have their first sexual experience. So it's really
like the Olivia Wilds character is just there to advance
his story and not really serve a function beyond that.
And I also I wanted to talk about how we

(46:31):
are introduced to her, because that's in a scene where
Theodore is playing a video game and he gets interrupted
with an email where his friends are like, oh, we
took it upon ourselves to set you up on the state.
Here some pictures, and you see some pictures. The video
game that he's playing involves a cartoony character, like a
little played voice by Spike Jones. So this cartoon character

(46:54):
video game guy sees these photos of Olivia wild and
he's like, she's fat, she's it sucks. And then he's
like what no, and he's like who are you talking
to referring to Samantha, and he's like, oh, I'm talking
to my os Samantha. And he's like, is she a girl?
I hate women? All they do is cry, which gives

(47:14):
Theodore the opportunity to really trot in on his horse
and say, I think men should be allowed to cry.
In fact, I doubs it. I think it's pretty cool.
And that's Samanth. It's like, oh, just like what is happening?
What it was? What is that game? It doesn't come back,
and it's just like, what was that for? But if

(47:36):
Samantha doesn't know other men, why was she even that
is not a surprising thing to learn if if you
don't know, if she's the only men, He's like, okay,
now I know that men cry, and then so's it
shouldn't be a thing that endears him, right, I didn't
even think of that. I don't know the video games
in this in Spike Jones World are stupid because that's

(47:57):
literally the other one is It's just straight up like
Homeboy is trying to have his cake and eat it too.
Where Amy Adams character we can transition into her character
now is a video game creator. For some reason, this
takes place in the same building as Beautiful Handwritten Cards
dot Com. I thought that's where they both. I thought

(48:18):
they lived in the same building. Yeah, it's also a
documentary because they shelved the documentary at our house. Oh yes, yeah, okay,
they went just went to it off. They seemed to
hang out all the time, right, Yeah, they seem to
be good friends, and it seems like they were like
married couple of friends, and they've known each other since college.
We know that. But Amy Adams is a video game creator,

(48:41):
which is like, oh, cool, women in tech, women creating
video games like pre pre game or game. Pretty pretty
pretty interesting. However, the video game she's working on is
How to Be an Awesome Mom. You're just like, are
you fucking good? And you see her developing it again,

(49:03):
another stupid goofy thing that goes totally unchallenged of like
plus twenty mom points you put cereal in your son's
milk and it was like your son is mad at
you minus two thousand mom points and and she's like, TV,
I'm a woman in tech, look at my cool game.
And it's just like what what what? It doesn't make

(49:27):
any sense. I do sort of want because the game
is basically the SIMS but just like hyper specific moms. Yeah,
I kind of want to play it, but also it's yeah,
it doesn't set a great precedent. Your sins mad at you,
you lose you just like why like Amy Adams character.

(49:47):
I thought she was good, But I think I just
like Amy Adams acting. I love Amy Adams in doubt,
I love I love doubt. No, there's mostly pros to
her character. I think, Yeah, I like that. In the end,
I think it would have been an easy and common
choice for once Theodore finds out that Samantha and all

(50:08):
the other os is are leaving, and he realizes, oh,
maybe I should spend more time connecting with the humans
that I know, the bodied humans, right, don't remove the
humanity our future AI overloads, So sorry, um, I think
and yeah, I think it would have been an easy
choice to like try to push them together romantically then

(50:31):
and I'll watch that doesn't happen. I remember debate that
that is what they did with the head on the shoulder. Yeah,
I think the head on the shoulder is a very
platonic head shoulder, But when they look at each other,
there is like but I think they're just good at acting,
so it could be anything, right, But I remember having

(50:52):
reading critics like if that didn't happen, I would have
loved this movie. But that's for some reason really ruined it.
But I think that is one of the more successful
done thing relationship in it where you don't don't really
know right and and and like they probably don't know either.
I like at fir least. I really like their friendship
that I thought was like a really effective part of

(51:12):
the movie where it just all makes sense. Like they've
they've known each other for a long time, they lived
close to each other, they hung out when they were
both married, and now that they're simultaneously going through divorces
that's bringing them together. That all makes sense to me.
I wish that Amy Adams existed in this in this movie,
not in relation to the men in her life, because

(51:33):
we really we know that she's making her Mommy video
game that's divorced from men. Although but we know that
she's theater friend and we know that she's HEARDing about
her divorce and she has a friendship with an os Yes,
which I thought was cool and I wish was explored more. Right,
You don't they have a conversation, but you don't hear

(51:54):
but Amy Adams you can tell is talking to a
person she likes for sure. Yeah, and I like that. Yeah.
I think would have been interesting to explore that friendship
a little bit more, But yeah, we don't see that.
There's one line she has in particular that I liked
a lot, and it's in that same conversation where she's like,
what can play my mommy game that I made? And
he's like okay, But she's talking about like the conflicted

(52:17):
feelings she has about her divorce and like the guilt
that she's feeling about it, and she says something like
I've tried to transcribe it, but I have so much
energy and I want to move forward, and I know
that makes me an awful person, which, like I thought
was a cool line of dialogue of like, she has
so much she wants to do and like isn't as
sad about her divorce as she feels like she should be,

(52:37):
and that makes her feel like a terrible person, which
I think is like a cool thing to have a
female character express because because that is like kind of
inverted a little bit between Amy and Theodore, where normally
you expect the male character to be like I'm over
and I'm focusing on my career. But it's kind of
the opposite where Theodore literally cannot move on um and

(53:00):
she is like excited to that feels bad. I think
maybe a similar thing happens in the conversation between Catherine,
which is Theodore's ex wife, and Theodore where they're having
lunch they're signing the divorce papers. Catherine says something like,
you know, you wanted me to be this like bouncy,
happy l a wife and I was never going to

(53:22):
be that. And then there's a reference to him like
wanting her to go on prozac, so we can maybe
imagine that she struggled with depression and different things like that.
And I liked that she called him out and it
shows his emotional stunted nous where he, you know, had
different issues with like wanting to jump ship whenever thing's
got too hard or things got too real. Yeah, I

(53:43):
mean that's Seene. There's parts of that are good. There's
parts of it that from reading millions of articles when
the movie came out. That was his like takedown of
Sofia Coppola to get back at her for the scene
in Laws and Translation where because there's like a director
idiot in Lost in Translation, which was Sofia Coppola's takedown
of Spike Jones or just like portrayal of him as

(54:06):
like a party idiot who's just like always happy and
bouncing around. So this was like meant to be his
portrayal of Sofia Coppola as this like incredibly impossibly serious
person interesting or is even kind of stylized to look like.
So it's not subtle, but also like the same thing
with the Spike Jones thing and Lost in terms, like
they they're not subtle moves, but you also have to

(54:26):
care enough that Spike Jones complated each other, which is
like a group of like ten people who Karen I
can't wait to have like beef with other filmmakers and
then when I'm writing a movie just like sweet. So
that's like that scene is kind of that, but it's
weird because that's this hypothetically she's correct in the scene.
I mean, like she's been wrong about the os stuff,

(54:46):
but the point she makes is like the point of
like you wanted a wife without what it means to
have a wife or whatever this thing was, and that
is like underlining of whatever this journey is of, like
if Samantha is in service of him, it is to
like have him that after Samantha, he's now able to
sympathetically do this. Yeah, so then it's like she's both

(55:07):
and I imagine in that way it's not only a
subtweet of Sofia Coppola, but also like, oh, Sofia Coppola
was correct whenever. I don't know if they were married
or if they just were dated, but her severity was
she was an os and he was a man and
they fell in love. And you know, as all relationships go,
there were parts of that thing that worked for me

(55:27):
in parts that didn't, where I think that Runey Marr's
character does end up reading unnecessarily shrewish, but like there's
some where she's like it's just a bit much and
he's so helpless that you you have to feel bad
for him, which I which is hard to imagine that
that would be how that would really go into in

(55:48):
real life where he just like, no, no, I love, no,
I love. I was always good and good and then
she's like I'm made and but like you were saying,
like she she makes a lot of good points. Um.
I just don't know if, like, do those points read
through the tone of that scene, because I feel because
the scene after that, he's talking with Samantha again, and

(56:10):
we're just supposed to believe that Samantha is not listening
to all of his conversations like and and she's just
taking his word for how everything goes, like whatever. I
guess my main takeaway from it is that we so
rarely see men's emotions explored in movies and media that
like the fact that there's a conversation about it at all,

(56:31):
I'm like, oh wow, So even if it doesn't go
quite the way we want or it doesn't, it explore
actual human emotion and behavior super well. The fact that
it's happening at all, I was like, Wow, this is
a step in the right direction, right into much if
Twambly is meant to be some sort of respect Jones
surrogate inside the sensitivity, there is some thought of like

(56:52):
what this person's in capabilities are, and that because Spike
Jones wrote both parts, so he is essentially telling himself
that your problem is that he wants this and you
don't want that. On that layer, like this is a
sensitively written scene However, as a director, he chose the
takes in which Rooney Marrow came off so harshly that

(57:13):
it feels like he's she's like beating him up kind of.
I mean, like really scary. Think that the real choice
that like solidified it for me is like this is
too much is when she continues to yell at him
at the waiter where she's like, well, he's sucking his computer,
and I like, this is not something that would happened
in real life. It just wouldn't. And I mean, it
definitely makes a lot of sense that Speke Jones thought

(57:34):
of himself as the Twambly Avatar because he sure cuts
himself a lot of slack in this movie, but was
also by having so many of the characters tell him
so frequently why you're such a such a good writer. God,
you're sensitive. I do want to talk about don't even
know him, don't like like Chris Pratt's girlfriend is like, Hi,

(57:56):
my name is Tatiana. You're an amazing writer. And he's like,
and he's always so humble about He's like they're just
letters and you're just like, fuck you. Yeah. There's a
scene earlier where Chris Pratt's character like overhears this sensitive
letter that Theodore is writing, and he goes on this
whole tirade where he's like, you know, oh, man, I

(58:16):
would love to receive a letter like that if it
was from a chick, except it would be written by
a man. But and then he says, he says something like,
you know what, you're part man, but you're also part woman,
which is him, as far as we can tell, is
him basically saying, well, you're a man because you present

(58:37):
as a man, but you're also part woman because you're
so sensitive, and heaven forbid a man be sensitive. Only
women can have that, which is well because the movie
kind of goes out of its way to say the opposite,
and a lot of ways, I think Chris Pratt's character
is supposed to be stupid, Yeah, because that's Chris Pratt
five years ago, right, and Chris Pett only was allowed

(58:57):
to play stupid parts and incredibly read suddenly yea, but
also five years ago, it's so weird to see micro
trends and how we talk about gender thing. It was
interesting to be like a man has as a person
who like I feel like people have said a version
of that to me. But have not in the last
three years five years ago, you hear stuff like that
where it's like that is literally our only ability to

(59:19):
discuss what sensitivity means in men. It's like, oh, you're
like a woman, not like, oh, there's such thing as
sensitive man. And in that way, this movie was pioneering. Well,
similar things have happened to me, like years ago, where
people be like, oh, Caitlin, Wow, you like hate to
cook and you like action movies. You're such a dude,
And I'm like, why are we subscribing to these stupid

(59:42):
gender roles and stereotype. But if you even think back
to high school, like one of those embarrassing statements that
like I think probably every girl in high school said
at one point was like, yeah, I don't really get
along with girls. I get only kind of guys. Um,
A lot of my friends are guys, and I just
like they get me a little bit better. There's just
like less drama. And I for sure said that in

(01:00:05):
high school at some point. I just like and it
wasn't even true, like all my friends were girls always,
but I was like, yeah, I just kind of get
a look better with you guys. It's like, even if
it was a big fucking lie. That was just something
that you said to prove that you could hang exactly. Yeah,
Oh jeez, let's say let's take a quick break and

(01:00:27):
when we will talk to you in a second. And
is that have we There's Christen Wegg's character christ and
Wig come call. Okay, I want to see if I
can get some clarification on this. So there's that scene
where early on in the movie, it's establishing that Theodore

(01:00:48):
is a lonely guy and he calls different I guess
sort of like phone sex but not hat rooms that
could be in and then you sort of like, I
guess it's just like when you go into a chat room,
but instead of it being a room, you just sort
of like go to each person in the room and
then give them they're like one sentence and you're like, oh,
say a load of them, and like So he initiates

(01:01:10):
this this interaction with Sexy Kitten sixty nine or whatever.
They start like pretty neutral at first, and then it
starts getting sexier and he says to her, I'm in
bed next to you. I'm glad you can't sleep, because
she's like I can't sleep, and she's like going to
run my butt against you and give you a bonar

(01:01:31):
and he's like, oh, but he says like, I'm glad
you can't sleep, even if you were, I have to
wake you up from the inside. Is he's saying that
he's going to wake her up by putting himself inside
of her. I think that's the implication, and if so,
that is a rate unless he's saying like wake you

(01:01:54):
up from the I don't know. I I can see
it meaning something else, but I don't even know if
I can articulate it. So maybe you're right, but it's
just spiritual but doesn't feel like yes, I agree. But
also that sentence is a very weird way of saying that, right, Yeah,
it's it's worthy, not very what because I don't think

(01:02:15):
that was the point. Yeah, but also yeah, that whole
scene is weird, and I would argue a little bit unnecessary,
Like we get it, he's lonely and he is down
to not have a face involved. But other than that,
I don't really know what that scene accomplishes. It's supposed
to be funny. It was like it's like, oh, it's
a funny world because it's like beat me with the

(01:02:37):
choking right, like they're like introduced to King a dead cat.
I think it's too sort of it's like the plant
to a later payoff where he does have sex with
and he's disconnected. Right, It's like, how do you show
disconnection and not in a like as tweet as this
movie is. It's not a tweet all the time, And
that for what it is as an example of this

(01:03:00):
movie not being that where it's like, there's another ways
of showing a person to be disconnected and that is
a choice. And five years ago I found it funny.
Yesterday it's like the movie sled shaming this lady with
this very specific thing. Yeah, yeah, and I felt bad
for Kristen Wig, but it was cool. That's christ and Wig. Yeah, yes,

(01:03:22):
like on this episode of Christ and Wig, why are
you in this lame movie? See Mother Mother? Um well,
that goes back for me the conversation about all the
movies that have men desiring non human female forms in
ai or robots or real dolls or whatever, because it's

(01:03:45):
just like sort of glorifying these stories. Some of them.
Some of them do provide commentary, but a lot of
them are just like, look at this guy who just
doesn't know how to connect with real women. So it's
fine that he would rather be with a fake artificial
woman then a real human woman. Like and I don't

(01:04:05):
know why we're telling stories like that, because it's just like,
I don't know, I'm frustrated. My main issue with this
movie is that's just like not thinking that hard. It's
not thinking past step one on most of the topics
it's handling, and I think as a result kind of

(01:04:28):
draws boring conclusions because it's just not thinking that hard. Yeah,
But I mean, overall, this is a movie that I like,
attempts to be like, oh what if man fall in
love with fake woman bought and doesn't really explore all

(01:04:49):
of the intricacies of that or challenge it anyway, because
it's a story we've seen before and that will probably
continue to see as men continue to be, some of
them more interested in having sex with, you know, a
funck bot than an actually into and there are male
funk bots that are coming out as well, So I

(01:05:10):
would honestly hope it sounds really great you don't like
to have my own. I'm I'm hoping that soon in
media the other side of this will be explored as well.
There are a couple examples of it, but like whenever,
I was like just coming up with examples at the
top of my head of human man female presenting robot,
Like I thought of a bunch the inverse of that

(01:05:33):
with a woman having any sort of relationship with a
male robot thing. I couldn't really think of anything except
for an episode of Black Mirror. Uh. And then I
did a little bit more research. There's a few movies,
a few other things, but they're pretty obscure. There's just
like nothing super mainstream that explores from Avengers. Have you
seen the Avengers? Oh? Yes, Vision not a robot, but

(01:05:57):
he is, like I think, an artificially intelligent creation. But
did a woman created Bow? But he does have a
relationship with with Wanda. That's right, Okay, so that's one example.
Now now right a new age where that's the only example.
So yeah, I don't know. I just there there were

(01:06:18):
opportunities for that topic to be delved into more deeply
and explored more, and as many movies simply just didn't happen. Also,
really quick, I just wanted to mention this movie is
extremely not diverse and so white, no, no, non straight nothing,

(01:06:41):
very white, very hetero This is not to defend it,
but you have to assume that by the end, Samantha
is like pan sexual or something. Right, there's no implication
that it's there's no but there's no, no, no reason
not to. I'm not saying it is. She is a icon. Yeah,
I'm not a queer icon's little cartoon boy in the

(01:07:03):
video game feminist icon. I agree, yes, of course, but
that's you know, that's a lot of spectron movies where
you just really don't see the world outside of simple Yes. Yeah,
let's talk about whether or not the movie passes the
Bachtel test. I do think it does in one scene,

(01:07:28):
because there's a few scenes where at least a female
voice interacts with another woman. I think that that qualifies.
For So, there's a scene where Samantha talks to Theodore's
god daughter, whose name we learn is Joscelyn, and they
talk about how cute her dresses and how old she is,
and I think a man isn't mentioned in that entire conversation,

(01:07:51):
so I believe that passes um. There's a couple of
other scenes where women interact. Largely women are not interacting
in this movie at all, but like the one or
Theodore's ex wife is talking to the server at the
restaurant and being like, get away from s my husband
foxes laptop. You wouldn't count the Amy Adams talking to
the voiceless. I wouldn't count that because we never hear

(01:08:13):
the other side of the conversation. Oh, she doesn't name
her Ellie. Ellie is the name of Amy's os. But yeah,
because we don't ever hear Ellie talking, I would not
pass that. There's the scene where Isabella the surrogate and
Samantha are talking after like things fall apart, but the
whole context of that conversation is Samantha's relationship to Theodore,

(01:08:35):
so that does not pass. And then Samantha and Tatiana,
which is Chris Pratt's girlfriend. She talks to Samantha, but
they only talk about how much Chris Pratt's character loves
Tatiana's feet, So that does not pass. That seems more
like we all have our things. Some people computer other

(01:08:56):
people of foot fetishes. So yeah, I would say in
one scene it does pass. So her passes the Bechdel test.
Can I ask my Bechdel test question please? So the
Bechdel test is valuable, Let me predicate all of this.
But I've always thought about, like would movies with female

(01:09:16):
protagonists pass a reverse Spechtel test? And this is not
to be a point like both sides or whatever. It's
more of as people who have I imagined, have you
you've written movies? If you have I written movies, Well,
this is a great opportunity for me to bring up
the fact that I do have a master's degree in
screening from Boston University, so I have in fact written

(01:09:37):
a few screenplays. But I don't like to talk about
I don't like to bring it up or mention it.
I wanted to bring up well, I asked this, do
we feel the sort of hero's journey esque way in
which American movies are written? It is about one person's
journey and everyone else has to be tertiary. So that's
sort of that's always going to be a challenge as
we continue to have movies like this. Sub question is

(01:09:58):
that he Your's journey was It's around the journey of
men characters throughout history, and as a result, it is
like ultimately about the like gaining and losing of power
or gaining and reclaiming of power, which is built into
Western movie writing ultimately patriarchal. Yes, do you agree? Yes,

(01:10:21):
we do. I understand the question, and I agree, and
it sounds like you answered it. I just thought I
had and I didn't know if I if that ultimately,
like we are doomed in America, not doomed. The thing
is that ultimately we just need female creators, right, I mean, yeah,
the patriarchy has influenced every aspect of everything, including storytelling,

(01:10:44):
and storytelling up until fairly recently has been and as
still is, mostly done by straight white men. So yeah,
you answered your own question just saying like, yeah, we
need female creators, we need creators who are people of color,
we need queer creators. So basically, straight white sismen should
simply take a break for a while. I'm gonna leave.

(01:11:11):
Like Samantha curing cancer, which they do not mention, they've
done nothing for humanity, right, and they're they're piecing out.
Yeah that's the other thing. I didn't even think about this.
But like Samantha's capacity for learning and knowledge and being
able to do things seems to be limitless. Why then

(01:11:32):
are they not trying harder to like why is her goal? Like,
and we we get a sense that Yeah, she's like
creating other like os is with like her knowledge and
she's collaborating and doing different things. But like the whole
context of the story is her romantic relationship with a man.
Where it could be if you do have a character
who is an os who can do anything because she's

(01:11:54):
artificially intelligent, why isn't the story we're seeing her doing
a bunch of cool ship Like why is it? Oh, well,
there's so much interesting stuff that she does that we
just don't see or ever really hear about. And I
don't know, I mean I think that like maybe I
don't know. My takeaway was that, like the reason she
doesn't like do cool stuff on Earth is because she's like, well,

(01:12:17):
I could make something better, so I'll just do that
and then go there, Or that was what it sounded
like at the end, where she's just like, yeah, I
like made this cool thing and now we're just like
you click. Yeah, they're not consigned to matter anymore, so
they can just clearly damaged good. So let's see there
where's her too? Yes, if you watch them together, I

(01:12:40):
think it may be satisfying because because that's also Scarlett
Johansson and she similarly becomes limitless. Have you seen the
movie limits? Lucy is not a good movie. Lucy was bad?
Well with that, shall we rate the movie on our
nipple scale zero to five nipples based on its portray
all of women. Um. Another tricky one because it doesn't

(01:13:04):
necessarily treat women badly. Right, there's a few yeah scenes
here and there or quick mentions about something relating to
gender that you're just like, what, what what? But overall
it's not overly hateful toward women. But it's like so
many of these other movies that I think it's a

(01:13:26):
good idea to be like, hey, look how interesting it
is if a man fell in love with a non
human And isn't that just such an interesting story? And
if you ask me, I don't think so. I'd rather
not to kink shame people who are in love with
their iPhones. But thank you, yes, sorry Jamie, But I

(01:13:49):
don't know. I think it's just another way to like
not have women on screen, because I feel like male
storytellers since the dawn of time I figured out ways
to not include women and in their story and I
think this is just another example of that. So with
that in mind, and as we discussed the really weird

(01:14:12):
hysterical overreactions of some of the female characters, like we
see in Olivia wild and in the surrogate character that
just makes absolutely no sense and it's clearly as just
like a man depicting how he thinks women react in
those situations. Yeah, I'm gonna give it one and a half.

(01:14:33):
I'll I'll give one of my nipples to the non
body of Samantha, so she doesn't have a body, but
she does have one nipple. And I will give my
half nipple to Olivia Wilde's character because I think that
scenes should have been rewritten in situation where she doesn't
come off like a raving lunatic. I'm gonna give it

(01:14:54):
to and for for many of the same reasons. I
just like it's not necessary early with the exception of
the Olivia wild and sort of the Porsche double day scene,
like those are just weird and like, Okay, this writer
does not understand how women react to things kind of vibe.
But for the most part, yeah, it loses nips for

(01:15:16):
what it could very easily explore given the amount of time.
It seems to feel comfortable just falling, walking phoenix round,
pouting um, but just doesn't. This one is just there's
so much fascinating source material that is just kind of
scrapped in favor of the lowest common denominator. In a
lot of ways, there's interesting stuff that happens. I like

(01:15:39):
Amy's character for the most part. There are parts of
Samantha I think are interesting. They're parts of Rooney Mar's
character that I think are interesting. But ultimately, yeah, it
just kind of, you know, in a hero's journey style,
like you're saying, Jesse pushes its female characters aside in
the interest of kind of not a very compelling and
or interesting protagonist, which is more of a critique of

(01:16:00):
the movie. I guess, uh so, two nips for just
really not doing nothing with no one. I'll give one
nip to Amy. I'll give one nip to Amy's bought
all right. Yeah, I want to honor who I was
five years ago a little bit because I liked it,
and I think it's partly that a person five years
ago would be like, it is good that it is

(01:16:21):
honoring femininity in the body of this male character or
feminating towards of like whatever the feminine is. However, as
time passes, five years now that does not seem like
a very sophisticated version of it. I feel like we
have much more sophisticated version of sensitive male characters. I
literally can't think of anybody think we there are I

(01:16:42):
feel like I in my head there are tones and
I can't think of any and John Wick, I'm just kidding.
And then ultimately things age poorly, I imagine more quickly,
especially when they try to deal with things that are
like someone about the relationships of gender dynamics. I think
two was always so. I thought. I thought Two Nipples
was what made the most sense, partly because I think

(01:17:05):
it is a matter of like, it's very easy for
a tour type directors to make movies that don't give
not only right good parts, but like give female actresses
opportunities to be interesting. And he did at least to
understand that makes his movie better. And you know, he
could have had his friend, They could have a man
was played by a dude who was just like him

(01:17:25):
or whatever, and that ultimately is a step forward in
the ultimately patriarchal thing that is our tour theory of filmmaking.
So I think two seems fair. In two thousand eighteen,
we'll see in like whatever the futures based on your answer.
So there's one more nipple we can give to Samantha
and one to Amy Adam's friend. Well, Jesse, thank you

(01:17:46):
so much for being here. Thank you so much for
having me here. It was nice. Where can people follow
you online? Do you have anything you like to plug?
Twitter dot com, slash Jesse, David Fox, Twitter dot com,
good one podcast, Good one podcast where if you find
your podcasts? And Vulture dot com is where my words live. Hooray. Uh. Well,

(01:18:07):
you can follow us at bechtel Cast on Instagram, in
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pectolcast dot com and buy some merch and don't forget
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(01:18:31):
cheese voice forever. Bye o good bye