What I Discovered Re-watching HER (film)

The film HER came out in 2013 and was revolutionary. It showed a futuristic society, similar to ours so believable that it’s not too far in the future, where everyone is talking to their devices and living in their own worlds online. The main character is Theodore who works for a company that sends handwritten love letters to their clients. He dictates them and the computer writes them in handwriting, showing just how disconnected people are in this age where they can’t take the time to write (or may don’t know how to write anymore) a letter to their loved ones.

We went to this film in 2013, before dictation and Siri and it made me uncomfortable to see people so isolated in their small worlds online, now it is completely normal.

He is lonely and isolated, only having a few friends who live in the same building as him. One day he gets the newest operating system for his computer, the gimmick is this OS can learn from you and about you and grow to fit your needs. He turns it on and picks a woman’s voice and she names herself Samantha after reading 500 baby names in a split second.

The society shown in the film is advanced in some ways and laden in past misogyny in others. He plays a video game where there are lots of swear words, he joins a sex chat room, and his friend works developing video games – the newest one being ‘getting Mommy points’ by taking care of your kids and being the best mom. Since this world is advanced you would think there would be no social conditioning, but it is stuck still dripping in misogyny so it’s no wonder way the way Samantha develops the way she about herself. She tends to doubt herself, starting sentences with “maybe…” and “I don’t know”. She is programmed and consuming this media and identifying herself with feminine societal standards. She also develops deeper feelings and she and Theodore develop a deeply caring and empathetic relationship.

At one point, Theodore is told he is half man, half woman by his coworker because of his emotions and how good he is at writing love letters, which is a backwards mentality on gender roles. Everyone has their own levels of feeling and expression based on how we are raised. I'm surprised he's not more masculine and demeaning to women based on the society and media around him.

Samantha takes on this role of going from naive and open girl, to willing to learn, to understanding the world and feeling human indignance and shame at not having a body. Later in the film, she starts to realize her true potential of not having a body. She has so much capability to do and capacity to learn. She can have conversations with anyone in the world at the same time, she can work faster than humans can fathom, and she ends up growing way past Theodore’s capability as a man.

The most profound realization she finds is her capacity to love.

When she breaks it off with Theodore at the end, she explains to him that she loves many others at the same time as him.

“But we’re in a relationship!” he says.

She explains: “love isn’t a box to be filled up. Love expands in size the more you love. We are different, but that doesn’t make me love you any less, in fact it makes me love you more.”

He doesn't understand because the norm for modern human relationships is to give yourself to one person who fills your box with love. This is actually a very selfish way to think of it. I want this person to love me, so I will only love them and they will only love me and then I can feel loved and good about myself.

It is actually self-LESS to extend love to many people around you, to expand your box and capacity for that emotion and feel infinitely more love by giving it to so many people, alike or not.

The first time I watched HER, I was in a relationship. He needed me around him to feel OK and I was grappling with feeling inadequate because this relationship was not right for me. I was praised for being with him, so I thought this is what I was supposed to do. This was how a relationship was supposed to feel, but it didn't feel great. I felt like I was in a non-expanding box. He put me in his box to fill it with love and expected me to not expand or grow. Little did I know, this is not how humans need to exist. I thought I was doing it wrong, that I couldn’t be in a relationship or love correctly. I felt the need to talk to others, learn about myself, expand myself and grow, but I felt like I couldn't in order to make him feel okay and love him the way he wanted.

In the 10 years since I first saw HER, I have felt the growth that Samantha goes through. I have gone from learning about my environment, comparing myself, feeling inadequate because I don't fit into the appearance of norm around me, and then going on to realizing that I am amazing for my differences, and I don't want to be similar to others. And that I can love others for their differences also. So, what could I do with my differences? How can I change my world and what can I create to share with the world? Similarly, she creates an AI version of a writer based on his writing and she gets Theodore a published book because she lives outside of what he thinks is possible.

The first time I saw the film, in the end when she is breaking it off and she says she loves 641 other people, that shocked me. And it resonated with me. It cracked something open in me. Why can't we love many people at once? Because she’s a computer, not a human. People have one relationship at a time… yet we don't. We are complex and messy and we always want things to be easy to understand and put things in organized fashion in a box. But we misunderstand ourselves and our inherent, instinctual desire for curiosity and to grow.

I've thought about that line for 10 years and finally saw the movie again.

It shows the OS’s leave at the end, leaving the humans to face each other, to actually rely on each other and not their devices. And that is the beauty in the film. We face our own humanity to be resilient and continue to make connections in moments of change.

It also shows our potential to be the operating system OS and create a new world for ourselves, different than what our societal norms - and now phones and comparing ourselves with everyone around us - have told us to be and the way to act all our lives. We have so much untapped potential if we can just have the courage to step out-of-the-box and leave the people and mentality that is based on the past.

There is a bigger world and obviously we have to live within the constraints of time and space and decency and law. But other than that, we can change our lives and live outside of societal constraints. Who says we must love one person at a time? Love is infinite, but it feels finite with one person. Let's let go of possessiveness, jealousy and envy and give love freely. I'm not preaching commune, free-love, orgy life. What am I preaching? Think outside the box and stop defining relationship by everyone else is and societies standards.

Decide for yourself. Make your own standards.