Intimacy
This week my post will be discussing intimacy through an article by Pettman and tying that into the 2013 movie “Her” directed by Spike Jonze. This movie for those of you that don’t know, this movie centers on a man (Theo) that has recently gone through a divorce and is lonely. This loneliness has driven him to purchase a new Operating system (Samantha) that seems to think for itself and Theo thus begins to fall in love with his OS and eventually leads to complications. This idea of love is something that Pettman discusses in his article. Pettman says the idea of love has an overwhelming gravitas over the words “I” and “You” in the overall statement of “I love you”. This is particularly interesting when sized up with the movie Her because of the fact the statement “I love you” was never truly said. In the movie there was a scene were Samantha asked Theo to say the words “I love you” but never did and I believe that had a lot to do with his confusion with the relationship between the “I” and “you”. Pettman goes on to explain how the statement of “I love you” demands action or a response. This would mean that once those three words were said by Theo, this would force him and Samantha to act their “relationship” publicly thus putting themselves on display as a couple. Acting as a couple in a public setting would indeed be very difficult task because many would argue that the two (Theo and Samantha) are not in fact in a true relationship. I would be one of these people.
This idea of being a true couple or not brings me to my next point from Pettman being, do you love technology or what technology can do for you. Pettman takes this idea of love and names it a love vector. This is extremely enticing to me personally because I do not believe Theo and Samantha were truly in love because they literally could not be. Samantha was created as a service to its user and to be there for its user. The operating system was created and coded by a developer and later even deeper coded based on the responses the user gives upon initial set up. Also an important point I believe should be made is that in my opinion Samantha’s only “feelings” all stem and are surrounded by those that Theo has. She has not forged her own individual identity, it was formed around Theo’s identity and all of his feelings. In other words Samantha was only able to respond or react and not create feelings entirely on her own. Furthermore, I believe that Pettman would consider Theo and Samantha’s relationship purely as a love vector and not as true love.