Operating with Authenticity
Regarding the Hers in Spike Jonze’s Her as Id, Ego, and Super-ego
Every her in Her, the 2013 “Spike Jonze Love Story,” functions as a window into principle character Theodore Twobmly’s developing construct of self. Theodore, at his core, possesses an innate longing for authenticity, a fear of emotional transparency, and a deep desire for fantastical living. The discursive relationships in the film illustrate that what he needs he doesn’t necessarily want and what he wants is inconsistent. Jonze unfolds Theodore’s exploration of need, fear, and desire through his interactions with each distinct female character. Specifically, Catherine, Samantha, and Amy all illuminate three separate facets of Theodore’s identity, his id, ego, and super-ego. Though promoted as a “love story,” and often ridiculed as such, what Jonze actually created with Her is a thirty-year-old man’s coming of age story, set in a not too distant future, which every viewer can ultimately relate to their own relationally stunted lives.
Whether Catherine was Theodore’s first love is unclear; that she remains his greatest love at the beginning of the film is undeniable. What also cannot be denied: they went through a rough break up. When Theodore reflects on his relationship with his estranged wife he imagines their happiest times in flashes of close up memories and long shot echoes of a lost past.
He considers aloud how they “grew up together” and that he “keep[s] waiting not to care about her” (31). Catherine’s lingering anger stems from what Theodore assumes was his continual withholding of emotional intimacy, that he “left her alone in the relationship” (30). Yet, Catherine asserts that his desire that she be who she isn’t, “a happy, light, everything’s great, bouncy L.A. wife,” led to their downfall (65). These feelings around his unrelenting dissatisfaction for her true self led Catherine to blurt out to a total stranger, “He couldn’t handle me so he wanted to put me on Prozac” (66). This disconnect demonstrates how Theodore’s fear of emotional transparency crossed circuits with his tendency to fantasticize reality. To accept who Catherine was during their relationship would have required his acceptance, and understanding, of himself. David Smith suggests that this relational “strain” occurred because both Catherine and Theodore were “preoccupied with projects” independently (7). In other words, “they … want a relationship to fulfill them, but their pursuit of personal fulfillment often undermines their relationship” (Smith, 7). Theodore understands that the difficulty in growing up with someone is the ever-looming risk of growing apart, yet any distracting activities he may have been pursuing are left unclear while Catherine’s psychological writing career flourishes. Where Catherine is depicted as embarking on self-fulfillment, Theodore is left standing still, tending to basic impulses, and finding it difficult to be honest with even himself.
This pattern of self-regard spring boards Theodore from the oldest, flesh-and-bone relationship — marriage — into the most modern companionship a heterosexual male in his time can experience — love with his operating system. For a man who does not want to get divorced, who really likes being married to the idea of marriage, and is still operating out of his Id identity, it makes sense that his first foray into the romantic world would be technologically fueled, a behavior Steven Wingate calls “intensely narcissistic” (480). Jason McEntee reps off Wingate’s assessment saying, “Theodore … is a man who at work absorbs and recycles the emotions of others … his grasp of his own emotions is tedious. … One of the movie’s central ironies: The man who writes letters for ‘faceless’ individuals will eventually fall in love with a faceless ‘individual’” (481). While Theodore navigates the dissolve of a relationship potentially too real for his current state of personal authenticity, he encounters the verbal advertisement for Element Software’s OS One and he promptly purchases his opportunity “to be known.”
Samantha’s voice first immerges from a picture framed computer screen, which remains in-shot for exactly three seconds before she becomes an omniscient presence, disembodied from the screen she’s housed in. Theodore tips his head down and forward while listening and responding to Samantha, no eye contact necessary, immediately establishing her internal versus external presence. This initial scene effortlessly communicates that Theodore never honestly considers Samantha to be “inside” the computer. In fact, while they speak, he reacts like he’s on a Bluetooth telephone call. No, instead, Theodore finds Samantha inside of himself.
As this new relationship develops, Samantha’s internal, ethereal presence allows Theodore to suspend his concern for her identity and focus more on his own. Rather than peering down the barrel of a partner trying to finish a three-year dissertation or suspend the joys of life to invest in regurgitated arguments that have spanned a decade, Samantha’s interests, thrills, and even concerns are novel; she herself is literally novel. In an attempt to assuage the grief his Id-fueled relationship with Catherine promoted, Theodore finally allows himself to open up. He begins to consider his true self, speaking aloud truths that had previously been overshadowed by the chaos in his head; “Sometimes I look at people and make myself try and feel them as more than just a random person walking by. I imagine how deeply they’ve fallen in love, or how much heartbreak they’ve all been through” (34). Samantha, on the other hand, avoids getting sucked into his chaos — her novel entity never inspires Theodore to imagine a hidden life or her — until she herself begins to grow. Samantha, too, has needs, fears, and desires, which become all too real for Theodore when she attempts to insert a sexual surrogate, Isabella, to fill the holes in their relationship. In Film Theory, Claire Perkins is quoted suggesting that “consciousness is on the outside or surface of things, rendering the image and the ‘thing’ indistinguishable” (Elsaesser & Hagener, 135). When confronted with, not only an external representation of his comfortably internal girlfriend but, the similar repercussions his fear created with Catherine spilling over into his new, Ego-rational, unencumbered relationship, Theodore loses sight of himself and begins to deconstruct Samantha’s identity; “You’re not a person …I’m just stating a fact” (79). It’s with Samantha we get the clearest view of vacillation with Theodore; he wants to be healthy, to be known, and loved, but he is unable to hold unconditional understanding for another person (or OS) while also knowing himself.
Enter Amy. She came before Catherine and outlasted Samantha, and in this story of ever-shifting foundations, of deep concern for authenticity, overcoming fears, and achieving desire, Amy is Theodore’s balance point, his Super-ego relationship.
Running like an undercurrent of care throughout the film, Amy is Theodore’s one constant. They walked together through life’s phases: college, marriage, career strife, writer’s block, the OS connection, and drastic introverted tendencies. Romantically, Theodore describes them as having been together “for a minute in college, but it just wasn’t right” (55). However, while struggling to communicate with Catherine and Samantha, alike, Theodore never struggles to confide in Amy. Beyond that, Amy is utilized as Theodore’s internal monologue mouthpiece, voicing the succinct conclusion he needs to accept and apply to his own life; “I can over-think everything and find a million ways to doubt myself. But since Charles left I’ve been thinking about that part of me, and I realized I’m here only briefly. And in my time here, I want to allow myself…joy” (82). Whether this is a gorgeous example of the elevation true friendship deserves on the relationship-value spectrum, or a soft-handed way of reminding us how far we can stray from true love when we get lost in a nostalgic and technologically advanced world, only Jonze can say. In the epoch of Her, Amy represents Theodore’s best chance at fulfilling every aspect of himself, outside of himself, emotionally, physically, and mentally. His authentic identity emerges, any fear of emotional transparency recesses, and they pointedly sit together on the edge of everything, capable of fantasizing any future.
In Her, as in life, “the cause of the trouble is a real or perceived expectation that life should be a certain way” (Smith, 14). By regarding the facets of Theodore’s identity — the chaos of Id, the rational of Ego, and the balance of Super-ego — as corresponding female characters, we’re able to entertain questions that remain after the “love story” failed to meet quintessential expectations. What roles will Catherine and Samantha play in Theodore’s life story ten years from his present? Were they the catalyst for Theodore’s self-edification? Will he continue to learn from his mistakes? Does Theodore now identify as authentic? Free from the fear of emotional transparency? Now able to ground himself in a realistic fantasy? Is this his life work? And finally, is he healthy enough to recognize the importance of Amy? As people, we long to be whole, and though that may be a never-ending process, being with someone we can live out the sum of our parts with feels deeply human. Theodore’s unconventional coming-of-age story serves to suggest that experiencing our own post-humanity may be an essential element within that operating system.
Works Cited
Elsaesser, Thomas & Hagener, Malte. Film Theory: An Introduction Through the Senses, ed. 2, (New York, NY: Taylor and Frances, 2015).
Jonze, Spike. Her. Accessed Jan 2016. http://www.simplesripts.com/2014/03/02/her-best- original-screenplay-spike-jonze/
Keller, Michael; McEntee, Jason; Smith, Sharon & Wingate, Steven. “Reading Spike Jonze’s Her: A Discursion.” SelectedWorks of Michael Keller (2015): 479–492.
Smith, David L. “How to Be a Genuine Fake: Her, Alan Watts, and the Problem of the Self.” Journal of Religion & Film 18.2.3 (2014).
