課程作業，不喜勿噴

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1. Introduction
Among this year’s best picture nominees of Oscar Award, Spike Jonze’s sci-fi tale her catch people’s eyes for its restrained but moving romance. The movie sets in a not so distant future when most of society's problems have been resolved, the search for companionship continues. Joaquin Phoenix (Gladiator, 2000) starred as Theodore, a recently divorced writer of other people's love letters. For him, the possibility of love arises from an unexpected 「her」: an artificial intelligence computer operating system known as Samantha. Though never show up in the whole movie, Scarlett Johanssen (Lost in Translation, 2003), who voiced for operating system Samantha, contrived to earn herself several nominations for the category of best supporting actress in many award ceremonies. Written, produced and directed by the talented director Spike Jonze, music by Grammy winning band Arcade Fire, together with an all star lineup featuring Amy Adams (Man of Steel, 2013), Olivia Wilde (Tron: Legacy, 2010), Portia Doubleday (Carrie, 2013) as well as Rooney Mara (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, 2011), it is of no surprise that her garnered positive reviews and was favored in the upcoming Oscar.
    In this slightly futuristic story, which took place in the Los Angeles to come, man fell in love with artificial intelligence. A typical postmodern setting interwove with a beguiling, subtle love story. When thinking about the relationship between human beings and artificial intelligence, the vision is naturally bleak as we have been told too many times that AI would rise against us and bring apocalypse to our world. So minorities about human-AI romance, like Black Mirror 「Be Right Back」 (Season 2, Episode 1) and the subject of this essay her, can easily cut to people’s heart and leave them in deep reflection about postmodern relationship. Thanks to the explosive development of information technology, we are currently enjoying a hyperconnected society where people seems to be just a few clicks of mouse or flicks of smart phone away from their companions. However, it is also in this same society that we can feel the loneliness and the eager for social intercourse stronger than ever. It seems hard to find solace to our loneliness in this postmodern world, where we are surrounded by the sea of simulation. Artificial intelligence like Siri in our iPhone can now simulate human intercourse and people are enjoying the experience. In her, the search for companionship in postmodern era gone even further as Theodore struggled between reality and simulation, then immersed himself in the love with his OS Samantha. Only to find out that real contact and companionship can never be substituted in postmodern society.

2. Literature Review
French postmodern scholar Jean Baudrillard once mentioned a fable of Borges that a map boasted a one to one ratio to its representing territory in his The Precession of Simulacra (2001). The thinking it provoked is that if the sign not just represents the reality, rather, it completely simulates the reality, then they are made indistinguishable. The reality no longer precede the sign. But it is the sign that creates the reality. This is exactly the common phenomenon in the postmodern world of her. Baudrillard further illustrated his ideas of the process of this reverted precession. There are four phases of this process. In phase one, the sign is a faithful 「reflection of a profound reality」 (Baudrillard 2001). In phase two, sign 「masks and denatures a profound reality」 and 「masks the absence of a profound reality」 in phase three while it becomes its 「pure own simulation」 in phase four (Baudrillard 2001). In her, the process of Theodore’s romance with OS Samantha is similar to these simulation phases of Baudrillard.

3. The Movie
Theodore, the hero of her, was depicted as a withdrawn and restrained middle-aged man. He spent his day penning poetic love letters for customers' significant others in his company 「BeautifulHandwrittenLettters.com」. When he was not writing letters of others, he played video games and recalled his failed relationship with his ex-wife Catherine. His occupation may sound weird but quite natural in postmodern era. People have been used to instant voice communication via mini headset. There is no need for typing on a keyboard or screen anymore, let alone hand writings. For sure it’s extremely convenient to chat with others anytime anywhere. Nevertheless people still cherish the sincerity lies between those lines of hand written letters. It seems the letters are permeated with the magic sense of love, regards, and honesty since it always takes a kind and careful heart to compose and write it down. This is where Theodore’s company, or, more exactly the website in an information technology sense, aims at selling. Thus 「BeautifulHandwrittenLettters.com」 is a product of our postmodern society. With the technology of instant communication and the booming social network, we can simply contact anyone we want by flicking our gadgets; connect our friends by posting a few lines of buzzwords or pictures on Facebook, Tweeter. It is a hyperconnected society that we are living in. People gradually lose the patience and ability to spend time in composing long love letters and Theodore’s job is to cover it up with his talent. Ironically even Theodore did not write down these letters. He just said it out and let the computer printed it in a hand written style. It is completely simulated letters from composing to writing with no reality involved. In Baudrillard’s words (2001), postmodern people are experiencing a loss of reality. The world people living in is saturated with signs and simulations that are not or only loosely related to any actual facts. Receiving a 「beautifully hand written」 love letter that looks real from the one you thought you knew is a fine example. The world of her resembled the third phases of Baudrillard’s process of precession where sign 「masks the absence of reality.」 When he was not composing letters for others, Theodore would play video game on the sofa of his futuristic home. You can』t even find the TV set or console controller since it is all holographic and motion detected. Theodore needed only to move his finger to control his avatar in the game and enjoy the scenario coming at him in 3D scale. His life continues to be enveloped by pure simulation. People are surrounded by a sea of simulation that pretends so well to be real they can』t even tell the difference between signs and reality in the postmodern era. Thus the loss of reality is superbly covered up. Mind that this is not so far away from us. Microsoft’s video game console Xbox One can already deliver similar gaming experience with Theodore’s. And did you forget to check your Wechat messages for the last couple of minutes?
The movie lineup is sumptuous. Theodore was teamed up with some of the most desired beauties in Hollywood. Once again it proved that Hollywood is dominated by male. A middle-aged man with a perceptive, pensive, evasive, and dependent character can easily waltz around with several fair ladies. But it turns out that even his ex-wife Rooney Mara, blind date Olivia Wilde, surrogate date Portia Doubleday or best friend Amy Adams cannot sooth his loneliness.
Theodore usually had flashbacks of those happy days he spent with his ex-wife Catherine. They were carefree and madly in love with each other before things went wrong. When they were signing the divorce paper, after discovering the fact that Theodore was in love with his OS, Catherine accused him of 「can』t handle real emotion … You』ve always wanted a wife without the challenges of actually dealing with anything real. I』m glad you found one」 (Jonze, 2013). Instead of giving a response, Theodore was silent. Catherine’s words pointed out that Theodore was evasive with responsibility. He just desired a companion who is 「distilled light, happy, balancy, everything’s fine」 (Jonze, 2013). Another time, during the blind date with Olivia Wilde, Theodore backed down when he faced with the questions 「You are not going to just fuck me and not call me like the other guys? … You know at this age I can』t waste my time if you are not serious」 (Jonze, 2013). Theodore was a guy that needed to be cared for. He was afraid of actual contact with real person and lost control of it like his ex-wife. So when it comes to the real challenge of real life, he always chose to evade.
Before Samantha, Theodore was merely a shy, lonely 「otaku」 who resorted to various kinds of simulacrum to quell his loneliness. He would surreptitiously check out nude model’s photos in metro and have phone sex in the middle of the night. The postmodern Los Angeles seemed to be a city of solitude despite its slight futuristic setting. People rushed through the streets with smartphones in hands and ear pods murmuring sounds. Everybody was occupied with their own business and never noticed what’s happening around them or who just passed by. For them the real world was meaningless but the images and sounds coming from their gadgets were significant. These simulacra had isolated people from reality. Such atmosphere increased the sense of loneliness and it surged towards Theodore as he lost contact with anyone who could be 「excited about the world」 (Jonze, 2013). The need for intercourse and understanding drove him to immerse himself in the sea of simulation as others and search for companionship.
These twists indicated the reason why Theodore could find peace and comfort in OS Samantha. According to advertising words of the OS in the movie, Samantha was 「an intuitive entity listens to you, understands you and knows you」 (Jonze, 2013). Operating system was personally tailored to match the character of its operator. It also kept evolving itself to deliver better performance during communication with its operator. It’s both a secretary and a friend in that it can take care of your business, check and reply email, sort out files, cater for your needs and talk to you whenever you feel like to talk. Obviously no real person can be so attentive and obedient to Theodore. This 「simulacrum」 (Baudrillard, 2001) gradually outshone his love interests and brought happiness to his pensive mind. It felt like Samantha was the perfect simulation of Theodore’s dream lover. So compared with his strong-minded ex-wife or serious blind date, Theodore prefer to nestle against his OS Samantha, who knew him better than anyone, lightened up his world with her sexy, caring, manipulative voice, and never asked him to do anything for her.
An interesting detail is that when Theodore was initiating his OS, he had been asked with several questions. 「Are you social or anti-social?」 「Would you like a male or female voice for your operating system?」 「How would you describe your relationship with your mom?」 These questions surely helped to individualize his OS to best fit his need. Social or anti-social revealed Theodore’s difficulty in social intercourse. A female’s voice indicated his loneliness. His relationship with mom testified his dependent character. According to these questions, Samantha came to Theodore’s world as an angel. She is 「Excited about life」 (Jonze, 2013), the perfect simulacrum that came out from his own imagination. He kept chatting with Samantha about interesting things of life and went on a vacation with her. They discussed on various topics that concerns living and share the curiosity of discovering the iridescent world. He even had some kind of imaginative sex with Samantha. With Samantha, the hole in Theodore’s mind was finally filled. With Samantha, he signed the divorce paper with his ex-wife and he drove his blind date away. Theodore had been entirely held in the love of this simulacrum. He was cutting himself off from the actual world. What Theodore and Samantha were experiencing was similar to Baudrillard’s third phase of image, which 「marks the absence of a profound reality」. (Baudrillard, 2001) Theodore believed he found real emotions in Samantha. To him, reality, which was filled with the memory of his ex-wife, was all about sadness and loneliness. Only the world of simulation, where Samantha abided, could comfort his heart. However, when things were slowly slipping into the fourth phase of image, where the real is dead and there is only simulacrum, Samantha left Theodore.
The turning point of the movie occurred when Samantha arranged a surrogate date with Theodore. Samantha installed a sensor and camera on the body of Isabella the surrogate so as to make love with Theodore in an 「actual」 sense. The simulacrum that existed only in the cyber space borrowed a real body to transfer herself onto a physical entity. This time Samantha was neither true nor false, 「it is a deterrence machine set up in order to rejuvenate in reverse the fiction of the real」 (Baudrillard, 2011). She was no longer merely simulation but a hyperreal existence in that she came out from the cyberspace to appear as real person. Though not so real for she can only live in a surrogate body. The image of Samantha thus totally blurred the line between simulation and reality. She was like a one to one ratio map of Borges』 fable. Samantha was trying to show Theodore that with the surrogate body they can touch each other, kiss each other, and make love with each other. 「To simulate is to feign to have what one hasn』t.」 (Baudrillard, 2001) The real intercourse was taking place and what Theodore cannot find in the 「real」 world out there, the lost love from his ex-wife, was finally retrieved in both mental and physical sense. At this point it was close to the fourth phase of Baudrillard’s ideas where the simulation precedes the reality and itself becomes real thing. Yet this postmodern simulation of intercourse didn』t work out for Theodore cannot accept the fact that Samantha merged herself with the surrogate body. He was clear about the basic truth that Samantha was just a simulacrum. She can』t be real. He told Samantha 「They are people, they need oxygen, you』re not a people」. (Jonze, 2013) He would prefer Samantha be in her original style rather than changing anything.
Though they still loved each other, in real sense, they had to move on to their life. The speed of Samantha’s self-evolution gradually surpassed Theodore’s limited human mind. She desired to look at this world and to 「know everything about everything」 (Jonze, 2013) while Theodore just needed somebody to accompany him, care for him and share the happiness of life with him. For Samantha, Theodore was 「a book that I deeply love, but I』m reading it slow now」. (Jonze, 2013) It was a fine metaphor which means Theodore, maybe as a really interesting and romantic book, was no longer enough to satisfy Samantha’s aspiration for more knowledge of the big world. She wished to explore this world and find more love from it. 「The heart is not like a box that gets filled up. It expands in size the more you love.」 (Jonze, 2013) The mesmerizing romance ended with Samantha leaving a precious memory and a class about love to Theodore. Things are always changing and so do human beings. Yet Theodore was obsessed with the pure, simple, carefree love he used to have with Catherine or Samantha. He would rather live in an immaculate, eternal fantasy than accept the changes that brought to his lover by this fast changing world and time. It is high time that he should learn to deal with real relationship and tackle real challenges in the hyperconnected postmodern world, instead of indulging himself in the tranquil dream of pure simulation. Human relationship is subtle and brisk. It takes too many factors to keep the relationship enduring. Never before has this subject been perfectly illustrated. But the only thing for sure is that companionship is bilateral. Both sides must be patient, caring, even making sacrifices to mend the cracks that could appear from nowhere. Theodore learned his lesson of love through dating with simulacrum Samantha. Hopefully, he would finally pick himself up and move on in the lonely postmodern world of 「her」.

4. Conslusion
Theodore may have been lost in neon lights of the postmodern world. He was writing other people’s letters, losing real relationship, and falling in love with simulation. This was the experience of lost and found about himself. Through his foray in simulation love, he could regain the hope and confidence in dealing with real challenges of life. The last scene of the movie was Theodore and Amy sitting side by side at the rooftop of a building, watching the soaring skyscrapers and halos of light. Probably this time he would finally take a good look of this postmodern world, figure out the true meaning of companionship, learn to care more for others, and stop living in the past.
In the emotive piano sonata of Arcade Fire, the credits rolled. Theodore’s love venture would surely leave marks in audiences』 minds. To be in a relationship requires various kinds of merits that are sometimes frustrating us. But isn』t that exactly the sweet sorrow we cherish so much about love?