{"id":2610,"date":"2013-11-18T23:10:49","date_gmt":"2013-11-18T23:10:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/notofu.com\/home\/?p=2610"},"modified":"2013-11-18T23:10:49","modified_gmt":"2013-11-18T23:10:49","slug":"digital-love-her-and-the-post-cybersex-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/digital-love-her-and-the-post-cybersex-era\/","title":{"rendered":"Digital Love: ‘Her’ and the Post-Cybersex Era"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ever since Spike Jonze\u2019s new movie Her<\/em> debuted at the New York Film Festival last month, the film circuit has been abuzz about Scarlett Johansson\u2019s compelling performance as the titular \u201cher\u201d character. Rumors have gone so far as to suggest she may be in for an Oscar \u2013 notworthy as a rumor only because she doesn\u2019t actually show her face in the movie. Scarlett\u2019s contribution to Her<\/em> is entirely off-screen. This past weekend, Johansson was named Best Actress at the Rome Film festival \u2013 while the Italian Festival\u2019s impact on the awards season on this side of the pond is minimal, it\u2019s an unusual accolade, and one that has raised more than a few eyebrows.<\/p>\n

The movie, a romantic fantasy, stars Joaquin Phoenix as Theodore, a divorced, lonely writer who, in the not-so-distant future, activates \u201cSamantha\u201d \u2013 played by Scarlett Johansson \u2013 a Siri-like digital helper\/operating system hybrid which promises to plan and organize his life. Theodore grows increasingly more attracted to Samantha and the two begin to forge a romantic relationship.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an unlikely premise, but one that touches on a reality that may be closer than we imagine. The \u201ccybersex generation\u201d, embodied by anonymous hookups in online chat rooms, already feels like a relic from days past. Online dating is quickly becoming the preferred method of meeting new partners for busy, young urbanites. It\u2019s only a matter of time before we become too busy to even do that \u2013 and start resorting to Siri. A ridiculous, unlikely suggestion, sure, from the perspective of the emotionally stunted Siri, or the entirely desexualized Google Now. But Siri has the potential to offer one thing that no online dating site can provide: complete personalization. You can make her<\/em> love you, because she has no one else. No rejection, no expensive dinners, no courting. Of course, no sex either.<\/p>\n

Is this really where we\u2019re headed? Time will tell.<\/p>\n

But back to \u2018Her.\u2019 Scarlett\u2019s distinct, raspy voice may not generate an Oscar for Johansson (even though both the\u00a0Los Angeles Times<\/a> and Deadline seem to think so), but it is a scary reminder that one of your friend\u2019s next girlfriends might be their computer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ever since Spike Jonze\u2019s new movie Her debuted at the New York Film Festival last month, the film circuit has been abuzz about Scarlett Johansson\u2019s compelling performance as the titular \u201cher\u201d character. Rumors have gone so far as to suggest she may be in for an Oscar \u2013 notworthy as a rumor only because she doesn\u2019t actually show her face […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2612,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[25],"tags":[38,39,40,41],"class_list":["post-2610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film","tag-her","tag-joaquin-phoenix","tag-scarlett-johansson","tag-spike-jonze"],"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paoQFa-G6","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}