Love and Sex in the Age of Capitalist Realism: On Spike Jonze's Her

Abstract

Spike Jonze's Her (2013) is a fi lm about a romantic relationship between a man and an operating system. Using a Lacanian and Žižekian psychoanalytic framework, we interpret this fi lm in the context of what the cultural theorist Mark Fisher has called "capitalist realism." Referring to the Lacanian thesis that "there is no sexual relationship," we discuss the fi lm's unique treatment of our enjoyment of digital technology and how it deals with the parallel deadlocks of the sexual relationship and the work relationship. We address these topics by looking at how Her deals with the sexual relationship, love, work, and fantasy. The premise of the fi lm is original-suited to the zeitgeist of the digital present-and we claim that it reveals important insights about processes of subjectivization. What is Spike Jonze's fi lm Her (2013) about? Is it concerned with the nefarious eff ects of technology, how we are infatuated with our gadgets, our devices, our Wi-Fi, and our technology? Or is it simply an old-fashioned love story, in which one of the lovers just happens to be a computer? These two possibilities suggest two ways we will discuss the fi lm in this article, albeit in very specifi c critical paradigms derived from the psychoanalytic theories of Jacques Lacan and Slavoj Žižek: the infatuation, we argue, is a symptom of a kind of incommensurability, encapsulated in the Lacanian dictum that "there's no such thing as a sexual relation"; the love story, in turn, is a kind of fantasy, a necessary fantasy that we nonetheless must traverse or transcend.1 That is, fi rst of all, the logic of incommensurability derives precisely from a reading of our infatuation with technology, our "passionate attachments" to devices and connectivity.

“A form of socially acceptable insanity”: Love, comedy and the digital in Her

“…However, this fantasy is disrupted when, in the midst of their arousal, SexyKitten suddenly asks Theo to choke her "with that dead cat" -at which point Theo's fantasy abruptly ends. For Flisfeder and Burnham (2017), what we are watching here is "an interesting case of the failure of fantasies to overlap -of the real person as the prop for the other's masturbatory pleasure" (p. 41). Accordingly, upon climax, SexyKitten quickly leaves the chat room, leaving Theo alone in bed.…”

“…Drawing attention to a number of important and ongoing debates on the impact of digital media/artificial intelligence, sex and sexuality (Albury and Byron, 2016;Hobbs et al, 2017;Lupton, 2015), Spike Jonze's 2013 film, Her, remains unique in its ability to elicit wider reflections on our increasing imbrication in and with digital media networks, and our apparent infatuation with a variety of technological gadgets (laptops, mobile phones etc.) (Flisfeder and Burnham, 2017;Hasinoff, 2013). While the film would go on to win "Best Original Screenplay" at the 86 th Academy Awards, scholarly analyses of Her have critically examined its portrayal of artificial intelligence (Schneider, 2014), as well as its location within debates on the subject and on digital media under late capitalism (Flisfeder and Burnham, 2017).…”

“…(Flisfeder and Burnham, 2017;Hasinoff, 2013). While the film would go on to win "Best Original Screenplay" at the 86 th Academy Awards, scholarly analyses of Her have critically examined its portrayal of artificial intelligence (Schneider, 2014), as well as its location within debates on the subject and on digital media under late capitalism (Flisfeder and Burnham, 2017). Notably, these analyses have served to appraise and comment upon the film's depiction of the digital as it pertains to discussions of consciousness and corporeality (Bergen, 2014), identity, gender and sexuality (Aibel, 2017); and the relative impact of digital media in both enhancing, but also inhibiting, social intimacy (Jollimore, 2015).…”

“…Yet, as Flisfeder and Burnham (2017) argue, "to focus on or fetishize the digital aspects of the relationship" in Her serves to "avoid a more fundamental incommensurability" that the film reveals (p. 35). This revelation is brought to bear in the romantic connection that Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) and Samantha (Scarlett Johansson) develop over the course of the film.…”

“…Therefore, by examining the relationship between man and ("female") machine, the "fundamental incommensurability" (Flisfeder and Burnham, 2017) that characterizes Theo and Samantha's sexual connection will be used, over the course of this article, to demonstrate Lacan's (1999) assertion that "there is no sexual relationship" (p. 17). With regard to this famous Lacanian maxim, and building upon the work of Flisfeder and Burnham (2017) and Burnham (2018), this analysis will draw from Slavoj Žižek's (1999, 2004) discussions of digital media and Alenka Zupančič's (2003Zupančič's ( , 2008Zupančič's ( , 2019 analyses of love and comedy in order to consider how the role of comedy can help shed light on Lacan's non-relationship theory. Specifically, while Webb (2016) has referred to the film as "an off-centre romantic comedy" (p. 97), comedy will be used to reveal how such a form "gives voice and body to the impasses and contradictions" that structure and frame our digital non-relations (Zupančič, 2008, p. 47).…”