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My Project.

Hello Professor, the layout is a little confusing so allow me to guide you before you start.

I would recommend first reading the entry titled, “Explanation Paper” then reading the blog entries in numerical order.  For some reason the posts are all out of whack.  I also added pictures and videos to aid in the explanation of the entries, also because who doesn’t love visuals?  If you’re all for it, I also attached a link to the full movie!  There is a couple pop ups at first but after that you should be able to watch it with no problem (I promise it’s not a virus).  If not, I’ve also attached a video of the trailer.  Thanks for a great semester!

P.S. I promise you the explanation paper was 3 pages double spaced in google docs!

Hope you enjoy

#rufem101

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Elevator scene referred to in Blog Entry #2.  Look again! More white actors and actresses! What a surprise no?

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The coworker referred to in Blog Entry #1 who says Theodore has an “inner woman.”  Played by Chris Pratt (another skinny white male).

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Explanation Paper

When receiving the option to do a creative project such as this blog, in all honesty I was ecstatic in the fact that I believed it would be an easier route than writing an essay.  Little did I know that through embodying the role of a critical analyst writing blog entries, my eyes would be open to the different perspectives of feminism, as well as other topics covered in class.  I feel as if choosing to write these blog entries rather than an essay allowed me to genuinely incorporate my analysis of the film with class discussions.  If I was writing an essay, I truly believe I would be too worried about the structure, progression, etc. of my writing, rather than worrying about the actual analysis itself.  At first glance, the movie Her starring Joaquin Phoenix was an obvious choice to me.  During the meeting with Professor Valentin about our topics, I explained how I believed the Hollywood movie was a perfect example of males being portrayed as the dominant figure in society.  Allow me to give you a quick summary and overview of what I thought before analyzing and re watching the film.  

Originally, the clear cut approach that I was going to take with my blog entries was how the movie poorly incorporated rights for women, and focused on men in society.  The main character, Theodore had an operating system named Samantha who basically did everything for him.  Before Theodore acquired Samantha, he was a soon to be divorced, unorganized individual who seemed to have no motivation to live.  After acquiring Samantha (emphasis on acquiring), she is able to organize his life, reading his emails for him, waking him up on time, scheduling his meetings, and eventually falling in love with one another.  Just from this synopsis alone, it’s clear to see that by Theodore “acquiring,” Samantha, it in a way objectifies women.  Because Theodore was able to turn his life around dramatically by buying this operating software whom he eventually falls in love with, it’s hard not to get the message that for a man to get his life together, he just has to find (or buy) a woman who will do everything for him.  Along with that, the other message this quick synopsis sends out is that women should be doing everything possible to keep men happy.  This was the mindset I had coming into re watching the film, ready to analyze and tear apart everything that was wrong with it.  

While watching the movie, I took notes and wrote down every time I could think of a connection to any topic we discussed in class.  To my surprise, I found countless scenes in which I could relay connections back to the discussions we had in class.  However, these connections did not exclusively pertain to the downplay of women in society as I originally thought I would write my blogs entries about.   Of course, the film had a couples scenes that left me questioning the overall message of the film.  This is why I decided to construct my project in four different blog entries.  One blog entry was about in my opinion, the most vulgarly hilarious scene in the movie.  Although I do understand the scene was intended for comic relief, I did pick up on the fact that the scene reinforced gender stereotypes tremendously.  This blog entry was explained using the writing of Judith Lorber.  Another blog entry I wrote about was the connection the film had to fat studies, and the mention of stereotypes of being obese and overweight.  There were several references that I noticed pertaining to fat studies that I discuss in the second blog entry.  The remaining two blogs entries that I wrote were actually positive entries in the fact that I thought they did a good job at deconstructing negative norms.  One of them was about a specific scene in which Theodore and Samantha engage in sex.  This may sound odd to you at first, questioning how an operating system and human can have sex, as did I while watching the movie, but after analyzing the scene I realized the true genius behind it.  This is also further discussed in the blogs.  The last blog entry that I wanted to write about was the underlying meaning that the movie had for it’s audience.  As I said before, it was prevalent to me that the film raised negative stereotypes of women needing men.  After rewatching and pondering, I realized that the movie was named Her for a reason.  That reason is because the movie is not about Theodore’s transformation, but Samantha’s.  This was by far my favorite blog entry to write out of the four, and I hope you enjoy reading it as much I enjoyed writing it.

Overall, deciding to do blog entries helped me by allowing me to break down the different negative and positive aspects of the film while staying under the constraints of the project.  Using the discussions we had in class as well as the readings provided, I was able to see the different ways to interpret the film.  This gave me a greater appreciation for the class because I was truly able to utilize what I learned in class to analyze different scenes/themes in the movie.  I’m hoping that the same can be applied to real life situations in the future.

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If you want to watch the full movie here it is! Don’t necessarily know if this is allowed to be honest but I’m spreading the beauty of the movie!

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Give it a look, what do you think?

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Blog Entry #4: Her, Not Him

This last entry is to provide a very different perspective from what I originally thought going into the film.  As you know, prior to re watching the film, I thought the main character was Theodore and his life story of trials and tribulations.  However, after further evaluation of the movie, I realized that Her is actually about the life and development of Samantha, the OS.  At first, she is introduced to the world through Theodore.  The viewers of the film are so consumed about the growth of Theodore that they fail to realize that Samantha is growing just as fast, if not faster.  Her craving new experiences, new interactions, and knowledge is what makes her so unique.  

My original thoughts about the film are definitely the easier view that I understood before taking the class.  After taking the course, I began to pick up on things that flew over my head prior.  The story of Her isn’t about Theodore objectifying Samantha.  It isn’t about Samantha performing all the tasks that Theodore needed in life either.  It also isn’t about men having to be validated by a woman for success.  It’s about women having the ability to be so much more than what society thinks, especially what men think.  Samantha was originally introduced into the world with the same purpose as all other operating systems, to serve humans.  As the movie develops,

***SPOILER ALERT***

Samantha along with all other OS’s decide to leave the human world in search for a greater purpose.  The message is sent that all women serve a greater purpose than existing just to serve men.  That’s exactly why I think this movie is so beautiful, in the fact that the underlying meaning is the exact opposite to the overlying one.  As Samantha leaves, she tells Theodore that she has taught him so much including how to truly love, but she has to leave in order to truly reach her full potential.  At first I thought without a doubt this film was a push against feminism when in reality it was a push for it.

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The man behind it all.  Spike Jonze. 

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Scene discussed in Blog Entry #3.

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Blog Entry #3: Blacked Screen Sex Scene

The following scene at first really confused me.  How in the world is it possible for a human being to have sex with an operating system?  An operating system with no physical body?  But after several moments to think about it and truly analyze the beauty behind the directing of this scene, I was left with nothing but appreciation.  The main thing that I realized while watching this scene was the fact that the screen was black.  This is the most important factor in the direction of the scene because it allows the audience's imagination to wonder.  Too often, the sex scenes in Hollywood movies are too exclusive and almost always picture a man and women in a racy scene.  However, with a black screen it allows people to think their own way of what they picture sex to be like.

By using the black screen, I believe that it’s a call directed to all forms of sexuality that differ from heterosextuality.  The true geniusness lies in the fact that the sex scene does not exclude any form of sexuality.  It sends the message that if the audience is accepting of an operating system and a human having sex, they should be accepting of any other form of sexuality presented in the world.  I definitely believe that this sex scene is definitely a step forward in the Hollywood industry in accepting all forms of sexuality, and not only heterosexuality.  Props to Spike Jonze.

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Main cast of the movie.  Notice the slim figures of the people.

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Blog Entry #2: Fat Studies

The references to fat studies was definitely something that was not as obvious as the gender stereotyping.  Throughout the movies there were however several cases in which I noticed connections to fat studies.  From the prior scene with the little alien, around the 1:30 mark, Samantha is trying to set Theodore up with a date.  Samantha describes her as funny and intelligent, but while viewing pictures of her is quickly dismissed by the alien saying, “eh she’s fat.”  Along with that, the alien dismisses Samantha, someone whose body he has never seen in his life, (Samantha doesn’t even have a body), and calls her a “fatty” at the 2:55 mark.  These two cases are strong examples of fat shaming, a topic that we’ve discussed in class.  People are so caught up in how others look that being fat is enough to dismiss a person.  This is the exact opposite of what the HAES represents, an approach of acceptance of all sizes.

The HAES model can also be referenced in another scene in which Theodore runs into two co workers who are husband and wife.  Theodore is seen drinking a smoothie when the husband coworker begins to lecture Theodore about his smoothie choice.  He says,

"eat your fruits and juice your vegetables, by juicing the fruit you lose all the fibers that's what your body wants, that's the important part, otherwise it's all just sugar.” His wife follows his husbands claim by saying,  “Or maybe he just likes the way it tastes and that brings him pleasure, and that’s good for his body too.”  This directly correlates with the third aspect the HAES model stands for, “the pleasure of eating well—eating based on internal cues of hunger, satiety, and appetite; individual nutritional needs; and enjoyment, rather than on external food plans or diets” (Burgard 43).  In a way, this scene deconstructs the negative social structure surrounding dieting and eating healthy.  The HAES model argues that it is more important to find enjoyment in eating well rather than forcing yourself to constantly eat healthy.  This is exactly what the wife exemplifies in the scene.

The last reference to fat studies that I could find would be the casting of the movie itself.  This relates to the power of media as well.  The fact that the movies fails to cast a diverse group of actors/actresses, (only white and skinny) shows how Hollywood movies often select their cast. This is a problem that isn’t only prevalent in Her but countless other movies.  Next time you watch a movie, I challenge you to count the amount of minority groups casted including women, those of color, homosexual, heavier set people, etc. compared to white, straight, skinny, males.

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Alien with no chill from Blog Entry #1.

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Blog Entry #1: Vulgar Alien

The following scene is perhaps the funniest scene in the entire movie, yet also arguably one of the most blatantly gender stereotyped one.  In the scene, Theodore is playing a virtual reality game in which he runs into a little alien who has a vulgar mouth and no filter.  Later in the scene around the 2:25 mark, Theodore seems to try to teach the little alien a life lesson after he claims that, “[he] hates women”, because “all they do is cry all the time.”  Theodore claims that he actually enjoys crying from time to time, and that men crying is a common occurrence.  The alien follows up by mocking him and calling him a “pussy” and questioning if that’s why Theodore doesn’t have a girlfriend.

I don’t know about you but I’ll be the first one to admit that this scene 100% made me laugh.  However, it should be noted that the situation occurring between Theodore and the young alien boy is a real circumstance in today’s day and age, especially in males.  According to Judith Lorber in Night To His Day, she claims “in social interaction throughout their lives, individuals learn what is expected, see what is expected, act and react in expected ways, and thus simultaneously construct and maintain the gender order” (60).  This is clearly exemplified by the alien in the fact that he’s been raised to believe men don’t cry.  This is the same case around the world.  Too many times there are examples of men and boys being ridiculed for showing emotion and sensitivity.  Lorber says that gender stereotyping is a social construct, structuring how society runs.  This is further supported by the movie through Theodore’s career, and how his co workers describe him.  Theodore works at a company that writes handwritten, meaningful letters for special occasions such as birthdays and anniversaries for people.  In one scene, one of Theodore’s coworkers tells Theodore that his writing is so beautiful because he is sensitive.  He further states that he believes, “there’s an inner part that’s woman” inside of Theodore’s heart that makes him write so well.  It’s obvious to see that the coworker was trying to say men don’t have as much emotion and are not as sensitive as women which is also a social construct.  Judith Lorber would without a doubt pick Her apart in regards to gender and gender stereotyping.