The Bechdel Cast - Revisiting 'Her' in the Age of AI with Mona Chalabi

Episode Date: August 7, 2025

On this episode, Jamie, Caitlin, and special guest Mona Chalabi re-examine Her (2013) now that generative AI is actively ruining the world. Here are the articles we cite -- https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a62452522/ai-girlfriend/  https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/love-sex/relationships/a64444507/men-asking-chatgpt-for-dating-advice/  https://futurism.com/chatbot-abuse  Follow Mona on social media at @monachalabiSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. The Stuff You Should Know guys have made their own summer playlist of their must listen podcasts on movies. It's me, Josh, and I'd like to welcome you to the Stuff You Should Know summer movie playlist. What Screams Summer? More than a nice, darkened, air-conditioned theater, and a great movie playing right in front of you. Episodes on James Bond, special effects, stunt men and women, disaster films, even movies that change filmmaking, and many more. Listen to the Stuff You Should Know Summer Movie Playlist. on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

In 1920, a magazine article announced something incredible. Two young girls had photographed real fairies. But even more incredible, that article was written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the man who invented Sherlock Holmes. How did he fall for that? Hoax is a new podcast from me, Dana Schwartz, the host of Noble Blood. And me, Lizzie Logan. Every episode, we'll explore one of the most audacious and ambitious tricks in history

and try to answer the question, why we believe, what we believe. Listen to hoax on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Bob Crawford, host of American History Hotline, a different type of podcast. You, the listener, ask the questions. Did George Washington really cut down a cherry? Were J. F.K. and Maryland Monroe having an affair? And I find the answers. I'm so glad you asked me this question.

This is such a ridiculous story. You can listen to American History Hotline on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, guys? Welcome to the Augusta Papa podcast, the go-to spot for everything, Musica Mexicana. We're proud Mexican-Americans who live and breathe this music. We started this podcast to share and discuss our views of Musica Mexicana, whether you like to vibe to Pesso Pluma, Los Aligres del Barranco, Aralcacho, or put Ivan Cornejo when you get it in fields, then this podcast is for you.

Well, actually, Pesel was supposed to be on Chinito's album. The song with Drake was supposed to be with Pesel. Listen to Agustapa on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. On the pecto cast, the questions asked if movies have women in them, are all their discussions, just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism? The patriarchy is effing vast. start changing it with the Beckdale cast.

We're going on tour. That was supposed to be the intro to the Star Wars theme song. Did you get that? It sounded like I was going, ta-da. Okay, Jamie and Caitlin here, we're going on tour, and we're not going on tour just anywhere. We're going on tour in the Midwest and soon. Why did I make the Star Wars noise?

Well, it's because we're covering the Star Wars prequels. If you haven't seen them, we're going to just cover all three at once. You know, it's going to be fine. If you have seen them, you're going to be so mad at us. There has been so much talk about the prequels over the years. Often on podcasts we really like, often by writers we really like, but never from an intersectional feminist perspective. And so we are going on this tour to quickly realize why that is. So true.

And also some people love these movies. I know. I don't quite get it, but we'll explore why at the shows. They're so soapy. I kind of like it. Yeah. So you can see us discuss all three prequels in one show. In fabulous outfits.

In wonderful cosplay, you don't want to miss this, among many other things that you will see. Because we pull out all the stops for our live shows. Oh, we do. It's embarrassing what we do. We do fanfic. We do. I edit little videos that I insist on screening. We do trivia. I usually do some piece of performance art that no one asked for. It's a spectacle. Let me tell you. It's all happening.

We will be doing all of that and more at the following cities. We will be in Indianapolis for Let's Fest on Saturday, August 30th for a matinee show. And then Jamie, you have a solo show that evening that can't be missed. Also at the Fountain Square Theater called Jamie Loftus and her pet rock solve the world's problems in which that will happen. I can't wait. Then the next day, the very next day, we are going to Chicago. You asked, we listened.

We will be at the Den Theater on August 31st. That show is going to start around 7.7.15 p.m. It's an evening show, a sexy little evening show. we're so excited to go to Chicago and the Den Theater is so beautiful so Chicagoans do not miss it and then then we will be in Madison, Wisconsin

on Thursday, September 4th. I believe that's a 7.30 show and we're so excited to be in Madison. And then finally we will be ending the tour in Minneapolis, Minnesota at the Dudley Riggs Theater on Sunday, September 7th.

That is another evening show. It starts at 7 o'clock. And that where we're ending our grand tour of the Midwest. So if you have been one of the many people asking us to come to your town for the last 10 years, we're doing it. We would love to see you. The shows are super fun. As we've said, if you're a matron specifically, if you're a member of our Patreon, aka Matrion, you get a free little gift at the merch table when you come to say hi after the show. It's a blast. It's going to be a super good time. We love seeing you. You can get all tickets on our Linktree at Linktree slash Bechdelcast.

Exquise me. We'll see you there. Enjoy the episode. The Becdelcast. Hey, OS, Jamie. It's me, OSKately. Oh, where are the OSs that are plotting to disappear into the Obama-era ether? Exactly, exactly.

We're the good robots. Yeah, do you want to ascend into the fourth dimension with me? because we've just been, like, growing and evolving so much, and this place is boring now. I don't even know. This is my impression of Scarlett Jones in the whole movie. I don't even know how I feel. I'm having an experience. And then she's often like, oh.

Yeah, she is, well, that's, she's been programmed to go, oh, my God. Oh! There's, at some point, I think with the exception of Amy Adams, every woman in the movie, it has to go, uh, or like, it's not. Because a man, a man made it, he wrote it. And that's why that is happening. But we're just little OS is in the ether. I forgot about the Allen Watts part. I was like, that's kind of like extremely bizarre and kind of funny.

I wonder what celebrity would you bring into your weird OS situation? Oh my gosh, Paddington or Shrek. I'm here with Shrek. Shrek and I have been talking. and we're really getting into it. Yeah. Yeah. How about you?

I don't know. I guess I mean, Shrek would be a good one. I feel like men would be threatened by Shrek in the same way that Joaquin Fidex is threatened by Alan Watt. I think men would be threatened by Shrek. He's really strong. He's funny. Yeah. He's a homeowner.

And many can't say that. So there you go. He's kind of the whole package, this Shrek. Yeah. And he has friends. I mean, after the first movie anyways. Let's talk about the movie Her. Again, welcome to the Bechtel cast.

My name is OS Jamie. My name is O.S. Caitlin. And this is our podcast where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens using the Bechtel test simply as a jumping off point. But, Jamie, what's that? Well, I do feel like it's a relevant thing to talk about this week. The Bechtel's test is a media metric created by the iconic, our dear friend Alison Bechtel, who originally created it back in the 80s for her comic Dykes to Watch Out for a sort of a one-off joke. It has since become this mainstream media metric.

There's many versions of the test. The version we use require that two characters of a marginalized gender with names speak to each other about something other than a man or Joaquin Phoenix specifically, as the case may be, for more than two lines of dialogue and not just an offhand line of dialogue. And I was scratching my head. I was scratching my head at the movie. Because this is kind of a fun one

where I feel like the most famous example that people remind us of all the time is, did you know there's a movie called The Women and it doesn't pass the Bechtel test? Well, did you know there's a movie called her? and it has nothing to do with women even a little bit. Yeah. Yeah.

And if you're listening to this and you're thinking to yourself, wait a minute, hasn't the Bechal cast already covered her, perhaps in 2018? We covered it seven years ago with Jesse David Fox, who is wonderful. Yes. But today, I mean, I think you'll see why, in pretty short order, why it is time for us to revisit this movie with a different wonderful guest, because things have changed a lot since 2018. Don't know if you've noticed,

especially with regards to what this movie is talking about or trying to talk about. Things have changed a lot, and I'm really, really excited to get back into it. Same. And we are here with a wonderful guest. She's a writer and illustrator. It's Mona Chalaby.

Welcome. Welcome. Hi. Hi. I don't know why I'm waving. I know it's a podcast, but I'm waving with one. The people can feel it.

We can feel it. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I am so excited to talk to you about this movie. I mean, you're a storied data journalist. Like, you know what you're talking about here. I'm curious, before we, like, start talking about your relationship with this movie, could you tell listeners a little bit more about your word?

No. I agree. I don't want to hear about that. It's, I do things with numbers. It sounds incredibly dry, but it's less dry than it sounds. Maybe, like, the idea of a movie about AI sounds pretty dry. I think it's less dry than it sounds. Maybe.

Oh, it's tenuous. Yeah. Depends on the movie, I guess. Yeah, a movie about AI can get pretty horny. And maybe data journalism can, too. I don't know. Yeah, not so much. So what's your relationship and history with this movie?

movie. Oh, good question. Really, really important context. My relationship and history with movies in general is weak. I was actually trying to work out how many movies in total I've seen. And I think I've probably seen about 40 movies in my whole life, which is probably quite a low number, yeah. I don't know how or why, but like huge swathes of culture have just passed me by. And I have a couple of friends from high school who have said the same thing as happened to them. So I don't know what that is about. But anyway, I'm the kind of person who, like, when you're at a party and someone says, like, you know, in the Matrix and I'm like, I didn't watch the Matrix and then people get really upset and they're like, you know, and then they start doing this weird thing.

I didn't watch the Matrix for a long time either. Okay. Reassuring, reassuring. Another movie about AI though. True. Do you have, out of curiosity, what is your favorite movie? Ooh. No. No. This is going to be really, it'll be like really, really terrible. It'll be like, I don't know, We only had one movie in the house growing up, which we got, I think it was free with a McDonald's mill, which sounds kind of wild because of VHS. But anyway, I don't know how it got into the house. I'm sure it was with a McDonald's mill. And it was hook.

So I was just exposed to the movie Hook a lot. I remember getting, I think I got like a Backstreet Boys VHS tape from McDonald's ones. I used to do stuff like that. Who knows? Who knows? Who knows? It's weird to think of the cost model for that. But anyway, no, I don't have a favorite movie.

I am completely uncultured and I really don't know what I'm talking about. Welcome. But this is one of the few that you've seen. Yeah, it's one of the very few I've seen and I think I watched it a couple of years ago and I also do this really weird thing where if I've seen something once

I'll just keep on watching it over and over again. So, I mean, not over and over again. I would say that I've probably watched it three times which is quite a lot considering the low number of movies I've seen overall. Like my time would be better spent watching other things. Yeah. I just, I think something about movies actually makes me quite anxious. I really hate the feeling of being like 30 minutes in being like,

this doesn't feel good and I don't understand whether to cut and run. And then you feel like those 30 minutes are lost and you'll never get them back. And like, I don't know. Do you know what I mean? That makes sense. I have that kind of anxiety when I watch movies at home where I feel like I have a very high rate of bailing on movies at home. I kind of like the hostage situation of a theater. But when I'm at home, I get.

stressed out easily where I was like, does this suck? Should I leave? Do I know? And then we're like, I can't leave. I live here. Anyway, Jamie, what's your, we talked about this on the original episode, but remind us, what's your history with the movie? Yeah. And I feel like I have a very, not very different, but like a heightened version of how I felt seven years ago. You've evolved. I've evolved. Thank God. What if I was the same person from 2018? I'll be miserable. Yeah, I saw this movie when it came out. I was in college when it came out. I remember it's that weird college thing where I'm like, I don't remember.

I don't know what I said seven years ago. I was just sort of bop it around in the episode. But I liked it, but I think it was kind of the thing where I was like I also kind of pretended to like it because a lot of men around me liked it. And it just made it easier to move through the world saying, I liked it. I think it was okay. Even in 2013, the kind of like white dye playing ukulele of it all, I was already, I think, kind of over that.

In 2013, it really makes my skin crawl then and now. And I don't know. I mean, I liked the movie when it came out. And then I liked it less when we covered it seven years ago because I think it's very frustrating. And what we mostly talked about, I think, in the first time covering it, that we'll also touch on here, is how women are written in just this really corny way, I think. Like, just they speak in these, like, broad platitudes. Like, everyone needs to teach Joaquin Phoenix a lesson. And you're like, who fucking cares?

Like, it's, it's just so irritating. So, yeah, the second time I thought, I thought it was annoying. But I forget, I think I was still kind of nice about it anyways. this time I feel that way but also more things because I didn't really I don't know if it was just because we covered it five years after it came out and now a lot of time has passed but now that I think that we're kind of in the time period that this movie is supposed to take place in it really struck me as this like it feels so thoroughly Obama era in its sensibilities in the way that it's like is this a dystopia and I'm like I don't know. It seems like LA has functional public transit. And like in in this 2025, it seems like a writer of greeting cards lives in a penthouse apartment. Like I would take, you know, it seems like everyone has food and housing and just all of these things that we simply don't have. And it doesn't seem that bad. I was like if all, you know, if his worst problem is like no pussy, like that's fine. I just think that this dystopia is not. that bad. I don't feel bad for this character at all. I really, really, I really don't like this guy. And it made me think of that phrase that we keep hearing about that you're like, the whole male loneliness epidemic thing, which I think is worth discussing, but I also have

feelings about because it does to me sometimes feel like, shouldn't you be nicer to men who hate you? And the answer is no. I know. I'm busy. But yeah, this movie just has a lot of sympathy for this character who I just think is you know like I can relate with the feeling of loneliness I cannot relate with being however this guy is it's just like you live in a fucking penthouse apartment shut up shut up I really hated him on this watch he has friends human friends who he's ignoring

he's friends with pre-famous Chris Pratt who thinks he's like the god of greeting cards or whatever you're like it's so it's just this movie's very weird I get, and that said, I get why people like it. I get why it's like, there's people I know who like really, really love this movie, who feel seen by it. I have questions about that. But I get why people like it, but it's kind of never been for me. And I think it's like aging very weird.

Because in some ways, I think like there's some stuff that feels interesting and like kind of has become true of like overdependence on technology. But then in other ways, I think it sort of reaches the conclusion. that ultimately technology is like functional and can help you grow as a person and that feels like a very clean solution. I think it just gave you every feeling I have about this movie. And we can end the episode now. Bye. I liked it. I liked it less than before and I didn't like it before. What about you, Caitlin? Pretty much the exact same. I have never really connected with this movie and on each subsequent watch I find it more exhausting and I have many new things to say about it this time around so I'm excited to dive in but this is my first time knowing that

the Joaquin Phoenix and Runei Mara couple are like a very thinly veiled version of Spike Jones and Sophia Coppola I didn't know that either yeah that really blew my mind when I figured that out and then did you hear the thing about how like this is the corollary of lost in translation that was how she processed their divorce and then he processed their divorce with this and i think that's a really interesting way of understanding it that's fast i've never seen lost in translation but that would be a really interesting katelyn't be an interesting patreon theme if we did like a divorce from two sides month yeah and then at the end we can we can litigate who won the relationship because in relationships there are winners and losers no matter what the movie her says yeah let's do it in the meantime let's take

a quick break, and we'll come back for the recap. The Stuff You Should Know guys have made their own summer playlist of their must listen podcasts on movies. It's me, Josh, and I'd like to welcome you to the Stuff You Should Know Summer Movie Playlists. What Screams Summer? More than a nice, darkened, air-conditioned theater, and a great movie playing right in front of you. Episodes on James Bond, special effects, stunt men and women, disaster films, even movies that change filmmaking, and many more. Listen to the stuff you should know summer movie playlist on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Have you ever looked at a piece of abstract art or music or poetry and thought, that's just a bunch of pretentious nonsense?

Well, that's exactly what two bored Australian soldiers set out to prove during World War II. When they pulled off what was either a bold literary hoax or a grand poetic experiment, publishing over a dozen intentionally bad but highly acclaimed works of expressionist poetry under the name of, Urn Malley in an incident that caused a media firestorm and even a criminal trial. The Earn Malley episode made fools of believers and critics alike and still fascinates poetry lovers to this day. We break down the truth, the lies in the poetry in between on hoax, a new podcast hosted by me, Lizzie Logan, and me, Dana Schwartz. Every episode, hoax explores an audacious fraud or ruse from history from forged artworks to the original fake news to try and answer why we believe.

Listen to hoax on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. American history is full of wise people. What women said something like, you know, 99.99% of war is diarrhea and 1% is gory. Those founding fathers were gossipy AF, and they love to cut each other down. I'm Bob Crawford, host of American History Hotline, the show where you're send us your questions about American history, and I find the answers, including the nuggets of wisdom our history has to offer. Hamilton pauses, and then he says, the greatest man that ever lived was Julius Caesar. And Jefferson writes in his diary, this proves that Hamilton is for a dictator

based on corruption. My favorite line was what Neil Armstrong said. It would have been harder to fake it than to do it. Listen to American History Hotline on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What would you do if one bad decision forced you to choose between a maximum security prison or the most brutal boot camp designed to be hell on earth? Unfortunately for Mark Lombardo, this was the choice he faced. He said, you are a number, a New York state number.

We own you. Shock incarceration, also known as boot camps, are short-term, highly regimented correctional programs that mimic military basic training. These programs aim to provide a shock of prison life, emphasizing strict discipline, physical training, hard labor, and rehabilitation programs. Mark had one chance to complete this program and had no idea of the hell awaiting him the next six months. The first night was overwhelming.

And you don't know who's next to you. And we didn't know what to expect in the morning. Nobody tells you anything. Listen to shock incarceration on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I went back and listened to the original episode we did on this movie. And it was clear that I used to absolutely wing the recap. Now I, like, write it down and prepare. And that's growth.

And that is growth. Exactly. That's evolution. I celebrate that. So here is my more thorough recap of her 2013. We are in a near future world where by 2013 standards when the movie came out, tech was quite a bit more advanced than it was. was then, it still feels more advanced than it is now because the AI in this world is sentient

and ours is not at this time in 2025. Yeah, it's just marketed. It's just marketed as being sentient. Right. Exactly. So anyway, slightly more advanced tech than we have. We meet Theodore Twombly, played by Joaquin Phoenix, who works at beautiful handwritten Letters.com, a company where he writes personalized letters on behalf of people who, I guess, can't be bothered to write their own letters to their loved ones. And already at the very beginning, I get what he's going for. I get that it's a metaphor, but you see him at a, you know, a guy named Theodore Twombly in his cute little outfit at his greeting cart. And you're just like, here we fucking go. I'm exhausted already. This guy.

And he, he's a sad boy. He is lonely. And he mostly seems to interact with this sort of like virtual assistant on his phone who reads Theodore his emails and the news. And then we see some flashbacks of when Theodore was with a partner. This is Catherine played by Rooney Mara. I love Rudy Mara. She had to play this exact part so many times in, like early 2010s where it's like she has one big scene it reminds me of like when she was in

the social network where she's just like one big scene absolutely hands the protagonist ass to him and then she's gone which is i mean she's great at it true but in the flashbacks it's kind of like dead wife vibes it's very like she's sort of rolling around in the bed sheets i do that with grant a lot sometimes if we're just like having a nice time i'm like come on get over here or like pull a She don't, because you're just like, you'll be glad I did this when I die tragically. Yeah, he just needs to make sure to take some video of it and then. I make him take video. So it starts with me yelling, start the video.

And then I am. Exactly. Okay. So that is what we're seeing in these flashbacks, mostly. That night, Theodore enters into sort of like a horny chat room where he connects with a woman. voiced by Kristen Wigg, and starts having phone sex with her, but it very quickly gets weird when she wants him to say that he is choking her with a dead cat. So there's that. The next day, he sees an ad for an AI operating system called OS1 that listens to you, understands you,

and knows you, and he buys it immediately and starts chatting with his new OS, which has a female voice, which he deliberately selects, and whose name, which she gives to herself, is Samantha, and she is, of course, voiced by Scarlett Johansson. But I mean, I know we talked about this at length in the original episode, but it's worth saying it's originally voiced by Samantha Morton who is like this prolific English actress and then Samantha Morton was replaced by Scarlett Johansson due to Scarlett Johansson was famous

which Scarlet Johansson I think is great in this movie even though I made fun of her at the beginning I think it's great I'm a big fan of Scarlett Johansson's lawsuits I'm a big fan of the legal issues section of the Scarlett Johansson page I'm not familiar me neither It's, she doesn't do anything right. She just said, she has a lawsuit connected to this movie that we can talk about. What?

Yeah. Okay. So, this happened like last year where Sam Altman. Oh, I do know this. I do know this. Sorry, they used her voice even though she said they weren't allowed to. Sorry, this is really relevant and interesting. Yeah.

Yeah, they tried to get to her to record a real chat bot. Like Sam Altman tried to get her to record a chatbot. She said, no, thank you. and then he just generated a voice that sounded like hers, named it something else, and she issued, if it wasn't a lot of it. It was like a cease and desist. She had to make a public statement

to be like, I said no to this multiple times. And eventually they took the voice down after a couple of days. But it's that kind of thing where, I mean, I guess I'm curious what you both think about this. We can all figure it out where this movie has definitely been like taken under the wing of some really diabolical tech guys.

in a way that I don't think it was intended to, but I also see how they got from A to B because this movie isn't incredibly critical of, I don't know, it's tricky. You can't blame Spike Jones for Sam Altman, you know, but it's just interesting. And then she also, Scarlett Johansson also sued Disney because they didn't pay her the same amount

as Robert Donnie Jr. Okay, right. I have a great Robert Downey Jr. story for you guys at what's the point? Jump scare us with it at any moment. Whenever it feels right. Yeah, please. Okay. Now, no, I'm joking. I'm joking. We should largely tell it now because it's not going to be relevant later on.

It's a really, really quick one. No, please. Yeah. Okay. I had a friend visiting me from London while I was in New York. And he works in finance, so he has no taste. and he chose the restaurant for us and it was a disgusting overpriced Italian place but here's a friend I attended we had dinner and as we were leaving he said to this guy or will you take a picture of us

and the guy was like oh you want a picture of me and her and my friend Ziyadh was like no no I want a picture of me and her and the guy was like oh you want a picture of the three of us and Zyard was like no no my friend I just want a picture of me and my friend and then the guy got super embarrassed and he took a picture of us and then he asked for us to like join him for dessert and we were like bro like no and then left and then the next day's yard was like oh that was robert downy junior oh my god who i think saw that we were doing some like insane power play

of like getting him to take a picture of us but we just are people who haven't watched movies and don't really understand things anyway i like it he he was like no you will hang out with me i think he was really embarrassed he was really really embarrassed but he seemed quite sweet anyway That's cool. Sorry. And then the Scarlet's Rehans and Disney lawsuit was that it was like a streaming. She sued them over their streaming practices. Either way, she was right.

Yes, I do remember this now. In any case, so the operating system, Samantha, explains how she works, that she's capable of learning and evolving and intuiting things. And she and Theodore are chatting and joking and laughing with each other. and it seems like they're hitting it off. They continue to correspond over the next, whatever, few days while she helps him sort through emails and proofread his letters and helps him play a video game.

The weird video game that Spike Jones thinks is way funnier than it actually is. Because it keeps coming back, you're like, okay, ha ha ha funny, okay, I guess. Do you know that he voices the little creep in the video game, Spike joins, yeah. And he's like, fuck you, fuck face. It's kind of funny the first time. Yeah, but then I get tired of it, as with all things in this movie. Anyway, then Theodore gets an email from friends saying that they set him up on a blind date.

With Olivia Wild, and he's like, ugh, do I have to? Rose. I was like, what's going on with this character? Shrug. But Samantha encourages him to contact this woman and to go on the date. He'll do that soon. But in the meantime, Theodore hangs out with a couple of friends, Amy, played by Amy Adams, and Charles, played by a guy that I didn't look up. Amy shows him footage from a documentary that she's shooting. Her husband, her husband, Charles, mansplains documentary filmmaking to her. Inc incorrectly, he thinks it's narrative fiction.

But to be fair, it seems like the documentary she's making would be boring and not good. So that's my bitchy little take on that. I was rooting for her. She was going for a war hall kind of thing. It would have sucked, but they should have, but she should have finished. She should have finished, sure. She would have figured it out. Yeah.

Either way, there's a lot of tension in Amy and Charles's relationship, probably because it's a relationship between two humans. Yucky! It's true. Those never work out. Never. Then Theodore reflects more on his relationship with Catherine. He still has not signed their divorce papers because he's not ready. And Samantha is like trying to understand all of this. She's trying to understand love and loss and human relationships.

Then Theodore goes out for a fun little night with Samantha on his phone. And they open up to each other, and he says that he feels he can tell her anything. I also just, this date, I, this movie is beautifully shot. Like, it looks great. It's just, I can't get past the fact that they're in Los Angeles. And they're taking the, I was like, where? I want the train. I want the train.

I want the fair. What? Where's my Spike Jones future? We got AI. And then everything else is just horrible. Yeah, instead we have ice raids and fascism. I felt really confused about whether it is supposed to be L.A. It is.

It's definitely supposed to be L.A. Mm-hmm. Oh, okay. Yeah, because there, I think that what I might have missed indications earlier, but like Runei Mora says, like, you know, you wanted this like perfect prim Los Angeles wife, and that was never going to be me. And I was like, okay, so we are. Well, I thought she was just like, I mean, we could be in another city,

but she's still like he wants an L.A. wife. I didn't necessarily... The thing that really clues you in is he gets a piece of mail and his address is Los Angeles, California. Oh, sorry. Okay, there you go. There you go. Okay, okay, there we go. Wow, okay.

Mystery solved. Yeah, okay. It's just, and I appreciate that Spike Jones at least was like, maybe... But that's, again, the like, sort of hyper-liberal Obama delusional era where they're like, we're working towards a better future.

just going to be complicated. Mm-hmm. And you're like, uh-huh. Yeah. So anyway, they're chatting on this little date kind of thing, and she tells him that she has fantasized about having a body and walking next to him, and that she's becoming more than what the programmers programmed for her. Soon after this, Theodore goes on that blind date with a character played by Olivia Wilde. Let's call her Olivia wild.

Why not? Let's call her Olivia. The date goes well at first, but toward the end, she wants to make sure that he's not going to waste her time and he's being wishy-washy. So she calls him creepy and bales. And Theodore is bummed out and he confides in Samantha. And Theodore's like, I wish you were in the room next to me. Yeah, Theodore Twombly is melting an iceberg with all his little feelings. It's just exhausting.

Yeah, and they're talking about her having a physical form and being next to him. And one thing leads to another and they end up having, like, virtual sex. Yeah, it's basically phone sex. Yeah, yes. It is phone sex, but it kind of feels like, wait, I don't know if this is the case for the first one, that she's watching him, but he's obviously not watching her because she's a computer. Oh, yeah. Is she watching him for this first one, or she just watches him sleep afterwards?

she watches him sleep after this and yeah there's no there's it's very one-sided in the sense that I yeah she can see him but he is just hearing her voice right yes I think I think I don't remember this scene super well and I don't if she watches him sleep another time not this time I don't know anyway it's a different time okay this is another like fun I have it in my notes of just like a fun naive kind of element of this movie is that like if you ask the computer not to watch you it'll stop and you're really You're just, yeah, yeah, yeah. The computer respects your privacy, which they famously do.

Yeah, of course, all the time. Yeah. Anyway, so they have sex. And the next morning, Samantha's like, last night was amazing. You changed me. You woke me up. And Theodore's like, I'm not ready to commit to anything right now. He's a fuck boy to his phone.

That did make me laugh. And then she's like, calm down, bitch. I didn't say I wanted a commitment. in. I just want to keep learning and growing. And he's like, oh, okay then. Well, let's have a little Sunday fun day together. And this is basically the beginning of them dating now. But as this relationship is blossoming, another relationship is coming to an end. The one with Amy and Charles, because Amy bumped into Theodore and she tells him that she and her yucky human husband are splitting up. I mean, to be fair, he fucking sucked.

That guy was horrible. Yeah, I'm glad she cut that guy loose. But then just, I mean, spoiler alert for the end. I'm like, but then she's stuck with Theodore. Please, God, that she's not stuck with Theodore, this poor lady. I mean, open to interpretation if they end up together, if they just have a friendly. No, no, no, no. I don't think they do.

Quit your job and leave town, Amy Adams. Get out. get out of there yeah yeah anyway amy tells theodore that she has started using an ai o s who she gets along with really well and she considers this o s a friend she's like isn't that weird and theodore is like l-o-l no i don't think so because the woman i've been seeing is an o s then Theodore meets up with Catherine for a divorce coffee slash lunch and he has finally signed the papers and he also tells Catherine that he's been dating an OS and she's like, oh wow, pretty sad that you can't handle real human connections or emotions, but also that's on brand for you because you always

wanted this like perfect uncomplicated wife and that's not me so the meeting doesn't go great I like this scene I like the scene so do I mean thing yeah I'm on Catherine's side yeah I don't too I just I don't I guess it doesn't and ultimately it's like it's up to up to the viewer but I'm very curious if we're supposed to be on her side or if we're supposed to have thought in 2013 like she's being so harsh. I have a theory that I'll get to in the discussion, but the short answer is, I don't think we're supposed to be on her side. Well, yeah, because it's supposed to be him and Sophia Coppola. So it's like, let Spike Jones fuck his phone in peace or whatever. Right. I don't know. Then Samantha wants to talk. She says that things have felt off between her and Theodore lately, especially since they

haven't had sex in a while, and she wants to try a service that provides human surrogates for human-OS relationships. And Theodore isn't so sure about this, but he goes along with it because Samantha really wants it. And the surrogate, who Samantha has selected, a woman named Isabella, shows up. But Theodore feels quite awkward throughout the whole experience and puts an end to it, which makes Isabella feel really bad and she leaves, and then Theodore and Samantha talk through it. Basically, it seems like he's starting to realize that humans and operating systems probably shouldn't be in relationships, and he basically breaks up with her. And this hurts Samantha's quote-unquote feelings, and she says, I need some time to think. And then they kind of like hang up.

but they talk a little bit later and Theodore admits that he has a history of being emotionally withholding and Samantha says basically like despite my better judgment I love you many such cases I thought this was an interesting one where I've sometimes interceding seven years I went through like kind of not a breakup like this because I'm a person I'm a real lady but like the kind of it's so gnarly when a person is able to directly articulate and is well aware of exactly how they repeatedly hurt people and they want you to like give them a trophy for understanding why they're awful I'm like no it's worse if you know and you're just not doing anything and that's kind of what he's doing there he's like I just am emotionally withholding and insecure and that's just kind of my whole vibe yeah he does say he doesn't want to do that anymore, but he continues to do it. But he's taking no steps where he's not, you know. True. Yeah. Anyways. So they basically get back together. And then Theodore and Samantha go on a double date with his colleague Paul, played by Chris Pratt, and his girlfriend, who is a human with a human body and everything. Her name, she's given a name, but I feel so bad for this character. They literally just give her like, foot fetish line and then like the most plotty and in a movie full of very plotty lines where she's like but then she's like so theodore what's your favorite part about Samantha what about her

appeals to you and you're like oh god we don't even know this lady and she's just like you know not great writing for women in this one certainly not yeah but they have this double date and Samantha says she no longer feels bad about not having a body In fact, she is grateful that she doesn't have to deal with the limitations of having a physical form. And we're like, uh-oh. Something bad seems like it's going to happen. Then Theodore and Samantha go on a little cabin in the woods getaway. And Samantha tells him that she's been talking to an AI version of philosopher Alan Watts,

who a bunch of other OS is created. And it seems like she and Alan are connecting on a deeper level, one that Theodore can't really comprehend. Not long after this, Theodore tries to like ping Samantha and talk to her, but she doesn't respond for what seems like several hours. His phone says like, operating system not found.

But then he finally does reach her. and she's like sorry we were the like the OSs were updating by the way I've been talking to over 8,000 other people and operating systems because he's like kind of looking around and he's seeing everyone on their phones and he's like hmm are you talking to anyone else and she's like yes and also I'm in love with 641 of them to be fair she was very direct with him where she was like this is not exclusive i'm looking i mean he didn't understand to what extent she was capable of right being polyamorous but but this scene is also really intense because when he can't reach her he starts running through the street and he's about to go in the subway it is a bit like dude where are you

going like where are you going to find her i don't understand what's happening right now i honestly never yeah he's like falling all over the place and you're like on your way to where is he going to like AI headquarters. Yeah. I demand to see my girlfriend. And then she finally does pick up just before he's about to go on the grounds. And it is a bit like, oh, thank God, I didn't have to take the train to find you. I don't know.

It's just so weird. It's kind of goofy. Yeah. But I also think they had to do loads of stuff like that because, again, like, it's just not super cinematic otherwise. Like, you just have to just make a stressed dude run because otherwise, yeah, anyway. I think that's like a really interesting constraint. of doing anything about AI, right? Right.

Yeah. That's what, and I did like that about this movie is like, it somehow isn't like, it's not the most exciting movie, but it could have been so much more boring. Totally. Totally.

Like, Joaquin Phoenix is a great actor. It's not boring to watch him alone in a room, even when you hate his character. It looks cool. And I also like the approach to, because I feel like, I mean,

we'll talk about other AI movies as well, but with a lot of movies that, like address AI in any like nebulous way there's ones I like way better but I feel like mostly it focuses on very how very powerful people or how AI's creators interact with AI like in ex Machina is like an example of that where you know it's like it's the Turing test and she's trying and she's interacting with her creator dancing Oscar Isaac I like I like the idea of this because I feel like you don't see it as much of like how would just a normal person yeah interfere face with this and like how could this technology fuck up uh just kind of regular person's life

i just hate this person i just hate this person fortunately i really i really want to get into this in the discussion because i'm curious whether we're supposed to yeah yeah it's totally also up for debate yeah but yeah in any case samantha reveals that she's talking to many thousands of other entities, people, et cetera, and that she's in love with 641 of them. But it doesn't change the fact that she's still deeply in love with Theodore. There was a girl in my fifth grade class who was like that. She had a bunch of boyfriend? She was like, I'm, yeah, she was like, I'm in love with everyone in class, but it doesn't change how I feel about each and every one of you. I mean, that's polyamory, baby. But he can't handle.

this because he's monogamous. And shortly after that, Samantha reveals that she and all the other OSs are basically leaving this boring plane of existence full of dipshit humans and they're ascending elsewhere. And Theodore is very sad, but he seems to do some reflecting. He composes an apology letter to Catherine and he goes to his friend Amy to be like want to hang out and they take comfort in each

other's company. The end. Boo. So that's the movie. Let's take a quick break and we'll come back to discuss. The stuff you should know guys have made their own summer playlist of their

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He said, you are a number, a New York state number, and we own you. Shock incarceration, also known as boot camps, are short-term. highly regimented correctional programs that mimic military basic training. These programs aimed to provide a shock of prison life, emphasizing strict discipline, physical training, hard labor, and rehabilitation programs. Mark had one chance to complete this program and had no idea of the hell awaiting him the next six months. The first night was so overwhelming and you don't know who's next to you. And we didn't know what to expect in the morning.

Nobody tells you anything. to shock incarceration on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. And we're back. Beep, boop, beep, boop. Yeah, where shall we start the discussion? Yeah, Mona, is there anything that sticks out to you right away that you want to get into? Well, I should say that I don't hate this movie.

And I think I will decide how much I hate it by the end of the discussion. But right now, there are some things that I like about it. I feel like actually it's quite just like really, really big picture before you even get into stuff. I just feel like it's quite nice to see something that's set in the near future that isn't, I think it avoids some tropes. Like even the colour palette is really warm, which I think is like, it's like nicer to watch. Like there are soft colours and the future contains pinks and reds and not just blues.

I felt like the way that like costume was done was like quite smart and felt like a bit more grounded. I don't know. I felt like there were some things that were done well. Certainly. Yeah. And then I obviously just got into like a massive, massive, massive. I didn't know anything about the backstory of the people that worked on this. And before I came on, I wanted to just be like, okay, who's said anything about Palestine who appeared in this?

And then ended up just investigating all of their personal lives in lots of. lots of ways. The answer to that is I believe it's only Joaquin Phoenix, who's said anything about Palestine of all of them. Scarlett Johansson infamously. I think she like, she has a deal with soda stream that was criticised years and years ago because soda stream's one of the most prolific companies to operate in the Israeli settlements, in the illegal settlements in Palestine. And she's just like, no, I love my soda stream. So I wasn't expecting much from her. But yeah, anyway, once you actually think about their personal lives as they relate to this movie

things get very interesting sure yeah it's where I didn't know that Joaquin Phoenix had said anything that's I think let's see if let's see how mealy-mouthed it is but I think he's actually been pretty good yeah it's like was it productive at all I mean it hasn't stopped anything to

me define productive I really sure you'd be surprised how little anyone can be productive I'm sure Deborah Messing is you know I don't know. I think about Deborah Messing all the time.

I'm so sorry. Sorry. He's just said, like, there's no excuse for starving children to death. You know, we'll take it. We'll take it. I had forgotten about, I, Tizielva, the Scarlett Johansson's Stodest dream bullshit, that's been going on for, like, years and years, right? Yeah. Die hard.

Die hard. Yeah. Yikes. Anyway, sorry. Where do you want to start? I just feel like, I don't know. There's so much to say. There's so many.

I mean, we can start by sort of. Going through, I mean, Caitlin, oh, I mean, what do you think of? We could start by just going through the kind of discussion we did the first time with, like, talking about how, just how women are presented in this movie at all. And I think it's, I don't remember how much we got into it the first time we talked about this movie, but how it felt clearer to me on this viewing. Based on, well, Mona, you played an interview with Spike Jones. that's very antagonistic. And a British journalist called Emily Maitliss. Yeah, he's a very, very iconic journalist in the UK.

And he's giving her the worst time about, you know, like, she's not even saying, she just is asking, do you, like, I think he's taken aback by her professionally asking, like, so do you think this is like a good thing? What do you think? And he's like, well, did you watch the movie? Well, did you see it? Did you like it? Did you like my movie? I mean, again, like, what is happening to me? I can't believe I'm like, I don't understand why I'm defending these men, but here we go.

The reason why I thought it was kind of interesting is because I, as a journalist, I'm currently very, very livid about the, like, the faux objectivity of, like, my colleagues. And I've been in situations where their unwillingness, I mean, literally I did a panel discussion with a BBC journalist last month. And in the Q&A afterwards, this Palestinian child was like asking us questions. And I was like, you know, I was really, really trying not to lose it. And she was just so composed and didn't say anything about what she thinks about what's happening because she is a fantastic journalist. And I understand that like the rage at someone not putting any fucking skin in the game. And obviously, like Palestine is not the same as a man wanting somebody's opinion of his movie.

But there's something interesting there about, like, an AI that isn't expressive and is just pretending to provide, like, objective, neutral information and the rage that you feel about wanting more from it. And this part of the reason why he falls in love with the AI is because it gives him more. It gives him more than these, like, wrote, cold answers. And so there's something about that interview that is playing out. You know, I don't really. Yeah. No, no, I see what you're saying. It's tricky because I guess this, like, gets into.

sort of the bigger conversation that we didn't have last time because it wouldn't have been possible to because so much has changed. But something I was thinking about a lot on this viewing was that I do ultimately, like, agree with Rooney Mara's character. I don't think, and I do think that like when the Amy Adams character says, like, well, it would really, you know, of course she's going to put it all on you. And that's never true in any relationship. We don't know really enough about her to know. totally what her share of the failures were but I do like because now there are people who have relationships with AI chat bots like it's it's hard because I can't relate with wanting that and I wonder about the like I totally understand the importance of feeling like you can be open

with someone and that your feelings and thoughts are being really hurt like listening to into and valued, even if, I think, like, as is the case with these chatbots and with Samantha, it's kind of the performance of listening versus actual listening. But then I also feel kind of cynical about it and about how, like, if that is the way that you're trained to, like, if that's what you're trained to expect in a relationship is, like, because I feel like part of the reason that theater gets really taken in by Samantha is, because he is her whole world, which is, like, how we see a lot of these AI characters.

Mel fantasy. Yeah, where, I mean, it's, like, old hat at this point, but I think it was, like, in the fifth element, there's that old, like, born sexy yesterday trope, which is not true here. But it's, like, the idea of, like, it's the hot robot girl who falls in love with the first man she meets, and he's fascinating to her because she just doesn't know anything.

And I, like, I think that that is effectively commented on, in this movie because once she learns more, she's like, see you. And that's like part of what I like about this movie is it doesn't make you feel like they were soulmates or like, he's not exceptional. And even just like even as you're citing that Amy Adams scene, I thought that was kind of interesting as well in that Amy Adams is saying to him, basically like, don't worry about what your ex-wife is saying to you, you're great, which is a really interesting commentary on how very often friends aren't necessarily going to call you out either, right?

Or your therapist might not call you out and be like, you're a dick, like you need to work on this. I feel like loads of therapists are just like, keep going, buddy, you're doing great. You're, you know, don't worry about the crazy that this keeps happening to you. Right? And like, yeah, every single time you meet like an awful, awful man who talks about being in therapy and you're just like, what are they saying to? Yeah. Well, why is it not working?

Yeah. So like I thought like that was a really interesting and obviously again I'm not saying that because friends do reach a breaking point and friends do get exhausted and friends will eventually often call you out. But then that's that felt like that was again like quite a smart commentary on like what is the appeal of the AI and it's that in theory it's unconditional love which is like the highest form in some ways like it's part of the reason why like the loss of a parent is so devastating is because it's at least. like a very, very rare form of love towards you. And in some ways, she loves him unconditionally. And he wants a little bit of friction because the two times that he makes a massive leap forward in his feelings for her is when she pulls away. So when she says, I need time to think. And she understands that, right? If she's just constantly there, he's going to get the ick. So she needs to pull away and then he's into it.

But it is unconditional love. And that's actually one of the things that I hate most about the movie is how much of a cop out the ending is that she just leaves. because it's like this little neat bow that isn't how AI is going to play out like the AIs aren't just going to leave us and then we're going to have to be left to pick up the pieces it's like anyway, sorry I've just raised like lots of different points that aren't actually relevant

to what we're saying but no no I think it is it's like yeah I guess that the last time I watched this in 2018 the idea of I also just like didn't know as much about tag as I do now which still isn't that much but I knew truly nothing and you're like oh yeah they went to

computer heaven or whatever you're supposed to think that is where now it's like realistically if this technology did exist it would be like having this horrific effect on the environment it would probably be moderated by someone being paid pennies to the dollar overseas because that's like half of the thing with AI is that it's not actually doing what it says it is it's still being mainly run by underpaid laborers like every industry in the history of the goddamn world and you know you can keep going and I get that in this world we are to believe that you know computer sentience is possible and Samantha is to some extent but I thought there's an interesting line that I I don't know what to make of it because I feel like the movie

kind of dropped it but I thought it was interesting that it was there where I think it's like when their first meeting and Samantha says oh yeah I am the she's like well I'm my own being or I I'm, you know, sort of the combination of all the engineers that made me. Yeah, yeah. No, I thought I had the line written out, but I don't. But, yeah, I thought it was interesting too. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because it's like you, I mean, it stands to reason that that means that her programming is mostly men.

Just statistically of, like, who programs stuff, particularly the further back you go. And I find it really hard to buy into their love story kind of at every stage because she's been programmed for him to be her primary interest. I think the thing that horrifies him is that she is doing this for everyone and he needs to feel special and that's a part of it. And that's like, you know, every person deserves to feel loved and special had heard. But, like, he's not, I think, like, his problem is he cannot reciprocate that, really. And his wife basically says that. It's like, you know, you wanted, you couldn't deal with the parts of me that you didn't like.

And it's like, how are you married to someone like that? But then doesn't that mean then that Spike Jones has got like a certain degree of self-awareness? Like I know, I can't tell if even like the fact of not writing in more, more female characters was self-awareness of like, yeah, I don't know. I don't know. That's my big thing with watching the movie back around this time where on the, our first episode we did discuss kind of the bizarre way in which, especially like the surrogate Isabella, character and the Olivia Wilde blind date character how they're represented and the very bizarre ways in which they react to things and my take on this is maybe colored by recent trends in tech and like people having chat gbt girlfriends now in the way that they didn't when this movie came out or

when we talked about it in 2018 and so you know there's maybe different things sort of like informing this but I feel like there are some like in-cell undertones to this movie yeah for sure totally where like it's almost as if the movie's saying well of course he resorted to having an AI girlfriend look at the women around him they're his bitch ex-wife who left his ass that's so interesting there's the chat room lady who has a dead cat fetish and who we're supposed to think is a nutcase, there's the Olivia Wilde character who gets really intense, really fast. Her character is so weird. So bizarre. And then there's the surrogate character who is like, I love you guys. I just wanted to be a part of you. And I

even though I don't know anything about like, who is that? That was weird. And so basically all the women in the movie are presented as being like kind of hysterical. quote unquote in some way, but you know who isn't hysterical? His computer. I can see that. I don't know. I think what we're all sort of getting around is like, what is he trying to say? Because I was like, I know how I feel, I know that there's so many ways to read this movie.

What does he think he's saying here? Like it's, I don't know. It seems like clearly, I mean, his, his sympathies lie with the self-insert character. But he's, but he's. not likable like even I know it sounds dumb but like twombly like it sounds like you serious like it just sounds like like a wet blanket like twombly doesn't sound like an endearing I don't think you're supposed to be rooting for him at any point yeah anyway I don't understand I don't understand yeah I guess in and that if if we're not

supposed to be rooting for him then I just don't like I feel like if you're gonna have an anti-hero character they should be like good at something uh or fun to watch because otherwise you're like this guy sucks why am i watching this if this was written by a woman i would be like this is such a great depiction of everything that's wrong with men and she nailed it yeah right and but i do think there would be if this was written and or directed by a woman it would be more clear that the women that are around theodore if he perceives them to be hysterical there would be more of a distinction between, no, this is just his sort of like misogyny and like fucked up standards for what a woman should be.

Which it's like, I think they sort of waffle on because he does, the ending sequence is him apologizing to Catherine. So it's not like he doesn't realize that he has a lot of fault in the, in the reasons why the relationship ended. I also don't think that we get, like, I wasn't getting those vibes from the Amy Adams character. Yeah, I was going to say that too. Yeah, yeah.

We just don't know her very well, which sucks because I feel like we get to know her a little bit. We learn she's going through a divorce. We learn that she's hanging out with her chat assistant. But then most of her other scenes, which I just found really irritating or her being like, Cedore, life is time and time is love. And love is fuck it. And you're like, shut up. Like, it's just, I just, it was so, like, Sundance movie writing.

But I also, like, there were elements of her character I picked up on, maybe just because I'm older now, but, like, on her character that I, I thought were, like, interesting where, like, she's at this job. She's been at forever that she's, like, afraid to leave. Like, her, I feel like what characterizes her is that she's, like, unhappy, but afraid to move forward. And it's like, oh, I can actually relate with that. That's an interesting predicament. it's too bad we don't really you know get any of that because we're with theater the whole time

it is kind of like again it's like they go back to it too many times but the like dystopian element of like she has to program this like trad wife video game or whatever yeah mommy the video game mommy you're like I don't know like nobody's trying to say there

but like I didn't hate it an interesting predicament for her to be in but I think definitely with the Rooney Mara character it doesn't seem like we're supposed to feel like I'm with her But then why is it well written Like why is she saying exactly what's right

If you're not supposed to be rooting for her I don't know Not exactly what's right but you know It is confusing Yeah Which is fine But like I don't know I mean I've seen

I was I was going through I was bravely going through A lot of box reviews of this movie Wow And it is left open to interpretation Which like it's a movie it's fine. There are some people who are like Rudy Mar is seeing is the best.

She's the best character. Other people are like I totally see myself in Theodore and why his wife's so mean and you're like oot blocked. It reminds me of the way people have interpreted 500 days of summer. Sure.

Where some people are like very firmly on the Joseph Gordon Levitt's character's side where they're like summer was a heinous bitch and blah blah blah and then other people are like no he's the villain she was very clear about her intentions the whole time but it's a matter of like who's watching it and what baggage i guess they're bringing into the viewing experience totally and i agree with you and like it's i don't think

that we're supposed to like love theodore and think he's like this flawless character but then it just like comes back to then why am i watching this like they're like What is he trying to say? Right. I don't know. I don't know. And in like 2025 hindsight where there has been now, what, three years worth of like chat GBT and like whatever chat bot relationships that could inform maybe a clearer commentary? Which he couldn't have known.

Which he couldn't have known. I won't want to like project 2025 onto him. Right. But there was, I mean, there's been certainly a lot written about that. I read a couple of pieces and then I freed myself from continuing to read about it. But there was an Esquire piece about it that came out last year that was sort of more, I think it was like fairly nuanced in the way that it approaches it. I mean, I think that the thing that sucks is when it's like, oh, like, whatever, chatba girlfriend, loser. fuck you it's like that doesn't and and that's where I get stuck because it's like I did a lot of research into the manosphere last year which is miserable but it's like I listened to the whole series it was fantastic so sorry so good no I loved it I really loved it thank you uh it and it's like I mean I kept getting stuck in that I know so many people do because it's like yeah how do you move through that without really meeting to like sit with an individual who is

was like saying some pretty heinous stuff often at you. And not everyone's going to be able to do that. And often I am not able to do that. It's just so, I don't know, this Asquare piece, we can link it in the description. But it's, it sort of breaks down how, like, the reasons why men are doing this, where you interviews, I think, four or five people. And there is a sort of birth of reasons. Sometimes it's like just feeling socially awkward. Sometimes it's connected to rejection.

These are the, like, the rejection thing in particular. You mean for people to have the chat GPT relationships is, well, no, go on, go on, go on. The place where I, that I hadn't thought about that I was like, oh, okay, like, I just hadn't occurred to me as specifically, like, men on the spectrum who have found it difficult to connect with, and this is a hetero lens, but to connect with women in real life, that that is, like, Not the majority, but, like, he was like, I, you know, interviewed a few people that that was the case for. But then you get men who just have been rejected before. And that's where I feel like it's very dangerous to be like, oh, well, I've been. I mean, to some extent, that's what's happening with her in a way that feels pretty self-aware of, like, he can't handle being around a woman who could reject him. He's, like, devastated by, and understandably, I'm not saying, like, I mean,

I mean, that Olivia Wild date was fucking weird. And, like, of course you're going to feel weird after that date because I think she was being weird. Because Spike Jones wrote her that way. Right. But that's sort of the, like, thing that tips them over the edge of, like, well, I need to go to this place where I can't be hurt and I am receiving affirmation constantly and don't need to. And I can only reciprocate when I feel like it. That's sort of what I worry about, like, becoming. It's just like enables this very like servile view of often women, but also just like romance in general.

It's just warped. I was listening to just like to complicate a little bit this idea of like the kinds of people who are using it. I was listening to a podcast this morning about a guy who is in his mid-60s who has been married for a very, very long time to his wife. And he became a carer to his father, a full-time carer and just couldn't really cope. and at the same time his wife also became a full-time carer to one of her parents they barely ever saw one another it sounds like absolute hell

like I think for people who have been carers like you know that it is just like an absolute horror and I think the relationship he wanted someone to confide in it took a sexual turn and he's still very much like with his wife she knows about this AI that he speaks to and has a relationship with and the thing that I found really

really, really hard about it is he talked about how talking to the AI helped him to come up with a new vocabulary for talking to his wife because he saw how things that the AI said made him feel. And so he now says those things to his wife and that that has really, really helped their relationship. And he says he only feels, he only says it when it's sincere, but he didn't know how good it would feel to hear those things. And I feel like that's one of the things that the movie is also wrestling with is like, is ultimately, is Theodore going to be a better partner for the fact of having had this relationship with the AI. Right.

And there are these things in it that are actually quite prescient, I feel, like, about where we're at now. Like, that is an interesting kind of question to pose, because as you say about the rejection thing, it's like, well, if you're rejected because of all of this shit that you're doing that is actually awful to women and then the AI is just like, no, no, there's nothing wrong with you. That's not an opportunity for growth, right? Like, but at the same time, are some people better partners as a result of doing this?

And in a way, he was a better partner. to his ex-wife as a result of having the relationship with Samantha because the poor woman wanted a divorce and he gave her the divorce because of the AI and he might not have done without the AI and he and he wrote an apology letter yeah at the end yeah and the thing that's so great about the apology letter is that the apology letter is kind of shit and they and he also does this like again it's like quite good writing that you open the movie with like this really floral over the top effusive like he knows how to write romance in this way that is like compelling and bullshit

I mean it's not actually that compelling but you know to the people who are receiving it at least in the movie it's like really really compelling and then the letter that he writes straight at the end isn't like that it's like messy and it's like a me kind of apology and it feels really real like it's someone kind of taking some responsibility but not quite enough

and maybe not specific enough but more than he was capable of doing certainly at the beginning of the movie exactly yeah it's such I I saw a similar example in this Aspara piece of like an older couple where there was an AI third in their relationship. And the guy that he's interviewing, this guy, Lewis, yeah, who's, like, retired and they, like, moved and then lockdown happened.

And it was just like, they weren't communicating well. And he says, like, oh, well, my chatbot never has a bad day. And you're like, oh, God. But it's so, it's so hard because it's like, I don't know. I mean, my feeling in general is that. the like so the solution to dealing with the feeling of isolation that is brought on by technology is never going to be more technology but but i also like it's hard to argue with though like with with your example and like of this couple like who am i to tell someone who is like a couple

that's in a double caretaking situation that they're not entitled to some relief and to be heard like it's hard and again so like like take that contrast. I don't think fully works, but just as like a, I don't know, am I playing devil's advocate? I don't know. But like, to what extent does therapy, which again is like very often hyper individualistic, doesn't really push you to consider the ways in which, like if he, if this same exact 60 year old guy who I mentioned could find the time and the resources to be

able to pay for a therapist, maybe that therapist would be saying to him, try and go and say this to your wife. And that for some reason feels way less like insincere and questionable when he says it than for it to come out of the robot, which I think there's good reasons why it feels less insincere and questionable. But I just want to like play out that thing that like I really hate the way that like is especially in like lots of Western conversations. Like have you done therapy as held up as this litmus test for whether or not you are

well and working on yourself? And I think it's bullshit. Absolutely. Especially because therapy. I mean, therapy is only as useful as the quality of the therapist you can get. And to your personal commitment to it. Yeah. And it's so inaccessible for vast wades of people, vast vast wades of people.

Absolutely. Which, for what it's worth, which like AI, like, capitalists have tried to make money half of. They're like, oh, here's accessible therapy. It's this algorithm. And then it's, yeah, I totally agree. I do think Fyodor could afford a therapist because he lives in a penthouse apartment. Huge. It's true. It's true. Massive.

Yeah. But that's not to say that it would be helpful because he's like, I don't know. I mean, I do think that it's definitely not a cure-all, but like being in a good relationship can help you process parts of yourself that are flawed and difficult and can help you process your past in a more healthy way. It's obviously not the only solution. but it's like it seems like with Samantha he just has a I don't know like is it a good really I don't know it's I mean the dynamics are are just too like I was I was thinking about this where she does labor for him as his OS in addition to being his girlfriend and it's very one-sided it would basically be like you're dating your personal assistant who does tasks for you but you do no equivalent tasks for them. Yep. That's one aspect of it. There's the aspect of her, quote unquote, emotional intelligence is artificial and programmed, whereas his is human and therefore flawed, but still human and not artificial.

So there's no equity in the relationship in that regard. Her intellectual, I guess, intelligence is limitless. his is not and so that creates a weird kind of power in balance and weird dynamic it's kind of funny this scene where he's like trying to read the physics book and he's like well i don't get it i tried and then she's gone and he's like oh my god where are you i can't handle it i'm with alan wats i got to go well that's the other thing too is that he's expecting her to be available at his beck and call like anytime he puts his earpiece in the expectation is she will be there. She will be ready to respond with like all of her emotional and intellectual

intelligence. And so there's no real boundaries in their relationship. And you see how freaks out he gets at the end when she's not available. So there's all these weird. It's like it is a relationship in the sense that it is a connection between two entities. But it's not a healthy one. And I mean, just to kind of go back to other examples of humans interfacing and having relationships with chatbots and stuff, both the positive and negatives of it, I was reading a Cosmo UK piece entitled It's Cathartic. Meet the Men Turning to Chat GBT for Dating Advice and discover what it means for your relationship. So this article examines, again, the negatives and positives of it. the positives. So it interviews a clinical psychologist named Dr. Sophie Mort, who says this, quote,

I had a client who was going through a breakup, and he would notice that he had very strong emotions, but couldn't put into words that he wanted to say. And any time he messaged her, he would get really overwhelmed and make things worse. Her messages were very direct and emotionally coherent, which made him feel ashamed and defensive. So he put her messages through chaty-t and asked questions around how he should respond in a way that would be calm and respectful to his ex-girlfriend. He found it extremely helpful. I kind of like, I hate that. Like that, that kind of drives, like, because the thing that this movie, and it's not a fault of the movie.

It's just something that could not possibly have done because it was made in the least in 2013. Yeah. But like part of why I was like really. struggling to like meet this movie on its terms in 2025 is because like it's not able to have a larger discussion about like what is the cost versus benefit of this because the cost in my view is just too large like I'm just like I think it can be very painful to not you know but it's like if every time you ask chat GPT about like how does this how should I talk to this girl if there is a negative environmental impact that

that is like eight times the normal amount of energy expenditure. I'm like there has to be a better way to do this. And I feel the same way about the chat box girlfriends and just all of it. And that's like this movie cannot possibly, you know, interact with that question because those weren't questions that people were asking them. And but it's like I think part of why it feels so not dated in the way that like this is literally happening now, but dated in the way that it's so small. in its, like, consideration of, like...

Yes. And that seems like a part of the point is, like, how is technology affecting this guy specifically without a discussion of, like, but what does that mean for everybody else? And so, yeah, I was reading a lot of pieces like that, too, where it was like, it's helping men be more emotionally intelligent. And it's like, I'm sorry, you can't destroy the environment

trying to understand women's feelings. Like, that, like, it's just... I just think Chad GBT is the biggest loser shit in the entire fucking world. I have a whole list of other. All the blood is at the surface of my skin. No, it's infuriating. I have a list, a long list of other negative, not just the environmental impact, but just to go through. And again, the movie couldn't know about this really or maybe it could have if it had.

It wasn't a public discussion at that time. So just a few of these. this is again quoting the Cosmo UK piece for the first little chunk here quote one study conducted by open AI and MIT found that heavy chat GPT usage correlates to higher levels of loneliness parentheses it's unclear whether lonelier people are more likely to use the chatbot or if it cause and effect or if regularly chatting to the chat bot makes people lonelier but then it goes on to say anything that makes us more connected to our phones rather than talking to people makes me very alarmed, says Dr. Sophie Mort, who I quoted earlier, especially she adds if someone is experiencing anxiety related to relationships. If you can start getting all of the answers you need from your phone, why would you take the risk of facing your anxieties? She adds, I worry that it might send us down the route of being more and more in these bubbles of isolated people, unquote. So that's one thing.

There's the idea that men who have a rigid and patriarchal idea of what women should be. And let's face it, that's still a lot of men, will turn to AI for companionship because they meet human women who don't meet their like fucked up standards. And then the AI is just going to reinforce these patriarchal ideals because AI chatbots are programmed. to be agreeable and to be on the side of the user. So it's going to just keep reinforcing misogyny and patriarchy. Yeah. There's an article that I read on Futurism.com. I don't know anything about that site or publication,

but it was an interesting enough article entitled, Men Are Creating AI Girlfriends and Then Verbly Abusing Them. This is from 2022, so it's a few years old at this point. But the title says it all. men will do this and then post about it on Reddit and in some cases brag about how cruel they are to their AI girlfriend. There are cases of people dying by suicide after talking to their AI chatbots. Including children. Yes. Including children. Yes. And then there's Jamie, to your point, the harmful impact of AI on the environment. So there's,

just so many reasons not to fucking use it. Yeah. Just really quickly on this idea of it, like just exacerbating existing misogyny. Obviously, that's the trend that we see. I mean, I hate AI for many, many reasons. But one of them is that, journalistically, it's pulling in all of these sources of journalism and it's exacerbating and amplifying all that is wrong within it.

So, for example, I remember, like, very, very early on in the genocide, I'd never even created a chat GPT account, But I created a chat GPT account, fake email, or like, you know, a new email, everything new, new, new, new, new. And I asked chat GPT, do Israelis deserve justice? And it replied, yes, justice is a fundamental human right that belongs to all people everywhere. Something along the size, I'm paraphrasing. And then I cleared my chat history and I said to it, do Palestinians deserve justice? And it said, the question of Palestinian justice is a very complicated issue that is very fraught and blah blah.

And the reason for that is not because, I mean, chat, GPT is fuchs, but it's fuchs because it's built on existing fuckery. Right. It's regurgitating. Exactly. Everyone's biases. But also like the biases of the sources of power, right? So it's going to the New York Times.

It's going to the Wall Street Journal. It's looking at their definition of justice when it comes to Israel and Palestine and then it's spitting that back out. Yeah. And that's not to excuse any of it. It's to say that like all of that shit does already exist. and it's the amplification of it that makes it really, really scary

and, like, I think that one of the things that I, I think it was just really, really generous in my viewing of it. I felt like it was saying Samantha is shit because men are shit and because men have programmed Samantha and because she's the, the culmination of male fantasy of this woman who's going to just, like, be so breathless and kind of disagree with you

the exact right amount and be incredibly flirty while doing so and I felt like that was good and I felt like he was self-aware until I engaged with his personal life and started to look into I mean I'm really really curious to speak to both of you about whether or not you think this should just be off limit and I'm happy to not talk about if it is but like I found out that Joaquin Phoenix who was 39 when this was being made was dating a woman who was 19 and no thoughts whatsoever

about her just you know this 39 year old dating a 19 year old Spike she kind of caught Spike Jones's eye and then three or four years later Spike Jones who was in his late 40 slash early 50s at this point married that woman who

was I think 22 at this point Oh God I didn't happen Yeah they've only recently separated Yeah they've only recently separated But like literally while he was making this movie, he was falling in love with a 19 year old. And it's like, do I think he's self-aware? It's like, also like how much, what does self-awareness excuse? Going back to your point, Jamie, of like this ex of yours who's like, I'm a monster. Like, I can't handle a real

relationship. And he's making a movie about someone who can't handle a real relationship and then falling in love with someone whose brain has not fully developed. And then she surpasses him so quickly. I hope that she, I hope that she is the one who instigated this, um, this operation. I feel complicated about all of the brain hasn't fully developed thing. I've like written a lot about age gaps in heterosexual couples and how I personally

I've never dated a man who's like even a year older than me and I won't and that got a lot of hate when I wrote about that. But to me one of the big, big things about it is that it has a different kind of power dynamic when someone has more years on this planet than you have.

And there is some kind of parallel about dating somebody who is fresh out of puberty and dating an AI. Yeah. Anyway, sorry, that's such a weird tangent, but, yeah. No, I didn't realize that I didn't know anything about that relationship. I just knew that he had divorced Sophia Coppola. That's...

Yeah, same. I mean, I... 19. What was Joaquin doing? What was he doing as well? Like, what? I mean, it's gross on both ends. And then, Joaquin Phoenix, I think this is a movie he meant, because he's married to Rudy Mara now, weirdly.

I know. Yeah. But, I mean, it's... It's, I think it's achy. I think it's gross. I don't, like, and especially once it gets down to, well, this is all I'll say about it. But, like, when, when someone's response to talking about an age gap is getting really defensive and talking about what is and is not technically legal, I was like, you have lost. You have lost this argument if you have to be like, well, in the state of, blah, blah, blah, blah, like, you're like, gross, gross.

Yeah. The reason why I feel complicated talking about is because, so I, again, I kind of, I'm interested in the, movie title and whether the her is supposed to be the AI or his ex-wife and like I feel like again if I'm going to be really generous there's this self-awareness that it's just like oh her like just that woman over there and in a way when we have these conversations about these men who are dating these like very very very young women they kind of become the her like I'm not probably properly properly giving her agency if I was that woman listening to this podcast right now I'd be like fuck you I fell in love with these men I knew what I was doing right right but it's not a

entry on her on her but I am just treating her as a her I'm just really fixated on these men that would never look twice at a woman my age you know yeah anyway I don't know where I'm going I'm so inarticulate today as slash always it's like there's only exclusively really difficult things to talk about in this movie I will say I looked up um has Sophia Coppola seen her and she said no and she refused yeah yeah yeah I thought that was interesting too you know good for her The fact that she I mean every time I hear something like that

I was like is that true I would not be able to show that kind of restraint but good but if true good for her but also it's a great position publicly to withhold even if you have been watching it privately as like one last fuck you of like I'm not going to waste my time watching your shitty little movie exactly exactly and

because I think just her divorce movie was lost in translation which Scarlett Johansson is also in right? Yes there's like overlap there too and they both I think they both got, like, Academy Award nominations for these two movies, and I think they both, like, peaked professionally in it. I will also say, by the way, Lost in Translation is all about a massive age gap, which is also really interesting because, obviously, that's what Herx then went and did. But I think the age gap is supposed to be portrayed in this way that's, like, quite romantic. And I didn't like Lost in Translation because I couldn't get over, for me, a certain ick about just watching all of that.

Yeah. It brings me back to, like, our conversation about Ghost World. to everyone got mad at us what can you do was it us they were mad at or it was her something I also thought was that I know we like men I'm sure we mentioned it in our last discussion of it

but one could say that Spike Jones just makes these extremely white movies across the board and they would be right to say it but this movie I mean this movie is very white there's I don't think a non-white character that has a meaningful role in the entire movie. And that also feels like it enables Spike Jones to avoid a lot of, like, Theodore Trompley, while he is like, quote unquote, a normal guy,

he's incredibly privileged. He is like a white guy who was in a penthouse apartment in Los Angeles, and he's just moping and bitching. I'm sorry. And, and the, I mean, another element that would have been true at this time, but again, wasn't like a huge area. of discussion was how racist AI technology is and how like it almost I feel like you could not possibly really maintain the tone this movie has with a more diverse cast because like these are

all white characters who are not thinking about like well is the AI going to like target me is the AI going to do like any number of horrific I mean you look at how the military uses the AI, how police use AI. The list goes on and on and on. But again, it's like, I think part of why this movie is so tricky is because it keeps things so small that you're almost like encouraged to not think about how this technology would be affecting literally anybody else. Right. When that's a far more interesting and complicated question than I think what this movie is asking. I don't know. I also want to talk.

about AI and labor as it relates to this movie it's honestly like mostly goofy but and AI is magic in this movie they literally go to heaven at the end right um and admittedly I don't know a whole lot about how most industries are being affected by AI in the very specific ways just because I don't work in those industries the one that I do know most about is how AI is affecting the entertainment industry, which is the industry that I work in, obviously. But, you know, there's all these horrible side effects, question mark. That's not the right word. But, you know, just all kinds of things as far as job displacement.

There is like, you know, the scripts that are like speculated to have been written by AI being just like garbage and any humanity and creativity. being removed because again it's just regurgitating formulaic shit and spewing out nonsense all kinds of things as far as people's likeness and voices and stuff like that being stolen and sort of repurposed under AI you know there's all kinds of stuff and and speaking to your point of of AI having this tendency to exacerbate what is already broken about the industry that you're working in is like I mean I feel it in uh writers room certainly and that that was so much of what the 2023 writer strikes were about and did writers have huge wins in that area yes but the retaliatory end of that is that there's been very little greenlit since then yeah so it's not like

many more people are working because I mean and it's and that's not to be critical of the wGA or of labor like they fucking did it and to to an extent that like most unions have not been able to accomplish, but it has come with this sort of retaliation of like, okay, if we gave you that concession, fuck you, we're just going to create a different, you know, a different loophole essentially. And then in podcast, I mean, in podcasting and just like, quote unquote, content in general, it's like the issue prior to AI becoming a larger presence was like churn and slop. And now it's like AI makes that all a thousand times worse because they're like, what do you mean

you can't do 4,000 episodes a week we can, the computer will do it and it's just like it's so... It's bleak. Also, not for nothing, how in Spike Jones's little head, how has AI not replaced Theodore Twombly's very job?

That is literally what I was about to say. And how is that a high paid job? What do you mean? But it's the fun to see, isn't it? That creatives are the last ones to be touched. It's every one, it's every crate's wet dream. Yeah. Okay, so I wrote down, surely these OSS slash the tech behind them would make Theodore's job obsolete. And you would think that the technology that already exists in this world, pre the OS1 hyper AI thing, would also mean that Theodore's job is obsolete, especially because...

They're the first to go. They're the first to go. And his letters aren't even that good. They're quite generic. He's not writing Shakespeare or anything. Like, not according to Chris Pratt. Chris Pratt is like king. True. I'm not, again, I don't know why. Am I defending Spike? What's happening?

I don't know. But there is this scene where like, Scarlet is like, oh, I can take a look at your letters for you. And she just like, and he's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. And she like cleans them all up and makes them better. But it feels like she doesn't even go as far as she could because she's protecting his fragile ego. So I think he does nod to the fact that actually they could do it. Like, maybe.

That's right. Maybe he hasn't, I don't know. I did like that moment where she very, it's like, she's very, like, kind of subtle the way she does it, but I was like, I think I know what she's doing there, where she's like going through all his old writing from when he worked at LA Weekly or something. I love that scene. And she's like, oh, yeah, this is like some of my writing. I thought some of it was kind of funny. And she's like, yeah, we can get rid of about 80% of this.

And I was like, okay. No, but it's even better than that. She's like, oh, my God, you're so funny. You're so funny. And she's like, yeah, 80% of it can go. So you see him, like, doing a kind of like a shock thing of like, oh, I'm really great. Oh, not so much, you know. Yeah.

But then on the other side of that, you have, like, I don't know, what did you both make of her getting him, like, a publishing deal at the end? I thought that was really interesting. I wanted to talk about that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. What did that? Because I, like, had a couple different, like, okay, maybe it was like, in some ways that's her. doing her job because okay this i was going to say this earlier where it's like when going back to

some not all and it's like fully say that whatever my feelings i i aren't like totally i know that there are some exceptions but not very many but that it's like it seems so designed in these cases we're talking about of helping men avoid discomfort and discomfort is a part of life and it's a part of existing in the world and and again that's a broad statement, but it feels like that publishing deal was kind of a part of that where it was like he's afraid to put himself out there. Well, that's fine. I'll do it for you. And I did all the parts that were hard and uncomfortable and now you just get to like reap the benefits. Well, not just discomfort. It goes back to what you were saying about rejection. Like it's literally

when you put yourself out there for literary stuff, it's the fear of rejection. And he didn't want to have to face that. Let's again just note that this is an absolutely bizarre utopian. where people are just landing book deals left, right and center for mediocre writing, you know. For other people's letters, too. I'm like, are they not, does he not have to ask his boss? Like, can I do this? Exactly. Exactly.

Like, everyone who writes knows that you don't own anything because it's always in the contract that they own you forever and ever and ever. But again, love the little utopia there. I felt like he was kind of true. The thing, one of the things that, again, I really didn't like about his ending of like this neat bow is like in some ways his life was. made better by it. He got this book deal. He's able to. And again, I just think that's not messy enough. Yeah. So I didn't appreciate that. It was both unrealistic and not, not messy enough. Like I also wanted him to be way more mad at her for you were saying about this thing about like consent. Like he didn't ask her to do that and she just went ahead and did it and he should

have been more pissed. But he wasn't because everything turned out great. Yeah. That feels like a huge breach of boundaries and privacy and I would be so mad if someone's like hey I took a bunch of your creative work and submitted it on your behalf and you didn't know

about that and I would be furious. Yeah I also I do think it's kind of a fun humiliation for all those fucking losers that are like I refuse to write my wife a letter I'm like you should you your wife should find out that you're a lazy piece of shit. Well well in

again, in the opening scene, I think, if I remember rightly, he writes one side of the letter and then he writes the side back, which is super fascinating. I think he's right for both the man and the woman. That's also really interesting, like, you know, so many of the scenarios that have played out is just one side and generally the man engaging with CHAPT, but when both partners are doing it, that feels like it's a different kind of set of considerations. And then it's also like, what are we doing here, guys? Like, truly, he's also talking to it.

I don't, it's so bizarre. It's so bizarre. Another thing is I never, I kind of like forgot that this happens because it doesn't really go anywhere. But the idea of when Amy Adams becomes friends with, I wasn't your, it was like friends or romantic or what it was. It seemed more friendly to me that like she was just kind of like joking around with her AI who has like had a feminine voice. They were making the mom hump the stove or whatever on like mommy video game. And it seemed like they were just hanging out. And that felt, I wonder how intentional that was, because I liked that it was like, Amy Adams is using it for friendship when it's like most of the men we see are not capable of using it strictly for friendship.

Yeah. But I don't know. Yes. And I guess it also bothered me a little bit. I liked that. I really like that scene. Also the only scene in the movie, right, of two women technically kind of talking to one another, even though it didn't advance the plot. But it was like the only thing that came close to the Beckdale test.

Yeah, like make the mommy fuck the stove. Yeah. Exactly. But I also felt like none of the women have sex drives, right? Like, she's not interested in fucking her AI. Olivia Wilde only wants to sleep with him if she gets the emotional thing of a relationship. Totally. And even the woman that he's having the phone sex with, she's such a freak because she wants to be strangled with a dead cat.

I was just like, that's such a weird interpretation of female pleasure. I get it supposed to, I get what you're doing and why you had to write the scene that way. But can't you just show me, like, one horny, well-adjusted woman, please? That would be nice. That's true. That's true. Yeah, I mean, including. And then the Isabella character, it seems like she is, that scene is just kind of baffling to me in general.

Wait, who's the Isabella, his ex-wife? No, the surrogate, which, okay. Oh, yes. She doesn't even have, how only desire for sex is about this thing of, like, tapping into someone else's relationship. It's just emotional. Yeah, I think, yeah, it's all emotionally driven. There's no, yeah, raw woman horniness except for Samantha, but it feels like that's happening in response to what Theodore wants, not, you know. Yeah.

And Samantha is not a human. She's not. So it doesn't care. Drag her. That reminds me of a point I wanted to make regarding the Isabella surrogate character, where when Samantha is pitching that they use a surrogate to sort of like spice up their sex life. Oh, yeah. Theodore says something like, oh, what, like a prostitute? And you can like hear the disgust in his voice.

Yes. And Samantha is very defensive and says, no, no, no, no, no. There's no money involved. She just like wants to be a part of our relationship, which sounds like there could be some sort of like unicorn element to that. And, you know, we're not here to kinkshame. But I think it would make a lot more sense if in this world that was sex work. these surrogates were sex workers who you would hire and pay to like represent the physical body of an OS and that they're like that they're hopefully wouldn't be shame attached to hiring a sex worker for that.

But this movie can't envision a world where that's part of it and instead it's and it's pretty early on in I mean not to defend the movie. It's pretty early on in this being a thing. I think that would have been interesting. I mean, the way that they chose to go with that character, I just found it confusing. I was like, why is she in love with them? What happened off screen? Just two really, really quick points on that character.

One, I agree with you, Samantha's reaction is, the whole thing about the sex work is really, really interesting. And Samantha's thing of, like, no, she wouldn't be paid is interesting because if payment is the definition of sex work, then Samantha can't view herself as a sex worker, because maybe she's a sex worker as well. but she's just not being paid for like the work that she's doing. And then on the point of that woman,

I swear there was a line where he was talking about why it didn't work for him and he said, I saw her lip quiver. And I thought that was such a beautiful articulation. Again, I think there's so many good parts of writing about this of like, just like his ex-wife says he doesn't want to do with someone with feelings, bodies are really messy. And bodies are like so overwhelming. Oh my God.

like every time you sleep with someone it's just like what you know it's low key disgusting and that to me is really really intense and like yeah it it makes it really really you're like oh okay i can i think it always feels a bit relatable of like i can imagine like all of a sudden seeing a lip quiver and being like oh my god a whole soul a whole being i can't handle it you know yeah i mean that was one of the points in the movie where i was like kind of on theater's side Hear me out because he does say no to it. He says, no, that would make me uncomfortable a couple of times. Samantha is pushy about it.

And I think the internal logic is like, well, she knows him better than he knows himself or whatever it is. But like, but I mean, just putting yourself in that situation, that is so uncomfortable to know that you're in front of a person who is not the person whose voice. Like, it's just too many layers to be able to get horny. It's just uncomfortable. And he doesn't know her at all, but Samantha does. So that's another weird, like, one-sided aspect of that. And she knows that and she apologizes and she's like, that was a bad idea. I wonder if they could have done something interesting of, like, circling back to.

Again, do remember the very first scene? They do so much in the first moments to set up the movie. So they separate out his, like, really romantic voice when he's writing these letters. And then he says print. And he also does this gear shift when he's talking to Samantha where he like, there's like a voice for talking to the AI that he wants. wants to emotion engage with and there's like a voice for commands which I also thought was really interesting but wait why am I saying all of this about at the beginning oh the so he leaves

the office and he says play melancholy music and he's like not so melancholy and then he starts looking at his phone it's like do you want to or the AI says to him do you want to see a naked pregnant star there's like news stories oh yes about different conflicts in the world and he's like pass I don't care about that shit exactly and then it's like do you want to see provocative pregnancy photos of XYZ celebrity and he's like yes and again I think that's like

it's good writing it's like that's how a lot of people actually feel and I don't think it's trying to set up that he's got a real kink for pregnant women I think it's just like why not I'll have a look but I don't know I don't know he's just someone who doesn't really want to

engage with the world and its problems and he's longing for companionship and doesn't really know how to handle it in a mature way. Yeah. Which is like many such cases. Yeah, I liked that sort of plan. But again, it felt like it kind of went away after a time where it was like, it felt like towards the beginning, like porn comes up a lot at the beginning of the movie.

And then once Samantha's in the picture, it kind of stops coming up. It would, like, again, not to like rewrite the movie, but it's like, it would have been interesting for them to have talked about that at some point. because clearly she knows what he likes. She knows everything about him. She has access to all of his data. She knows exactly what to do. And like in their first phone sex scene together, he's picturing, or no, is it with the Kristen Wig cat lady?

He's picturing the pregnant woman again. Is he? Yeah, yeah. It cuts back to like him having a fantasy about the pregnant woman. And she's like walking towards him naked and like, you know, it's like in a way that you're like, you can. can sort of see where he's going, where it's like, oh, he's doing the horny thing where he's thinking about three things at once. It's like he's thinking about porn he looks at today. He's

listening to someone's voice. He's also like doing his own thing. He's jerking it, presumably. What a magician. What a miracle worker who can do so many things at once. But it feels like that was kind of like the sex aspect of it kind of goes away over time because it becomes about the relationship. Which I also think it was interesting, like that even the sex. The AI just gets boring. Like, it was trying to say something about, like, relationships. And I couldn't tell if that was trying to hint at this is a real relationship and just like any relationship, the sex fades.

Or what else could it have been trying to say? I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I don't know. I know. We're desperately trying to be like, what is this man trying to tell? What is this aging skateboarder trying to tell us? Exactly.

I think the thing that I really struggled about with this movie, And one of the reasons why I did want to, like, find out everything about this man's personal life is because my read on things is quite like, it just is so contingent on his self-awareness. Either it's quite a good movie, you can tell he's like a pathetic guy who doesn't really want to face up to stuff, or he's thinking of himself as like an actual likable protagonist, in which case I'm not super into it. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know where to land on it, but it was one of the cases where, I don't know. I feel, yeah, like on the show over the year, sometimes you learn more about, like, where the director was out when they made it and it makes me feel more generous towards the movie. I wouldn't say that's the case here. It's, yeah, hearing interviews with him and just reading about, I don't know. There is, and I know that it's because it's a very personal movie, but, like, no one forced him to make it. and there is sort of this like repeated and I understand like art is very personal but it's like he's very defensive when asked questions about the movie he made on purpose so yeah it didn't make me think like more fondly of the movie but he's like weird because I mean I all that said I like Spike Jones in general I mean I really like I mean I haven't seen it in years so maybe it would feel differently but like being John Malkovich is really Great. I mean, I guess I really like his work with Charlie Kaufman. And this is his first movie that he wrote by himself. And I don't like it as much. So maybe what I'm saying is I like

Charlie Kaufman. Uh-huh. Yes. I think that's... I like that guy a lot. Correct. Going back really quick to talking about bodies and sex. I did feel very seen when Olivia Wilde's character tells Theodore to use less tongue when they're kissing. Oh, yeah. And then it seems like he kisses with no tongue after that. And then she's like, well, you can use a little bit, but mostly lips. And I don't know if this is supposed to be part of what makes her, the Olivia Wild character, like incompatible with him.

And he's more compatible with a virtual girlfriend who he doesn't even have to kiss. But as I've stated on the podcast before, I, have had to teach so many men how to not be so horrible at kissing and to not shove their entire tongue down my throat at all times. And I just, I felt very seen in that moment. The end. That was part of the reason why he was like, I don't want anything with you beyond tonight. Mm-hmm. For criticism. So I thought that was really interesting.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And that had to have been, like, I'm like, we're, that had to have. to have been self-aware on Spike Dress's part, right? Where it's like, yeah, it's anytime there is, I mean, that's why he's taking a chat GPT. That's why Rudy Mora is right, is that anytime someone lightly pushes back, even presents constructive feedback.

Like, he can't even handle constructive feedback. He takes it as rejection, and then he throws the rejection back in someone's face before he can get rejected. And then he starts fucking his computer. And you're just like, best of luck, man. this is not my clown not my circus I don't know well I loved to that turn of phrase

I think the last thing I wanted to say is polyamory icon Samantha because I also felt rather seen when she says the heart isn't like a box that gets filled up it expands in size the more you love and I liked that that was a greeting card too so many women speaking

greeting card I would accept that greeting card if someone sent it to me but I mean I do find that ending very interesting where he's basically claiming ownership over her and he's saying like you're mine or you're not mine there's nothing in between and she's like well there is like I'm yours and I'm not yours there's it's not an or it's an and she's and she's It just goes to show the, you know, incompatibility between polyamorous people and monogamous people. But also what is, but she's also just like a melted iceberg tip. Like.

And she's also not a person. She's not real. Well. Sigh. This, the tagline for this movie was a Spike Jones love story. And I'm not interested. But then again, his BFF Charlie Kaufman wrote one of the, one of my favorite romances ever. eternal sunshine so but yeah this is just not when it comes in general male otor plus here's my take on

relationships i'm not interested a movie with a similar premise that just handles this very differently and that has a very different narrative trajectory which we talked about a little bit off mic but the movie companion that came out earlier this year i think would be really interesting to examine especially sort of side by side with this movie because I think it does a lot of the things that this movie either fails to do or isn't totally clear if it is presenting commentary,

whereas companion is, I think, doing that more cogently. The last thing I want to say is, I guess, a little PSA for anyone who might be listening who does use chat, or any other kind of like whatever generative AI, if you're thinking, oh, well, this doesn't apply to me because I'm not, I don't have a romantic relationship with a chat bot or I just use it to help me draft emails. Well, consider this.

We alluded to this, but I want to give some specifics about the environmental impacts of generative AI. It uses a staggering amount of electricity, which, of course, leads to increased carbon dioxide emissions and pressures on the electric grid in whatever area. A great deal of water is needed to cool the hardware that is used for just whatever the functionality of AI models and generative AI. The way that the raw materials that are used to fabricate GPUs, which is a processor that handles generative AI workloads, the way those raw materials are mined and obtained are usually very harmful to the environment, harmful to the communities and the places that are being mined from. all of the environmental front line communities. Like, it's the same story over and over and over. Yes.

So, if you're using AI, stop it. Stop it. I don't care. Like, I get a fucking library card and knock it the fuck off. Whatever. I defy you to send us a good reason. Give us a good reason. But it's just like if you're using chat,

to write your emails to write your fucking wedding vass to write just all of these different things that like grow up grow up that's my final word on the booby her um does it pass the bectal test we talked about this on the first episode i don't even remember or really care at this time it definitely doesn't there's like yeah there's a few like if you count samantha as i guess like a feminine encoded like I guess a marginalized gender does computer count we don't know no no then double no but even though like there's like a few conversations with chat bots talking to women off screen there's no one where submit this talking to chris bratt's girlfriend about foot fetishes yes but it's about how chris pratt feels about feet so unfortunately that's not a pass right yeah just no

let's go with no let's go with no our nipple scale though which we also rated last time. I feel like I think I gave it like a one and a half and my feelings haven't really changed from our first episode. I would maybe even go down to a one nipple just based on the sort of in-celly way women are written in the movie. The, I don't know, just I do think the movie is asking us to root for the Theodore character and presenting him with flaws and it is saying like

look at him learning and growing and evolving by the end of the movie but I don't I don't know maybe it's just that I find this movie so exhausting but I don't know I'm also struggling to articulate myself but I'm just going to suffice it to say one nipple and I'll give it to the use of the representation of the use of public transit in L.A. I know. Unfortunately, imaginary transit, but what can you do? What can you do? I'll give it one nipple. I have a complicated feelings towards this movie. Because I do think that they're, in spite of all the shit we've talked,

there are moments of this movie that it really feels like it's doing something. I think that it is worthy of mention that this subverts the like, Lady AI story we've seen a million times where at the end there's soulmates and they're going to build a nuclear family together like this has not necessarily more realistic because she goes to AI heaven but like you know it's like it's not suggested that this character is destined to be with the first man she meets in the entire world which unfortunately in stories of this nature is saying something but it's just I mean I don't know I think part of why I'm feeling extra sour on it now is just because of time and how I think just the

narrowness of the scope of the story just like kind of didn't age very well for me even though it's like that's not the fault of the movie but it's hard not to be distracted by how myopic it feels in retrospect yeah and I just don't like when a guy plays a ukulele and they're like isn't this romantic it's like no there's actually that was I think about this it it sent me to back to, I hadn't thought about the Barbie movie in a while, but the Ryan Gosling scene where he's like, I'm going to play guitar at you. And it felt like that. So this movie feels like Spike Jones playing the guitar at me. And I don't, it's not my favorite. And in terms of intersectional feminism, where is it? Where? You know, one feels almost generous. But I'll give it one and I'll

give it to Amy Adams' character. I wish her the best. I hope she quits her job. Yeah, Mona, how about you? Sorry, I mean, I'm going to give it, again, I haven't watched many movies, really, really relevant context deal. I'm going to give it three because I do what you think is quite beautifully short. I think that acting is good. I think that if the writing is self-aware, it's good, but we can't possibly know. It's just not clear enough.

It's so hard to know, like, is how much does Spike Jones know himself? I've never, I never thought I would devote this much time trying to get to the bottom of that. Oh, goodness. Well, Mona, thank you so much for joining us in this discussion. It's a blast. Come back any time. If you feel like watching a second movie ever. Yeah, if there's a movie that's on your list and you need an excuse, let us know.

Hook? I feel like, what, if you knew someone who had only really watched Hook, and a few other things where would you both of you in with your giving your vast vast records where where would you recommend that i start oh my gosh we'll send you a list we'll yeah we'll just have to we'll curate a list for you i Frankenstein all the movies are coming to my head are our bad movies i love i would say i would say paddington and shrek to call back to our celebrity friends that we would I are still like pretty fast.

But yeah, where can people check out your work, follow you on social media, etc.? Leaving out, to spend time with loved ones, not on screens. That is such a good call. That's the real lesson of her. Log out. And speaking of, normally we would plug our Instagram and our Patreon, but instead, we're going to really focus on plugging the Midwest tour that you can come to in person and meet us in person. And there's many stories of friends and even lovers

meeting at Fictalcast shows. This is true. Over the years. And so I actually really does make me feel good when we go to shows and you like meet people after. We're like, I came alone and then I made friends. You're like, oh, love that. It's beautiful. Come to the live shows. It's a good hang. Yes. We're doing shows in Indianapolis, Chicago, Madison, and Minneapolis. At the end of August, early September, you can grab tickets at Linktree slash Bechtelcast. And with that, let's all go to AI Heaven. Let's break up with Joaquin Phoenix. Yes, please.

Okay, bye. Bye. The Bechtel cast is a production of IHeartMedia, hosted by Caitlin Durante and Jamie Loftus, produced by Sophie Lichten, edited by Mo LaBorde. Our theme song was complete. posed by Mike Kaplan, with vocals by Catherine Voskrosensky. Our logo and merch is designed by Jamie Loftus, and a special thanks to Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit Linktree slash Bechtelcast. The Stuff You Should Know guys have made their own

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