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After seeing Her, I'm really impressed by Spike Jonze's ability to craft a screenplay. By the end of the film the idea of Joaquin Phoenix's Theodore falling in love with his operating system, Samantha (played by Scarlett Johannssen who is phenomenal in this vocal role) doesn't seem too far-fetched. In fact, Jonze's near future seems like the next step in our technological future. What was disturbing about the near future (besides the incredibly high crotch pants that all the men were sporting) was the complete lack of people of color in Spike Jonze's universe. And I wasn't the only one to notice.
Other than one close up on a Black breakdancer, there were virtually no people of color in this universe. Chris Pratt's character dates an Asian woman. She was the only PoC with lines. Everyone else was near invisible. At one point during a child's birthday party scene, there were some children of color running around the lawn but there were no adults of color to go with them. So I guess in Spike Jonze's future, people of color are breeding children for white couples to raise.
I'm sure the screenplay didn't read: "Ext. DAY: Theodore walks down street full of white people." but considering that Jonze also directed the film, I find it curious that a sea of white people in "future" downtown L.A. didn't look a bit off to him. Overall, the film accurately captures, the ups and downs of a relationship. The honeymoon phase, the growing together and the growing apart but if our near future is devoid of color, I think we have a lot more to worry about than falling in love with our computers.
I'm what many would call a TV addict. I have DirecTv (with premium channels!), a Hulu queue that always hovering around 30 deep, a Netflix subscription and a Redbox account. I would say I consume about 40 hours of television a week not including the blogs and television news I consume, so it's probably the full-time job I'm not getting paid for.
That being said, I'm not an idle watcher. I consume but I also critique and lately with all the Girls controversy and similar issues with one of my favorite shows, The Vampire Diaries, I've been doing some deep analysis of the current television climate and frankly, it's kind of sad. There was a recent study that said that all-white jury pools convicted Black defendants 16% more often than Whites. Furthermore, the presence of just one Black person on the jury made the conviction rates almost identical (even better in that instance White defendants were convicted at a 2% higher rate). I think this same dynamic plays out in the writers room. Just the mere inclusion of one writer of color can make the difference in how what we see onscreen plays out.
