In Spike Jonze’s futuristic “Her,” Joaquin Phoenix plays Theodore Twombly, a lonely writer, fresh out of a long-term relationship, who falls in love with the voice of his computer’s artificially intelligent new operating system.
Introducing herself in the trailer (below), the OS (voiced by Scarlett Johansson) says: “Hi, I’m Samantha.” There’s an upward lilt on the “hi” and a first hint of husky seductiveness on the “-antha.” (Students of nomenclature will know immediately why Johansson’s disembodied character wasn’t given a name like Enid or Myrtle or Gertrude.)
As the clip continues and Theodore and Samantha become a cyber couple, her speaking tone loses its initial perkiness. Johansson’s husky purr evolves into a preternaturally sexy whisper — “Can you feel me with you right now?” she coos, as if she’s sharing the same pillow.
Their romance, based on this kind of mild audio porn, conveniently precludes struggle, mess, empathy, and a need for hygiene. What makes the film potentially interesting is the idea that Samantha develops needs, though if all it concludes is that technological mediation is alienating and that relationships require two human beings, it won’t have achieved much.
Some audience members may find that, as with the susceptible Theodore, Samantha/Johansson’s voice puts a hook in them — but wishing it didn’t tug. It’s a voice that’s more womanly than the self-demeaning female tone that was recently deplored by the actress-writer-director Lake Bell when she was promoting her film “In a World…,” but it still has unsettling ramifications for both men and women.
“I had been personally ruptured and unsettled by the trend, the vocal trend that I call ‘sexy baby vocal virus’ talking,” Bell said in an interview on National Public Radio’s “All Thing Considered.” “Not only is it pitch, so really high up, but it’s also a dialect, it’s like a speech pattern that includes uptalking and fry, so it’s this amalgamation of really unsavory sounds that many young women have adopted. It’s a pandemic, in my opinion.”
“I can’t have people around me that speak that way,” Bell added, “and mainly because I am a woman, and I grew up thinking a female voice and sound should sound sophisticated and sexy, à la Lauren Bacall or Anne Bancroft or Faye Dunaway, you know. Not a 12-year-old little girl that is submissive to the male species.”
Bell’s use of the word “unsavory” was unerring. An exceptional indie comedy about a woman trying to break into the Hollywood voiceover business, “In a World…” champions strong female voices. The scene in which Bell’s Carol mocks the uncomprehending girl who asks where she can get a smoothie (see trailer below) demonstrates the contemporary female voice at its most passive and infantilized. Bell struck a chord — even inspiring a concerned blog called “5 Tips on How to Talk Like a Woman.”
As the linguist and academic Mark Liberman explains on his Language Log blog (which excerpts Bell on NPR), “sexy baby vocal syndrome” is not a new phenomenon. The overtly sexy cartoon character Betty Boop, who made her debut in 1930 and was based on the singer Helen Kane, was an early offender in the talkies. This exploited star, trapped in her image, was as much a victim of her voice as her look. She remains the saddest example of a famous woman who refused to speak like a woman who expects respect. Pay heed, Lana Del Rey.
“Her” will close the New York Film Festival on October 13. “In a World…” is still in theaters. Watch the trailers here:
