When Did Joe Become Sentient?

After the crowd begins throwing things at the hunter, a riot takes place. David and Joe are unchained and they sneak away from the flesh fair during the commotion. The next sequence in the forest where Joe begins making a bunch of crass jokes as he offers to help David and Teddy find the blue fairy is truly baffling to me. In fact, Gigolo Joe is a truly baffling character.

His crass humor and overall presence are so out of place in what is supposed to be a modern retelling of Pinocchio that I can hardly put my unease into words. I could understand it if he were, say, a parallel of the Coachman from the Disney version of the story, but Joe is supposed to be the guide, the arbiter of truth, in this story, which makes absolutely no sense.

Joe takes David and Teddy to some city that is supposed to be the epicenter for all things lewd. I would say this is a parallel to Pleasure Island from the Disney version, but Pleasure Island is depicted as a bad place in the cartoon, whereas, in this film, the city is depicted as raunchy and even a little funny. But this is the main problem with AI: Artificial Intelligence. How do you tell a morality tale without morality? You can’t.

David is supposed to be considered practically perfect, save for being naïve, so there’s no point in even taking him regarding this city. He has nothing to learn here from a virtue standpoint, so the city can serve as nothing but a gag, and a tacky gag at that.

This is also where the movie gives its first direct anti-God line, and this is really what all the messaging in this film is leading up to. There is no definition for real because there is no God to define what “real” is anyway. The search for God is no different than David’s quest for the blue fairy. That’s right, folks. Spielberg, and presumably Kubrick, are going to use this botched retelling of a fairy tale to give you an ironclad case for atheism. From this point on, their real goal becomes about as subtle as a train.

While David is standing at the entrance of a chapel, Joe explains that men are seeking their maker and that he has picked up a number of clients here in the past. The implication is that faith is just as much of a crutch as he is. Of course, the fact that the chapel is placed in the middle of a futuristic red-light district might help explain his clients’ lack of devotion, but our sagely robot—and by extension, Spielberg—doesn’t seem to put that together.

Anyway, Joe takes them to this future’s version of the internet, Dr. Know. After paying the computer, which is more akin to a cheap carnival attraction, David asks how to find the blue fairy since he believes the blue fairy can turn him into a real boy.

At first, Dr. Know acts like any carnival attraction, tricking David out of his questions, but during one of David’s attempts, everything goes dark, and the computer reads a mysterious text that tells David to go to the end of the world, to Professor Hobby’s office, where the lions weep. Joe recognizes that the end of the world is called Manhattan, so David springs from his chair, determined to find the end of the world.

As David leaves Dr. Know’s room, something bizarre happens: Joe starts trying to persuade David not to continue his quest. He warns that the blue fairy might not be real, another implication of the anti-God messaging—Joe also calls the orgas’ fascination with the supernatural an oddness. He says that humans hate robots. David says that his mom loves him, and then Jude Law gives a message that is truly evil.

He basically claims that her love is purely utilitarian. She loves what he can do for her. Then he compares her love for him to the love his clients have for him, which is just insane. And it gets worse. In Joe’s mind, the distinction is between the organic and the inorganic, but then he says that Monica cannot love David the same way she’d love a dog, cat, or canary. Notice the sly implication behind these words. What’s Joe—and by extension, Spielberg—really saying here? This scene is pretty tricky, so to understand the answer, I need to break this brief interaction down.

David assumes that, once he is real, Monica will love him. Joe ignores this assertion. He maintains that Monica cannot love him because he is a machine, but he doesn’t address what would happen if David were to become real, which is telling.

She loves what David can do for her. What does David do for her? He loves her back. So, Monica only loves David because David will love her back. That raises an obvious question: does Monica only love Martin, her real son, because Martin will love her back?

The fact that Joe equivocates maternal love with organic love, the love between a human and a dog, cat, and canary, gives the answer to this question in as indirect a way as possible because that answer is disturbing. He doesn’t acknowledge the dynamic between a mother and her children. He doesn’t acknowledge a distinction between a child and a pet. He frames the entire problem as a prejudice issue, organic vs. mechanical love. Why?

I would argue that Spielberg is saying a mother’s love for a child is no different than the love she might have for a pet because love is transactional. But he can’t say this directly because that would cause the mothers in the audience to stand up in arms, and if he doesn’t move fast, the audience is likely to start making comparisons between Martin and David.

David’s assertion is that once he is real, he will be loved. Joe has ignored his argument. He’s said Monica’s love is the same as the love his clients have for him: a transaction. If the audience is given enough time, there is a good chance they’ll put two and two together.

So, as he has done before when trying to redirect the audience’s attention, he pivots the conversation back to the distinction between machines and men—prejudice—while simultaneously ignoring the what-if? scenario David has presented. If Joe does that, then the jig is up. This redirection is a pattern throughout the script, and I believe this pattern suggests intention. He’s trying to imply a cynical message about love without directly saying it.

In Spielberg’s mind, it doesn’t really matter if David becomes real or not because Monica’s love isn’t all that important. Again, what’s the message of the movie? “Nobody knows what ‘real’ really means.” So, what’s the difference between a mother’s love and a robot’s love? Nothing. Therefore, the idea is that when Joe offers to let David stay with him—because growing up with a gigolo is bound to do wonders for a child—David should take the offer. But he doesn’t, and given the dark music playing in the background, this is supposed to be seen as a bad thing. After all, if the love looks real, then it must be real because nobody knows what “real” really means anyway.

Let me start off by saying this scene is just flat out evil, and the dark music, although it’s trying to portray David as in the wrong, clearly gives the entire exchange a sinister vibe. But at the same time, it is hard to decipher.

I suspect most of the audience was more confused than anything else. I mean, since when did Joe become sentient? This dense blockhead has been a source of crass humor throughout the film, and now he’s just randomly dishing out an intense monologue. The other issue is that Joe is not acknowledging David’s contention. It’s like he’s become a blind prophet prophesying a totally unconnected prophecy.

I would argue that this is Spielberg trying to thread a needle. Remember the movie Her, where there are two stories going on at the same time? From the protagonist’s perspective, he’s fallen in love with an AI only to have the AI leave him because she’s bored.

From the writer’s perspective, the real story is that everyone is becoming too engrossed in their AIs, and it was hard for me to know if the AI’s departure actually happened or if it was just part of some corporate gimmick. Either way, the writers of that movie are wanting the audience to subconsciously pick up on the fact that everyone is becoming too engrossed in their computers as the protagonist is running around, dealing with his own problems. It’s a similar situation here.

From David’s perspective, Joe has become a frightening figure that is trying to discourage him from his quest for some unknown reason. From Spielberg’s point of view, Joe has become an arbiter of truth, and he’s telling David a truth that he doesn’t want to hear, and Spielberg is also hoping that the audience will subconsciously pick up on the hidden message: all love is transactional; there is no real love at all because nobody knows what “real” is anyway. This is comfortably the darkest scene in the entire film.

Hopefully, Spielberg was too clever for his own good, and the audience simply walked out of the theater confused. I’ll cover what happens next in the following review.