The not-so-subtle tendencies of 'Sorry to Bother You' - An autopsy report
Sorry To Bother You, but this is not a just a movie; it’s not even a film, a story or a concept.
Sorry to bother you, but this is a declaration of war: a disassembling of traditional storytelling, a denunciation of uninspired and dispirited filmmaking, a damnation of mediocrity and status quo. This movie does not invite you into its reality in order to tell it’s narrative, this movie invades your reality just as Cassius invades the private lives of his potential clients. This movie blunders its way into your very conceptualization of contentment and compromise like a vengeful and wild band of equisapiens.
Sorry To Bother You, but this is a declaration of war on satisfaction.
Let’s start at the beginning. Cassius “Cash” Green (one of the first of many names with both obvious and dubious multiple interpretations), desperately attempts to get a job as a telemarketer under the twin pressures of pay rent to his uncle’s garage and satisfying/securing his relationship with his girlfriend, Detroit. His hilarious attempts to puff up his resume with outright lies and fake trophies in fact secure him the position, not only because they would hire literally anybody, but also the attempt to bullshit his way through the interview is seen as exceptional sales skills. He’s met with frustration initially, for two completely different reasons. First, each time he makes a call he is literally dropped into the home of the receiver, seeing their lives in frustrating or painfully raw moments. Visually, this was the initial hint that this movie was not to be trusted in terms of reality or expectations, and used extremely effectively. Being forced to “Stick To The Script” as the company mantra goes, leads him to one particularly visceral uncomfortable moment.
Second, as he later learns from an older salesman, Langston, that he’s not using his “white voice”, and the failure to do so is alienating his callers.
The “white voice”, as Langston explains, is not about sounding like a white person. It’s about sounding like what a white person wants to sound like-worry-free, financially secure, unafraid and proud. In short, “white culture” in this movie is not about the actual day to day life of white people in general, but what they want it to be, what individuals excluded or alienated from that culture imagine it to be, what popular and mediocre consumption media say it is.
White Culture is satisfaction sold as an idea. As Langston explains, Cassius is not selling the product, he’s selling himself. Not only by selling his individuality for this sales tool, but selling his false version of himself to the potential clients. And so, Cassius compromises the first of many times and finds he has a superior “white voice” talent, one that drives his sales so high he’s eventually invited to join the secretive and elite “Power Callers”.
Up to this point, there’s been a rising atmosphere of resentment between management and the sales staff, particularly from an individual named Squeeze, whose collectivist philosophy has attracted the attention of Detroit who has also attained a job alongside Cassius. Just as the sales staff goes on strike with the intention of getting a raise, Cash is offered a phenomenal raise and promotion.
Once again, he compromises under the guise of being able to enact some kind of change within his new position, but whether or not he believes this excuse or even intends to try is left dubious by Cassius’s oscillating morals and priorities. This scene reminds me of Sam Lowry’s promotion in” Brazil,” as both characters are thrust upon an even more confusing yet equally absurd new environment and forced to face an increasing series of moral compromises with each new revelation.
After a strange and uncomfortable ride in the executive “Power Callers” elevator, Cash is exposed to the true prerogative of his employers. “WorryFree”, the company employing Cassius and up to this point presented as a benevolent business intending on solving both unemployment and unaffordable housing by having individuals sign up for “lifetime work contracts” in exchange for room and board is in fact selling these individuals off as slave labor and using the profits to set up arms deals to foreign countries.
Faced with the incredible horror of this reality, coupled with the shame and humiliation of betraying his friends and his girlfriend by crossing the picket line, yet desperate for the means to improve his own way of life, Cassius once again compromises and accepts the job. A series of juxtaposing scenes show Cassius excelling in his new position, reaping generous profits on the blood and toil of countless people in order to move into a fancy, well furnished loft which literally transforms around him as he sleeps comfortably in bed with Detroit. He drives a new car instead of the on-the-verge-of-exploding rust bucket he had up to this point, he goes to wild, expensive, cocaine-saturated parties and speaks almost exclusively in his white voice.
This pattern of behavior and obvious abandonment of his principles and his loyalties, lead Detroit to leave him and subsequently begin a relationship with Squeeze, who has also become disillusioned of Cash’s intentions. Distraught, but ultimately resigned to his chosen path, he ends up at a party with the charismatic and pernicious Steve Lift, a conflation somewhere between Steve Jobs and Joel Olsteen who offers him a rather large snort of cocaine and a new, more profitable opportunity.
Before he can get into the details, Cassius needs to use the bathroom, but ends up going into the wrong door, entering a room with a horror-film atmosphere with unnerving lighting and mysterious stalls. The agonized pleas and groans coming from a stall cause him to open the door and suddenly Cash and the audience is confronted with a horrible and reality-shaking sight: a monstrous hybrid between a man and a horse. This sudden change in tone and atmosphere is one of the most jarring and truly surprising moments I’ve ever seen in film and the patience the movie requires of the audience to get to this scene speaks volumes about the respect it has for the audience. This scene exemplifies how clearly writer-director Boots Riley understands how to subvert expectations in order to achieve his intended goal (take a note, Rian Johnson).
Horrified, Cassius flees the room before being confronted by.He takes Cash back to his office where he then calmly sets him down and has him watch a hilarious animated film explaining the origin and purpose of these, as they call them, “equisapiens”. WorryFree has been genetically manipulating people under their work contracts, giving them horse-like qualities in order to enhance their strength and endurance, making them more efficient slaves. The problem of an inevitable and seemingly imminent backlash and revolt by these equisapiens is none other than Cassius himself, whom Steve intends to transform as well in order to make him “sell” the concept of obedience to their new overlords. He will be, as Steve puts it, “the equisapien Martin Luther King”, but one they can control. Shocked, disgusted and terrified that substance he snorted was the transforming agent and not actually cocaine, he initially refuses, and while Steve denies this before offering him 100 million dollars for five years as a horse-person, Cash still remains uncertain. He returns home before and begins a media campaign in order to spread the truth, having obtained some secret footage of the equisapiens with his cell phone. Ironically, instead of leading to public outrage, his actions backfire and WorryFree’s actions are hailed as a scientific achievement, causing their stocks to increase dramatically. Frustrated, he turns to Detroit and Squeeze, suggesting that a strong show of force at the next picket line will be enough to WorryFree campaign of inhumanity. With a heavily determined crowd and a few humorous tricks and tactics, they’re able to hold the riot police off for a while, causing them to send out shock troops to finish the job. Cassius makes a phone call and sends out some sort of signal via whistle before being knocked out by a billy club.
He awakes in the back of a police truck, watching the riot through a small, barred window and it’s obvious that the police have won the day until a sudden parade of equisapiens show up and fight them off, apparently freed from their captivity during the riot by Squeeze’s cohorts. Stronger and more endurable than humans, they squash the police response before opening the truth to free Cash.
The film jumps forward, with Cassius having returned to his uncle’s garage, while keeping some of the nicer trappings of his fancy loft and Detroit having returned to him. WorryFree and its illicit activities have been dismantled and the world seems to have returned to normal. Cash, it would appear, is able to move on from all his mistakes, poor decisions and compromises, having learned something new about himself and the world and free from any repercussions. A nice, peaceful, happy ending.
Except no, this isn’t that movie, not by a long shot. He appears to hit his face on the garage door and starts crying out while holding his face, a shot that begins almost slap-stick and plays out into a horrifying reality when he pulls his hands away and his nostrils have enlarged, obscenely into horse-like features.
The immediately subsequent scene is Steve Lift sitting peacefully in his house when the doorbell rings. Steve checks the door cam and is greeted with the Cash’s face, now completely transformed, with a group of equisapiens behind him, who break down the door with the obvious intent of mayhem and violence. Cassius shouts out just before the camera cuts to black, “Sorry to bother you!”.
This film is subtle in ways you don’t notice and loud in places it shouldn’t be, according to traditional filmmaking standards, but this is not a traditional film. It not only subverts your expectations, it very angrily explains to you why those expectations are wrong and why you’re wrong for expecting them. This movie has no remorse for its protagonist or it’s audience and no intention of letting either one get away with compromise. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a film that so uniquely blends surrealism with the visceral reality and violent brutality at the end of everyday atavism. Selfishness and egoism are not simply vices in this movie. They are plagues that eat into every aspect of society until they literally dehumanize people, all for the sake of some petty cash. A society that demands us to warp ourselves into something less than genuine until we’re distorted into something less than human is a society so severely rotten and utterly corrupt that there is no compromising with it. “Sorry To Bother You” may not have an answer to this, but it certainly asks a damn good question.
“Sorry to Bother You” is now available on Blu Ray, DVD and digital download.
Aaron Wimmers
Contributing Writer