How far will you go to climb the corporate ladder? To what extent does money diminish one’s moral compass in Capitalist America? “Sorry to Bother You”, the directorial debut by musician Boots Riley, begs these questions and others in the most stylistic and bold fashion, a fashion one might describe as an acid-trip roller coaster from dystopian hell.

“Stick to the script” is the repeated mantra at the telemarketing firm at which the film’s lead Cassius “Cash” Green (Lakeith Stanfield) finds a job. Ironically, the movie itself is hardly straightforward and requires attention to piece together this fever dream of a film. Cash initially isn’t prosperous– however, it isn’t long before a coworker (Danny Glover) whispers the secret to success in telemarketing as a black man: “Use your white voice”. Although the concept of “whitespeak” has been toyed with before in TV and film, Riley creates an unusually exaggerated caricature of the concept through haphazard dubbing of a “white” voice over Cash’s. Through “whitespeak”, Cash quickly finds himself advancing at RegalView, a seemingly harmless 9-to-5 job in Oakland, California. Subconsciously (and often consciously), white America tends to associate being black with less success and intelligence. The social commentary is sharp and clear: suppression of racial identity is rampant for black men living in a white world. Conformity is essential to getting ahead, even if it means making a mockery of one’s self and black culture as a whole. Over the phone, you can be whoever you want to be, and Cash finds that being white sells.

One could argue that Cash was already a sell-out by abandoning his African-American vocal identity. The betrayal of his principles continues as he moves from a lower-level telemarketer to a “power-caller”, a cushy top-tier job at RegalView that promises cash-flow and other luxuries reserved only for the best marketers. Unsurprisingly, the only other black power-caller also utilizes whitespeak and encourages Cash to use his “white” voice at all times as a power-caller.

Meanwhile, the ticking-time-bomb that is poor financial compensation ignites a strike among those at the lower-level of the company. Those partaking in the strike include Cassius’s girlfriend, Detroit (Tessa Thompson), his best friend Sal, and the insinuated Cash-Detroit homewrecker, Squeeze. Cash is inevitably faced with a moral dilemma: stand with his friends against RegalView, or sell out and continue to be paid handsomely. Inevitably, Cash doesn’t want to leave the luxurious lifestyle, and he continues to work for the megalomaniac CEO Steve Lift.

 

 

 

“Stick to the Script”