Sorry to bother you
“Sorry To Bother You”
I think about the films I watched when they were first released and my reaction to these films. Sometimes you watch a film and think “what the f — ?” Sorry to Bother You was one of those films. I don’t remember all that much about that day but I remember finally being able to watch this film that was released about a year prior. I heard great reviews about the film plus LaKeith Stanfield was in it (one of my favorite actors). I remember watching him in Get Out and of course Atlanta. Two unapologetically Black projects and here he was in another one; a film by Boots Riley AND it was set and filmed Oakland.
When I first watched it, the only real thing I grasped from the movie was there were horse people at the end of it. I thought it was such a weird choice to end a movie and I remember telling my friend that I didn’t really like it all that much.
Now, in 2022, watching it for a second time. I loved the Horse aspect, not only because it was different but I realized the movie was a satirical approach to discussing themes like company and corporate exploitation, social justice, Allyship and liberation. It’s a quirky film directed and written by a Black artist although the film doesn’t necessarily focus on Black issues or Black identity per se but has a Black cast and as I said before centers in the city of Oakland, California, which has a large Black population in the Bay area. I mention that to say, films don’t always have to center around racism to be Black.
In this film, there were many indications pointing to these different themes. From the beginning of the movie, we see allyship play an important role when Cassius and his girlfriend join in on the protest for a labor movement, protesting RegalView’s treatment of its employees. His intention is to be on his associates side but then finds out he has been given a promotion to work upstairs to be a powercaller. With this choice to cross the picket line a timeline of events then plays out. Social justice makes its appearance in a humorous way in the film. Shots of RegalView protests replicate protests we see in real life. All truths are exposed when Cash finds out RegalView powercallers are selling cheap labor from a company called WorryFree (also an important component in the film) to companies globally plus the finale where we he accidentally finds Worryfree’s horsemaking lab where the CEO of WorryFree is making humans into almost indestructible horses — therefore they can produce more labor for the company.
This wild ride of a film was brilliantly created and uses afrosurrealism to get its message across. Boots Riley did his job well.
