Some black folks, myself included, only find out that we “talk white” when we’re around other people of color who don’t. Riley is careful to specify the difference between a “white voice” and “talking white,” or what Langston calls “Will Smith-white,” both of which Cash can do. Soon he moves up to the elite marketing tier known as “Power Caller.” His life also gets dramatically weirder. Sergio is on the verge of losing his house, so it behooves Cash to not only find a job, but one that will keep him sheltered.Ĭash takes a position at a spiritless cold-calling farm called RegalView Telemarketing, where he scores a job selling encyclopedias that barely pays enough to buy ramen.īut even in this simple gig, Cash struggles until his co-worker Langston (Danny Glover) advises the struggling new hire to use his “white voice.” Once Cash finds it, manifesting as Cross’ voice dubbed over Stanfield’s, Cash’s career fortunes transform dramatically. That doesn’t make it an affordable place, not anymore. Riley’s Oakland is scroungy, but it has a beauty to it worth cherishing. His knowledge of the region reveals itself in slightly dystopian scenes of nightlife and the rainbow-colored walls sliding behind Cash as he moves through the world.
Oakland also happens to be Riley’s hometown long before he began directing he was primarily known as the frontman for the hip-hop group The Coup. The Bay Area setting of “Sorry to Bother You” provides the quintessential landscape to demonstrate the gargantuan rift between rich and poor. His uncle Sergio (Terry Crews) puts Cash up in his garage, and he and his girlfriend, a conceptual artist named Detroit (Tessa Thompson), barely have any privacy. This is important to keep in mind as we get to know Stanfield’s Cassius, who goes by Cash, an Oakland twenty-something in desperate need of a job. It is something that is the opportunity mostly afforded in this country to white people.” One feeling as if they are part of the majority. One’s “white voice,” he explains, is an extension of “one feeling at ease and comfortable in one’s skin. In a recent Vice News interview, Stanfield explained that a “white voice” is not the same as “talking white,” which we’ll get to in a bit. In “Sorry to Bother You,” Riley examines the intersection of these definitions, positing that sometimes, intentionally or not, the “white voice” is where it all begins. One is about integrity, the other is a deeply biting invective meant to de-legitimize a person’s identity or cultural experience. (That was before our joints started giving out and we realized how expensive health insurance is.)īut being called a “sellout” has an entirely different meaning to a white artist than it does when one person of color flings that insult at another. Generation Xers railed against it, or so we were informed in movies like “ Reality Bites.” If you had talent, the worst thing you could do for your soul was allow some corporate entity to claim and corrupt it in exchange for filthy lucre. Millennials drowning in debt have no problem with it, we've been told, because they have no other choice. The concept of selling out means different things to different people and different generations. That is, except to those willing to give up a portion of ourselves for a bigger taste.
Ours is a world of extreme economic disparity, where wealth is held by a select few who aren’t giving up even a percentage of a percent of it. Having said all that, one of the clearest characterizations of “Sorry to Bother You” is that it’s a parable about selling out, one that’s equal parts a polemic and an acknowledgment that it’s almost impossible not to sell out in some way. It should throw the viewer for a loop, because it’s a reflection of the insane times we live in. Just know this: “Sorry to Bother You,” currently playing in theaters, is a crazy quilt of warped plots and statements, though one designed and carefully constructed.
The less virgin viewers know about the film, the better. But it also carries social penalties.īoots Riley describes his directorial debut as “an absurdist dark comedy with magical realism and science fiction, inspired by the world of telemarketing.”Įven the simplest description of “Sorry to Bother You” doesn’t adequately sum up its themes, and that’s fine. That, for people of color, it can mean the difference between getting a good job and enjoying significant career advancement. Rather, it’s the film’s upfront acknowledgment that how you speak, not merely what you say, can open up opportunities. Not the voice itself, although it’s distinctly jarring to hear David Cross’ voice coming out of Lakeith Stanfield’s mouth. It was Cassius Green’s white voice in the ads for “Sorry to Bother You” that grabbed my attention.
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