Sorry to Bother You (2018): Screenwriting in the Age of Color-blindness

Written by Marta Anielska

The past year has seen Black Lives Matter and other social justice movements push for greater awareness of systemic and implicit racism. Boots Riley’s 2018 film Sorry to Bother You explores this type of racism, resonating with those that were and continue to be frustrated by the ignorance of a privileged majority. In the first scene, Cassius Green steps out of a manager’s office after begging for a telemarketing job. The harsh lighting turns from bright yellow to gloomy blue, illuminating row after row of low paid workers and framing the story as a class struggle. The imagery and dialogue are designed to create awkward tension between people with massive power imbalances. However, the mechanisms of capitalism that Sorry to Bother You captures only serve to obscure the implicit racism that lurks beneath economic inequality.

Cassius’ success as a telemarketer acts as a microcosm of how systemic racism is sustained in capitalist societies. Since customers cannot see telemarketers, claims of racism affecting employee success seem unreasonable. Consequently, the job represents the ideal of capitalist meritocracy wherein every worker has equal opportunity to move up. This notion is quickly dispelled when Cassius’ older Black colleague advises him to use his “white voice” while making a sale. He explains that a “white voice” gives off an impression of prosperity and freedom which appeals to the customer. Moving forward, Cassius’ success is directly linked to the racially coded voice he is able to mimic. Moreover, the source of the advice characterizes it as a trick of the trade, an open secret that people of colour in low paid positions share amongst themselves. This turns the “white voice” into a metaphor for the multitude of racially coded practices embedded in capitalist society, effective precisely because it is difficult to trace them back to authority figures.

Racial coding is present throughout the film; however, it manages to be subtle enough that the more overt racism revealed at the end is a shock to the viewer. After Cassius is promoted, he attends the party of a wealthy CEO where a crowd of white partygoers pressure him to rap after he refuses several times. To prevent disappointing them, Cassius starts chanting the n-word over a beat, at which point the crowd chants it back at him in a perverse game of call and response. This scene seems to come out of nowhere; while racism is a consistent undertone, it is at no point that explicit. The twist makes it clear that racism at lower levels must be concealed because of the number of people, specifically people of colour, that would have evidence of discrimination. In contrast, the implicit racism at the bottom of the social ladder becomes overt at the top, where wealthy and primarily white individuals are so separated from the rest of society that they fear no consequences and even feel entitled to being racist.

When I first watched Sorry to Bother You in 2018, I had just started consuming anti-racist literature and media. In the spirit of every know-it-all teenager, I either believed that I already knew everything about racism or that I would immediately be receptive to new ideas. Returning to the film after so many years, I was surprised at how much had gone straight over my head. I now know that if I watch it again in ten years, I will probably pick up on a lot more than I did this time. The process of writing this film analysis has reminded me that becoming an anti-racist and unlearning racist cues and behaviours is life-long work, and though I love what Sorry to Bother You has already taught me, I am even more excited for what it will teach me in the future.