Sorry to Bother You

I just watched Sorry to Bother You, and it's wonderful -- a brilliant, brooding, quasi-dystopia that mirrors our present all too closely. Namwali Serpell has a great piece (though with lots of spoilers - I'll try to have less, but you should probably watch it before reading this) on the film and the way its satire is grounded in literalism, but not only. The terrifying thing about the movie is that as you're watching it, you realize that much of what seems absurd is really quite plausible. Most obviously, the vaunted realm of the "power callers", their luxurious conditions and inflated salaries, as compared to the drudgery and poverty of the regular telemarketers, is fact, not fiction.

For Briahna Gray, writing for The Intercept, the crucial scene of the movie is the worker's strike that happens roughly halfway through. It is indeed a remarkable scene (I can't think of the last time a movie showed a labor strike either), and part of what's powerful about it is that it isn't a solution - it's one step in a broader struggle. And it quickly gets swept aside, as we instead follow the adventures of our protagonist, Cassius. It should be noted that it isn't obvious that Cassius will join the strike - at that point, he's already in a position to advance at work, he's starting to do better and earn money, and he is obviously hesitant to put that at risk. Although he sees the importance of the cause, his participation seems just as much based on the fact that his girlfriend, and everyone else in his social scene, are doing it too. When he's brought into the office after the strike, he thinks he'll be fired and is ready to go, but instead - plot twist! He gets a promotion, and accepts it, because after all, he won't be harming his friends' cause, he just...won't be helping it. Or so he can tell himself. Part of the cleverness of the film is that it doesn't vilify him for this choice. We disapprove, maybe, but we also understand, and can relate. Cassius is a good guy. When he learns what he'll be selling as a power caller, it gives him serious pause, but we see the seductive sway of capitalism work its charm -- not just the money he'll earn, and the comfortable lifestyle it will afford, but also (maybe even more importantly!) the feeling of being good at something, of making something happen. We cringe when he crosses the picket line, but we don't really expect him to change his mind, especially after his girlfriend's dumping him fails to sway him.

Of course, he eventually does change his mind -- but it takes some truly bizarre (or maybe not, scarier to think) developments to make that happen - not just a horrific reveal, but also direct personal risk. This is where the movie gets interesting, but also a lot hazier, even as time starts moving much more quickly, brilliantly capturing the dizzying pace of our media-cycle-dictated world. Once the conspiracy is revealed, can anything be done to stop it? The movie is fuzzy on this point. Going to the news with hard evidence does something, kind of, but not really. Ultimately, we are returned to Step One: the strike. Just gotta keep at it. Will it work? Unclear. The movie has to get back to its own loose ends, and acknowledge that maybe it's too late for Cassius, but maybe it's not, and maybe there's a whole other, more anarchic possibility if a strike won't work...but the movie declines to speculate further, and calls it a day there.

Here's the thing though - is there really a plan here? Yes, the movie does essentially argue that the strike is the only viable way forward (and gives Squeeze, the unionizing hero, a brief speech to hammer the point in). But it also shows us just how hard that is, and how even a likable, conscientious guy like Cassius can be turned away from the movement. What I like about Sorry to Bother You is that it's too smart to tell a simplistic, redemptive story about the power of organized labor to save the day, even as it matter-of-factly acknowledges that it's the best chance we have. It has been argued that movies are inadequate to capture the real, grinding, long durée of political work. This movie acknowledges that, and doesn't dress it up as something else instead. It doesn't throw up his hands and say that we're screwed, but it's not exactly optimistic, either.

You'll notice that I haven't mentioned race at all. Of course, the movie's "hook" -- what I, and probably a lot of other people, thought it was going to be about, is Cassius using his "white voice" and becoming a huge success. When I say that it turns out, instead, to be a critique of today's capitalist society, I am not saying that the racial aspect isn't central, because in fact, the two are completely intertwined. The rap scene is the most vivid example; Cassius' shocked realization that humans are just raw material to be exploited and used up happens right after we see a crowd greedily soaking in his blackness, completely irregardless of his personality or his abilities. There is a lot more to say about this, and I would also really like to think more about Detroit (wonderfully played by Tessa Thompson), and especially about the way the movie leaves you in suspense over the potential threat that a romantic conflict presents (in a movie that is already very dude-heavy) -- but I really do have to get back to work now.

Who is America?

I'm not a big fan of Sacha Baron Cohen.* But I felt a weird sense of obligation to at least check out the new show because I'd heard that he poses as a Gender Studies professor from Reed College, my alma mater, and my sense of obligation is weird. I find Sascha Baron Cohen's schtick mostly pretty uncomfortable and unpleasant, and not especially funny. And I was assuming that the show would basically involve a lot of scenes designed to amuse liberals by exposing Trump supporters as idiots or hypocrites, a project that I'm not all that excited by. All this is to say: I assumed that I wouldn't like it. And for the most part, I didn't, but I will say that it's a lot smarter -- and more insidious -- than I gave it credit for, and parts of it were actually quite powerful.

The opening encounter is between SBC and Bernie Sanders. SBC plays a crazy anti-Obamacare activist who tries to persuade Sanders that instead of complaining about the 1%, he should just help everybody else move into it. Sanders, the purist, doesn't take the easy out of saying that his policies aim to do just that, but instead points out the math problem involved. It's completely ridiculous, but I did get a chuckle out of SBC's explanation of how you can accomplish this transformation by moving first moving the 9 from 99 into the 1, making it 19, and onwards. It's just so gloriously absurd, I couldn't help it.
  But in typical SBC style, the real target here isn't Sanders. He is his usual gruff, snappish self, and while clearly annoyed and impatient, he is never actively rude or unpleasant. Rather, we are to laugh at the character SBC is playing. And parts of this character are the run-of-the-mill features that are pretty much typical jabs at the crazed conspiracy-theory right-winger: alternative facts and bad math. But the man's repulsive physical appearance, and the fact that he's in a motorized scooter (not because he's disabled, but to conserve his body's resources), are from a nastier strain. It's exactly what I don't like about SBC.

The second round is the Gender Studies prof character (I never heard Reed get mentioned, but maybe I missed it?) dining with a staunchly pro-Trump couple. This is where the show does something semi-clever, namely, it completely turns the tables on the viewers expecting to get to mock some Trumpies for being intolerant misogynist racists. The couple is absolutely charming and extremely likable. As SBC says increasingly outrageous things, they are consistently polite, even as they struggle to maintain their composure. At one point the wife reminds her husband not to judge others (his facial expressions are fantastic). They are nothing like what you imagine Trump supporters to be -- if you ran into them socially and didn't discuss politics, you could easily assume they were Democrats. The real object of humor here is the Gender Studies prof, and the crazy things he believes. It's a vicious satire of identity politics. I fast forwarded through most of it, not because I'm a precious snowflake, but because it was boring and kind of gross.

The third round is in some ways the most interesting. SBC plays a newly released convict who visits an art gallery trying to peddle with paintings. The joke here is that the paintings are created out of his feces and ejaculate, and the gallery owner takes them seriously as art. And here, I guess, the joke's on me too, because I don't think there's anything dumb about that. And I actually kind of liked the paintings.
   There's a subtle jab here, though, at the borderline sexual excitement that the elite art world derives from appreciating the suffering of others. At one point he says that the subject of one portrait retaliated by raping him, which emphasizes the point, perhaps, but effectively derails the argument, because most people will probably see it as "ha ha, prison rape." It's unfortunate, not just because that's an appalling rape joke, but because it's a lost opportunity for meaningful critique.
  That said -- I enjoyed the sexual energy of the scene. The gallery owner has claimed that she had no idea what was going on, and maybe she didn't, but she gamely goes along for the ride, even donating some of her pubic hair to the cause. She keeps a straight face through the most disgusting explanations of the paintings (which, god help me, I laughed at), but she isn't pious about it (this is probably why the aforementioned critique never quite takes off -- she's too sardonic). I liked her. I came away from it with a sense of appreciation for the weird, wonderful, kinky nature of the art world.

The final segment is the one you've probably seen on facebook or whatever, where SBC plays an Israeli "terrorism expert" promoting his program of training 4 year olds to use weapons. The caricature of Israeli military types raises the same issues that most of SBC's characters do -- something I wrote about years ago in my post on Borat, when it came out (which by the way is a lot more generous than I remember feeling). But leaving that aside, this isn't, I think, "tricking" Republicans any more than Stephen Colbert ever did. I have zero sympathy. These guys were willing to go on camera and endorse a program to arm 4-year-olds. Because they're fucking insane.
  This portion is fairly brilliantly executed. After the character is established, we see him talking to Florida Rep Matt Gaetz, who hears him out but refuses to give an answer. “Typically members of Congress don’t just hear a story about a program and then indicate whether they support it or not,” he says, giving himself an out -- and perfectly setting up the next sequence of a series of men who are cheerfully willing to indicate their support.
  This is paired with a devastating "infomercial" that SBC makes with the help of Philip Van Cleave,  which is basically a brightly-colored show for kids, teaching them to load Puppy Pistol with his bullet lunchbox. It's scathing, and very funny, and totally horrific.
  The cherry on top is a conversation with Larry Pratt, who is so blatantly racist and misogynist that he could be a caricature, but guess what, he isn't. It almost feels like a cheap shot, but here, again, I can't help myself, I'm glad that piece of shit got caught saying it on camera. It might not sway any of his supporters, but at least it's on the record now.

So, overall: it's better than I expected. It is, I think, truly taking aim at both sides of the political spectrum, though it remains to be seen how much people actually understand that. But it probably does just as much bad as good. The humor is sometimes smart and deserved, but just as often crude and reinforcing hurtful or awful stereotypes. This is part of what makes SBC so interesting, perhaps: that he absolutely refuses the moral highground that good satire seemingly depends on, and creates something a lot muddier.

I have to confess that I'm curious, in spite of myself, to see what happens next.