A wealthy man once told me that you can’t get really rich unless you have other people working for you. To achieve the American dream of boundless wealth, you need to stand on many other people’s backs. That’s capitalism. But how do you entice them to let you stand on their backs so you can make more money than them, and what do you owe them for that privilege?



These questions are at the core of Sorry to Bother You, a comedy-drama starring Lakeith Stanfield and Tessa Thompson, written and directed by Boots Riley, a rapper with Oakland band the Coup. Sorry to Bother You, set in an alternative version of that Californian city, is one of the most anti-capitalist movies Hollywood has ever produced. We’re used to seeing the rich portrayed as evil, but here we see people sell their souls to ascend the corporate ladder. The film shows how easily people will compromise their principles for money – and, more frightening still, how far owners and management will go to create perfectly obedient workers.

But Sorry to Bother You could easily find itself remembered primarily for a brilliant repeated gag: a black character speaking with a comically white voice.

Stanfield has quickly established himself as one of the most interesting actors of his day. He played Snoop Dogg in Straight Outta Compton and more recently featured in Get Out and Atlanta. But here he is doing something totally different. His character, Cassius “Cash” Green, a low-level telemarketer, learns that, in order to succeed at work, he has to put on a white voice. This does not mean a nasal affectation, along the lines of that corny old nerdy-voice stereotype that mid-level black comedians do. It means putting into your voice an embrace of the ease that white privilege brings. It means sounding as if you’re entitled to the good life. It means feeling calm way down in your soul. It means never having to be afraid someone will call the police on you just because you’re breathing.

To see one of the blackest actors in the game adopt such a voice – actually delivered by the very white and very funny David Cross – is a gag that never stops giving. But on a deeper level, watching Cash learn to “sound white”, and have his career skyrocket as a result, is a superb parody of something that many black people in the corporate world have found: in order to succeed, you have to perform your personality in a way that is pleasing to white people.

In Sorry to Bother You, Cash does some Jedi-level “code-switching” – using different personas to speak to different racial audiences. There is nothing wrong with code-switching, though. Most black and brown workers perform some version of it. To get anywhere in corporate America, it’s often essential – which is why Cash’s white-voice routine resonates with so many people. It’s not about selling out. It’s about finding the personality that helps you advance. However, in this brilliantly absurdist film, Cash takes it too far and it ends up corroding his soul. When he realises he is going to be marketing a workforce of virtual slaves, he says no – until he sees the pay cheque.

Corroded souls … Tessa Thompson and Lakeith Stanfield in Sorry to Bother You. Photograph: Annapurna Pictures/AP

This sharp exploration of black identity and its suppression is actually just a subplot, though. Ultimately, the film is a devastating takedown of capitalism, portraying people giving up their freedom so they don’t have to worry about money. Owners and management are shown as depraved, vacuous, corrupt and downright evil, scheming to create workers who are ever cheaper, more compliant and more profitable.

Focusing on a strike at a telesales centre, Sorry to Bother You ought to be reminiscent of films made decades ago – Silkwood, Norma Rae, Roger & Me – in which unions are seen as strong and influential. But decades of Republican attacks on behalf of big business have weakened unions and diminished their place in American life. Meanwhile, the US policy of mass incarceration has put more than 2 million people in jail, according to the Prison Policy Initiative, a public policy thinktank. Per head, that is more – far more – than any other country.

Sorry to Bother You plays off all this, and America’s booming private prison sector, with the invention of a chilling entity called WorryFree, a jail-like workplace that guarantees employment, housing and food for life. In the nightmarish alternate reality conjured by the film, people are so eager to leave the rat race that they join WorryFree and find themselves housed in sweatshops with bunkbeds and matching jumpsuits. Owners, meanwhile, are thrilled to have a permanent workforce whose services are sold to the highest bidder.

This is a mind-blowing idea, yet one firmly rooted in reality. Many of us feel trapped in a virtual prison, working to live, never getting ahead, only ever a cog in the machine. How many people who are working two part-time jobs and barely getting by would swap their Walmart and McDonald’s shifts for life in a virtual sweatshop? With the right marketing, it doesn’t seem too outlandish a prospect at all.

Lakeith Stanfield and Armie Hammer, who plays the CEO of WorryFree, in Sorry to Bother You. Photograph: P Prato/Annapurna Pictures/Kobal/Rex/Shutterstock

This is the genius of Sorry To Bother You: it indicts the entire system. It is critical that workers believe they have a chance to ascend, so they will keep working. And it’s critical that the wealthy believe they’ll never fall off their perches, so they’ll keep taking chances, keep investing. The wealthy now have control of the US political system. They can donate as much as they want to candidates who, after they win office, are beholden to their donors. The wealthy grow wealthier, the middle class shrinks and the number of poor people swells. By depicting a clash between workers and management, Sorry to Bother You couldn’t feel more relevant. In fact, by looking at the present moment through the lens of class warfare, the film will eventually be seen as ahead of its time.

Another key theme is society’s love of seeing people humiliated. In the film, there is a television show that has become phenomenally popular by airing footage of people being badly beaten up. A video of Cash – left bloody after he is hit by a drinks can during a riot – goes viral. People in this film love to laugh at each other: there is a coarse tension between them that is connected to their economic situation. It’s hard to be neighbourly when you feel as though you are in competition with your neighbour for your life.

Sorry to Bother You is full of crazy stories but then, these days, reality is crazy. It’s a comedy that holds up a mirror to society, but one of those fairground mirrors that twist and distort. It shows us a capitalism that promises us happiness through rampant consumption. Just get a job – then get sucked into the system and eventually lose your humanity. There is no way out. Have a nice day at work!