Chris Perkins

(Spoiler alert) The movie is entertaining and creative. At times it mixes in outlandish elements (I mean aside from the whole equisapien thing), like a television show where people get beaten up and dunked in feces. One episode shows the bloodied mouth of a beautiful woman who is punched in the face by a man. This turns out to be the favorite show of Langston, played by Danny Glover. And of course there is the "white voice" voiceover, which characters describe as being some voodoo that sounds like a voiceover, which it is. In this way the film shows itself aware of itself as a film, and that is an interesting approach--carried off well in Sorry To Bother You. Again at the end Cassius returns to his rented room in his uncles garage, but with more elegant furniture and design. Cassius comments that after all he has been through, he couldn't return to exactly the same situation. It seems to be a comment on the plot. And then he turns into an equisapien... The social awareness of the film is engaging: from Squeeze, the traveling unionizer with some serious sign-spinning skills, to Detroit, an artist and guerilla rebel, willlng to be pelted with cellphones, bullet casings and sheep's-blood-filled balloons in order to express her art, the characters inspire a proactive, head-on attitude to dealing with inequality in the world. Although the setting is some alternate universe, criticisms of modern American culture come through loud and clear. But this "white voice" thing is misleading and divisive, though admittedly funny. What does it even mean to be white? The film itself addresses this question when friends drinking together speculate if Italians are white. Yes, they conclude, at least for the past 60 years. Furthermore, every white character in the movie is somehow dedicated to business in a twisted, sick way. This serves to strengthen any racial divide that exists among viewers. Above all, poor "whites" watching Sorry To Bother You may feel alienated. Their "white voices" don't seem to work. (Langston, of course, explains that the "white voice" is truly a fiction, representing a confidence and security that anyone would aspire to. So why not call it the "care-free voice"? Just a thought.