The Sorry to Bother You trailer looks like a pure statement in the making really. It’s a fictional story about a young, black telemarketer that is having trouble with his life, can’t pay his rent, but at least has a good woman that stands by his side, until he starts to take on a persona that’s not his own. What happens is that the young man is given a recommendation by a colleague to use a ‘white voice’ to up his sales since of course people tend to listen to white salesmen all the time. Right? However wrong that might seem to you keep in mind this is fiction and also making a big statement about the world as we know it through fiction. In other words it’s a movie and it should be taken as such, but there will likely be people that want to read more into as the filmmakers would like.
In any case, the main character adopts the ‘white voice’ and as he does his sales begin to increase and he eventually gets promoted to an upper floor where life begins to get a bit better. He manages to get his own place, he starts making good money, and he becomes the person he wanted to be. Unfortunately that means that he also starts to become a person that his girlfriend can’t relate to anymore as she can’t be with a man that’s willing to sell every last principle for a price that doesn’t just include his service to the company he works for. He’s selling out it would seem by buying into the hype and the drama that the company he’s working for has to offer. Greed is a powerful thing after all that drags even the best intentions into the dirt before grinding them to powder slowly, painfully, and in agonizing fashion.
The use of the ‘white voice’ to boost sales is something that might seem insulting to some people but is a powerful tool that’s used to illustrate the disparity that still exists between individuals in the workplace. No one really likes to work as a telemarketer unless they can make the big money, but thinking that a white-sounding voice can make a difference is a tool that a lot of people might take offense to and possibly seek to deny. Of course denial in this case would only make the argument stronger though it does seem kind of odd that the sound of a telemarketer’s voice would determine whether or not a person is going to hang up on them. A lot of people only need to hear that the person is selling something and then the phone goes dead since no one wants to commit to anything or even hear the sales pitch. That’s the lonely life of a telemarketer though, as the dial tone is likely one of the only constant sounds they hear every day.
All in all though it looks like an interesting movie that could be worth watching. It’s got a stellar cast that should be able to bring it to life and push it as one of the better movies of the year.
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