A Few Ideas on Sorry To Bother You

This isn't a full blog post but a series of small ones about individual points of directorial decision in STBY. Here goes:

Racial Makeup of WorryFree: We know WorryFree's advertisements and "tours" don't give the full story. Every ad they had (minus one or two, maybe?) featured smiling white people, not black people given no choice. Despite their claims of being a choice, WorryFree really ends up being a last resort. (Anyone with plural brain cells kind of realizes that they'd rather live freely if given the option.) Cassius' uncle is a perfect example: going bankrupt leaves him limited options, and he would choose WorryFree over jail or homelessness. In this way, WorryFree is likely a blacker institution, as African-Americans are statistically far poorer than other races. But of course, the advertising doesn't paint itself as a last resort, so it shows off white people who chose to be there.

Activator as cocaine: We discussed this briefly in class, and it reminds me a lot of a scene in the music video for Public Enemy's Night Of The Living Baseheads. In the scene (2:19, but also check out the rest of the video because it's great) the reporter looking for "baseheads" (that is, crackheads, people addicted to crack) bursts into a wall street office and finds well-dressed white executives doing lines of cocaine. In a sense, these people are the same as the crack-afflicted "baseheads" in black communities. The only difference is the form of the cocaine. As for why it's in a spiral, or why Lift snorts a line two or three feet long: I think those are just one-off gags for cartoonish effect. This movie has a lot of those. I wonder how the WorryFree people are given the cocaine? I feel like I would be suspicious if I was in this forced commune and was offered cocaine. I worry about the internal systems of WorryFree in general though.

Why Horses? and are all the horse people black? We had a very limited pool of horse-people to choose from, but several were black. And with Riley's political commentary throughout this movie, it makes sense that they would be. A few details lend themselves to this theory: First, as Mitchell said, capital gain has been made off the backs of black men for a very long time. You could also say that capital gain has been made off the backs of horses for a very long time. You could also say that black men have been worked like horses to create capital gain for a long time. The connection makes sense. Another thing: black men have been stereotyped to be bigger and stronger than white men. Horses are strong animals. It also makes sense to turn your workers into the strongest animal possible. As for the horse-people we met, there's a higher possibility they were black simply due to the fact that more people at WorryFree are black (see my first paragraph). It's implied that many of them are black due to the fact that Cassius (a black man) is chosen to be their "Martin Luther King Jr," another black man. Why couldn't he be their Ghandi, or their Emma Goldman (besides the fact that MLK is the most recent, popular example of nonviolent peace leader for oppressed group)?

The VIP Room: Remember near the beginning of the movie when Cassius sees the VIP room in the bar, Salvatore tells him the password (which he knows for some reason), and he goes in only to be elbowed and splashed and not enjoy it at all? Yeah, I still don't know what that was about. Maybe "people not at the top get pushed around in areas of prestige"? Maybe a quasi-dream sequence representing his anxiety about his low-paying position? That's a big question I still have about this movie. Also Squeeze. What's Squeeze's deal??

Complete and total Colorblindness at all-white (minus a few) Mestizo Mulatto Mongrel Elementary

One of my favorite riffs in White Boy Shuffle is the one on colorblindness. Starting on page 29, Gunnar describes his early experiences as the sole "cool black guy" (as he calls himself and, later, the doctor calls him) at his self-proclaimed "multicultural" school. The hypocrisy and sarcasm drip here, from the school's name (three alliterative terms for individuals of, respectively, latino/native american, black/white, and canine heritage) to the homophonic Ms. Cegeny (obviously a reference to miscegeny, prohibition of interracial marriage) who wears a shirt that labels people of all races "human." Beatty's own opinions on this stuff are pretty clear, and I liked picking through the paragraphs to find his concise rebuttals.

First off: A piece of "multiculturalist propaganda" hangs above the blackboard in Ms. Cegeny's room. It reads: "Eracism -- The sun doesn't care what color you are." The class then begins to learn about "Fun with Sunshine and Thermodynamics." "Dark colors ... such as ... black absorb sunlight ... and light colors ... such as ... white reflect sunlight." It's all well and good to say color doesn't matter at all, but scientifically black and white are not the same color and are not treated as such, even by the sun. Gunnar realizes with some horror that he is hot, and the pasty white student next to him is not-- proof that the sun cares what color he is.

After a brief, creepily paternalized and primitivized Japanese lesson, Ms. Cegeny continues her speech. "Does anyone have an example of colorblind processes in American society?" One student replies, "Justice," and gets approval without stipulation (source source...) from the teacher. (Her worldview comes from the pleasant and quaint idea that there was racism in America, and then a thing called the civil rights movement happened and then racism disappeared forever and ever, the end. This is not what happened.) Gunnar's response to "What else is colorblind?" is appropriately cynical and insightful: "Dogs." Ms. Cegeny remarks, "I believe that dogs are truly colorblind, but they're born that way." I don't quite get what she means. Is she implying humans aren't truly colorblind? That would be out of character for her. Either way, she then tells her students, "it's important that we judge people for what?" "Their minds!"

Finally, Gunnar asks the doctor who is testing him for colorblindness how to be colorblind, when "that's hard to do if you can see color, isn't it?" "I think your teacher means don't make any assumptions based on color," the doctor says. "Cross on the green and not in between," Gunnar shoots back. "They're talking about human color." "So?" "So just pretend that you don't see color. Don't say things like 'Black people are lecherous, violent, natural-born criminals." "But I'm black." "Oh, I hadn't noticed," the doctor snarks as Gunnar leaves, with no further insights about how to pretend not to see people's race if you can totally see their race.

For all their pomp about colorblindness, these adults end up being the same ones who write that Gunnar is highly intelligent and rational "despite his race." So much for judging by "Their minds!". And for all their "classroom multicultural" teaching, these kids are the same ones who determine pecking order by "who knew the most Polack, queer, and farmer's daughter jokes." Beatty proves that blind colorblindness isn't a viable response to racism, and that a more active response is needed than sticking one's head in the sand.