Sorry to Bother You Symbols, Allegory and Motifs

Sorry to Bother You Symbols, Allegory and Motifs

White Voice

To climb the telemarketing ladder, Cassius starts to put on a different voice which he finds helps him speed up to the next level. This voice is called white voice. This voice has great symbolic importance to the film's overall message. The voice represents how xenophobia and racism force people of different class, race and background have to conform to this standardized image of normalcy to thrive in communities.

Protester or Advocate

One of the topics that the film comments on is capitalism and we are shown how warped it can make a person through a lot of the film’s characters. In one scene, a protester throws a soda can on Cassius due to him still going to work and not supporting the protest. And later on we see this moment going viral and the protestor who threw the can take a deal with the company. This symbolizes the sellout nature that many of the characters through the film are shown to have and comments on the fact that both sides have sellouts among them.

Rap

After being elevated enough to go to the party, Cassius goes happily expecting to finally be treated like an equal and enjoying the privileged life. This expectation, however, is quickly broken when he is forced to rap. The symbolism here lies with the fact how even after attaining his promotion he is still seen as an outsider and treated as nothing more than entertainment.

Horse

A lot of horse imagery is shown throughout the film - going so far as to showing people literally being turned into horse gene infused people. The symbolic value of this goes along with the phrase working you like a horse. Indeed, the film shows how greed has taken over and dehumanized workers to the extent of treating them like animals.

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