TRASHFUTURE - Radical Horse Parts feat. Trevor Beaulieu and Wendy Liu

Episode Date: December 27, 2018

It’s a strange situation when we actually like something on this show - and therefore decided to have a relatively serious conversation about it. On this week’s Trashfuture, Riley (@raaleh), Hussein (@HKesvani), and Nate (@inthesedeserts) spoke with Wendy Liu (@dellsystem) and Trevor Beaulieu (@RickyRawls ) of the Champagne Sharks podcast about Boots Riley’s film ‘Sorry to Bother You.’ As you can possibly imagine, we really enjoyed this film and had a lot to say about it, specifically about how it’s an unabashedly socialist movie that’s also funny.  Spoiler alert: yes, this podcast contains spoilers. If you want to hear more from Trevor, you can access episodes of Champagne Sharks here: https://soundcloud.com/champagnesharks Please bear in mind that we still have a Patreon. You can join the legions of movie gods and rock stars, and support us here: https://www.patreon.com/trashfuture/overview Also: you can commodify your dissent with a t-shirt from http://www.lilcomrade.com/, and what’s more, it’s mandatory if you want to be taken seriously. Do you want a mug to hold your soup? Perhaps you want one with the Trashfuture logo, which is available here: https://teespring.com/what-if-phone-cops#pid=659&cid=102968&sid=front

Hello, and welcome back to your Christmas special of TF. It's another all-Skype episode with us scattered to the four corners of the world, or again, in Nate's case, his house in South London. I am Riley, you may remember me from every previous episode of this show, and we are joined by Hussain in the weird Twin Peaks town. Hello, everything is normal here, everything's fine, I'm doing okay. Nate down in Peckham. Hello, how's it going?

Returning champion, Wendy Liu. Hello again. And new champion, Trevor, on Twitter at Ricky Rolls, host of the Champagne Sharks podcast. How you doing, Trep? Oh, pretty good, man. How you feeling? Oh, not so bad, not so bad. I've been putting off watching the film Sorry to Bother You for a long time.

I saw it today, and who boy am I glad I did. That film rules. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wish I saw it a second time, I have not had a chance to see it yet. It's on Blu-ray DVD and all that good stuff now, right? Oh yeah, so you can see all of these sort of trenchant critiques of capitalism and breathtaking high definition. It also just opened in the UK, so I had to find a way to not spoil the ending for like

four and a half months, because it had been out in the US, so I just never got a chance to see it before I moved here. And then it's like, nope, you have to wait till December, or pirate it online, which I'm sure none of us would ever do. No, of course, that would be illegal, and Sorry to Bother You is all about respecting property. I mean, would you ever download a car or a wife? I don't think you would.

So why would you download the music? So what we're doing today is a little bit different from the usual episodes of Trash Future, where usually we sort of talk about stuff to make fun of it or stuff we didn't like or are otherwise sort of trash things. It's sort of there in the title. I think this might be the first episode where we talk about something that we really liked. This is new for us. Yeah, I'll definitely say that I saw the movie two weeks ago and I was very excited to get

a chance to talk about it. But also, I was like, I wonder where we're going to go with it and critiquing this on the show. Is it a movie review or is it us hollering about capitalism in more and more abstracted forms? So interested in seeing how people reacted. Yeah, and you can place your bets now on the Trash Future app of where this episode's going to go.

Any case, so I've got sort of a plot summary here in front of me. I'd say why don't we go around and say the quick one sentence summary of what we thought. I'll go last. I throw it open to you guys. Who's saying you go first? I mean, I haven't actually finished watching the movie. It took me a long time. It took me like a while to actually be able to download it, right?

So I've seen like a good maybe 30, 45 minutes. So I will say incomplete, but the 30, 45 minutes I did see pretty good. I like the aesthetic. The aesthetic was pretty fun and I like the way that, yeah, I like the way that like the initial issues are. I mean, we can talk about this more later. I just don't want to give away too much or more importantly, I don't want to say something but ends up being untrue or ends up like being unraveled at the end of the movie.

So I'm going to be very useful in this episode. Wait, wait, wait. So are we not allowed to spoil it because who's saying it? No, it's fine. No, it's fine. It's fine. It's like you think I haven't read the Wikipedia summary already. But I mean, there are so many things that happened that I swear that if you hadn't seen

the end of the movie, you would think we were making it up to screw with you because like you were like, oh, no, there's no way that there's horse sticks involved. Like, oh, no, there definitely are. Look, all I heard was if we're talking to us like a general man know about movies, did you know that in the Aquaman movie there is an octopus drummer? I was very shocked by that and I'm still processing that. I don't think that anything will be able to like supersede that. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I saw that. It was, it was awesome. I needed more airtime. I'm very upset. This is more of my theory of the grand unified movie cinematic universe, which is eventually that octopus drummer is going to get his own film.

He needs one. If anyone needs one, is that octopus drummer? That's the episode title. Octopus drummer, sorry to bother you summary cast. Yes, so what? So sorry to bother you, Wendy. What was your, you know, you've been talking about this movie in glowing terms for a while. Yes.

I saw it actually in the US and then I, it honestly kind of changed my life, which sounds about hyperbolic, but like every, so I think before I'd watched the film, I'd put off watching it for a while and I'd been writing a lot, thinking a lot about organizing the tech industry and then seeing that film kind of like crystallized it for me because I mean, we'll talk more about this later, but a lot of what's wrong with the world depicted in the film feels very similar to what's going on in our world with what the tech companies are doing. So if you look at the possibilities for resistance in our world and the way it's dramatized

in the film, it does like, it does feel like there's a lot of, a lot of, a lot of parallels that could be really useful and inspiring people. So I saw it and then I saw it a second time and then I saw the interview with Boots Riley when he was here in London. So I've been, I've been pretty inspired by the film. I have a lot of, a lot of things I want to say about it. Nice. Trap.

I thought the film was very good as far as being a metaphor for, for capitalism and organizing and race. I only wish it was a little bit longer. I think it could have stood, I think in this day with so many movies are too long, it's rare I see a movie and I'm like, you know, you could have added like 20 minutes on that. Like there are some things I would have liked to have had a chance to kind of breathe. It's a really good movie, but it kind of goes at kind of like a breakneck pace once it starts going.

Hmm. Yeah, I get that. Yeah. I think it's, I almost might think like it's, it's, it's breakneck pace sort of it's, it's sort of evocative of this sort of the life of endless movement that we're all forced to live and to live as we're sort of constantly monitored and evaluated by like different algorithms. That's kind of how I felt about, about the pace.

I spare because you don't have a lot of chance to unpack a lot of the stuff you're seeing because like you said, it keeps the brutal march of progress is very much depicted in that film. Yeah. Nate, you want to, you want to give your, your two cent summary up top? Yeah, for sure. So I really enjoyed this movie. I found it to be, I don't know, like I, I really enjoyed it.

I very rarely felt as though I could guess what was going to happen next, which I mean for, for movies, you know, when it's sort of like masterlies movies, like more or less in, in, unless there's a very, very explicit, like there's a twist in the plot, like normally it's pretty easy to guess what's going to happen next. So I really enjoyed that. There were definitely some things where I was like, wow, he really went there and I've really appreciated it. There are a few things we'll get into in talking about certain aspects where I was like, I'm

really glad this was a movie made by somebody who is, who's a far left activist who's been in that space for a long time. Everything from the critique of some, in some of the plot points to like literally the sound design when they're getting hit by batons and a protest, but you can tell Boots Riley has been in that in situation before, just by the way that it was done. My big critique that I would just say that doesn't, doesn't have to get, get gone into really heavily in detail, but that I do feel like applies is that I felt like Tessa Thompson's character, Detroit, basically only exists as a barometer for whether or not you're supposed

to like what Cash is doing. And so I kind of wish that there was more, there was just that she had a little bit more agency as a character, but I thought it was really, I thought it was a really, really unique movie and I was really happy to see it succeed as it has. I more or less agree with everything you say, Nate, except I, come on, the horse stick thing, like that's very formulaic. I saw that coming from a mile away. Yes.

I just assumed there's going to be horse sticks in any movie that I watch and so often I am I wrong, but this time I was not wrong. Owned yet again by Hollywood's fear of the horse stick. All right. So let's, let's crack on. So sorry to bother you is set in a kind of alternate present version of Oakland, California. It's about Cashus or Cash Green, a black man who lives this fiance, Detroit, who accepts a job at a telemarketing agency called Regal View.

And the setting is kind of our world, but also not. So like the most popular show is called, I just got the shit kicked out of me. The biggest company is called Worry Free and we'll get into that as we progress through the story. And the whole thing feels to me kind of like magical realism. Like if Gabriel Garcia Marquez was trying to like write a story about a far left story about a call center worker that sort of accidentally changes the world or not accidentally even, then this is kind of the setting I think he would construct.

And what do you guys think about the setting? Open to the floor. Yeah. Can I, can I make some points about Worry Free? So I thought, I mean, if you look at the billboards that Worry Free has scattered throughout the film, and it's amazing because a lot of the, these are kind of in the background. I didn't even notice some of them until I watched the second time. The whole world is supposed to be one where Worry Free kind of just reigns supreme.

And it's this one company that is obviously the wealthiest and is like expanding into all these different sectors and it's kind of dominating the entire economy really. And in that sense, you can really see it as kind of like this amalgamation of a bunch of these different tech companies like Amazon, most obviously Apple and a bunch of others. And it's like really amazing the way the film just captures the kind of banality of this huge monolithic corporation kind of like blending into the background, just fades in the background. You just see ads about it and it just feels normal. And I mean, that is very much our world today, but it kind of goes over the top a little

bit and just like to the point where it, you know, you know that it's satire, but there's like this really like uncomfortable kind of uncanny feeling where you're like, it's satire, but it's also just exactly real. So that was like, that was kind of hard to watch, but also it did make it really fun to watch. I definitely agree with you, especially in things like the viral video from Cash getting hit in the head with a can later on. I know that like without giving up way too much of the plot, the idea of the viral video

becoming a thing that like that's his only, you know, that that leads to the woman who made the video basically getting a TV show, like the idea that dumb things have this strange power over day to day society, but people have no real power in their lives that that I thought was was was well done. It was obviously over the top, but it was also like Wendy said, it was so uncannily close that you, you know, there are a few things in this movie. We were like, okay, that's implausible, but a lot of it is is absolutely plausible. And that's, I think, the thing that makes you so like makes you kind of have this queasy

feeling throughout. Yeah, I mean, I would almost call it like science fiction or like speculative fiction in the sense that it draws on tendencies that are already present in everyday reality and kind of extrapolates them into the future, even if it's set in, you know, the present. It really does feel like taking tendencies such as like that of corporations to agglomerate and become more powerful and just sort of projects them and envisions what things would be like in maybe a few years. And that's, that's why, you know, that's why it's terrifying, but also just like you

watch it and you're like, yeah, this, this makes sense. Like it feels kind of plausible, even though it's so unrealistic. Yeah, so let's, so that's, that's, that's this, this setting, this sort of, it's just to the side of our reality, but it's really sort of just expands on those tendencies. So the first scene, the opening scenes of the movie, Cash is in a job interview and he's trying to get hired at Regal View, which is a telemarketing company. He's holding a couple of trophies in a CV. And essentially the boss says, look, I know you made up your CV.

I know you've just commissioned yourself that trophy. That's actually kind of fun. We don't care about your qualifications. Just sit down in the seat and stick to the script. So what do we think about his job initially? Um, one thing I want to say, just to kind of back up to the last thing a little bit. The, the exaggeration that happened with the movie in the setting, I felt like that company, what's the name of that company that they had the commercial for?

Uh, worry free. Worry free. The one thing that, one area where I thought the exaggeration didn't work, like, I like the exaggeration with everything else. Like by exaggerating it, you kind of help illustrate some of the absurdity, but the worry free, I think they made it look in a way where it's like who on earth would everyone have worked there? Like they kind of tipped their hand that it's like a miserable deal.

But a lot of times if you polish up that same deal and make it look like perks, like we work in all these different things, a lot of people think, you know, oh, wow, this is a great deal that I'm getting. So I like the exaggeration in every aspect except for that worry free commercial. I wish they kind of did it more like one of the real life versions of those things where the audience can kind of see why it would look like a kind of faustian bargain like why anybody would be enticed to go there. But going to cash's workplace, that was, I think, a place where it's a little too,

that's a good place where they could have gone a little bit more outrageous, I thought. So what's going on in cash's workplace? Well, I mean, I would say that the kind of the banality, the horrible decor, the lack of windows, the harsh light, the fact that like all day they're just basically getting told to fuck off when they're having to call these people. Like that was really so dead on as far as like terrible job environments go that I felt that it was strange because you have this departure between the what you just described, though, like the absurd world where the volunteer slavery company makes you wear

yellow scrubs and live on bunk beds. But then you go to this office environment that very much resembles bad office jobs. Yeah, that's that's that's it's right on. Like the I mean, I've worked in jobs that had similar environments. Yeah, it wasn't very exaggerated at all. So it was kind of interesting what the thing they chose to kind of exaggerate into absurdity and then the things they kind of presented straight on. It made the movies, the watching experience a little bit kind of jarring.

But I would agree. Yeah, yeah, actually, I really agree with the point that Worryfree is depicted as this terrible company where you would never want to work, which isn't really the case with a lot of these tech companies right now. Right. And but I think the way that the film kind of answers that is the way they contrast the power caller job and like, you know, the regular shitty like no window office job. And I think that's where like even though it's not within Worryfree, it's still

within this like this arm of the right, because like they're they're they're making phone calls for Worryfree to benefit Worryfree. And so that is an illustration of how you do have this like bifurcation of jobs. You have the really terrible jobs that are not glamorous and nobody wants to work in. And then you have the power caller kind of job where you're treated as a talent, you're, you're, you know, you're given all these massive perks. And I think that's like that is like a really nice critique of what actually happens right now in like in the wider economy.

Yeah. So I think what we've actually spoken quite a bit about Worryfree and what happens there is that I think let's let's go into into Worryfree a little more, because we haven't actually said what they offer, which is basically you go to work for them forever for your entire life. You don't get paid. You basically become a slave, but you are then get you have no bills. You have no costs. You get you get fed and you get a bunk bed and some ridiculous clothes to wear.

And throughout the throughout the movie, interestingly, they sort of talk a little more about Worryfree, which is a Worryfree, the company that saved America. Worryfree, the company that has been able to make a car at 20% of the normal cost. And I was thinking, well, of course, they've been able to make a car at 20% of the normal cost because they're using slave labor. But also you remember in the very beginning, when, when Cassius is talking to his uncle, he is kind of a kind of a gag scene where he tries to like make fun of landlord.

He basically talked about landlords as a parasite class and his, his landlords like cash, I'm your uncle. But his, his uncle is Terry Cruz's character basically is like, hey, that, that Worryfree sounds pretty good because the bank is talking about taking his home away and he's like, hey, three hots in a cot. I mean, that's, that's not a bad deal. And so in a way, it's like, you're, it would be one thing if it's like, these are all just automaton people that somehow have decided to go live

in this environment and work for the rest of their lives for nothing. But you're also confronted with a person in a situation that's relatable, who's saying the stress I'm under, under capitalism has become so great that I'm literally considering giving up my entire life and family to go live in a bunk bed and be a slave. And that's a great example of dispossession too, right? And how that functions and how it's, you know, disguised as just like a contract with the bank that tells you how your mortgage works, but really

it is just like ultimately dispossession. And that's what drives people to become surfs essentially for Worryfree. Yeah, absolutely. So, so this is this, this is sort of the, the, the omnipresent sort of company. And so, but so cash goes to work initially for, for Regalview and this thing. We, Wendy, you mentioned earlier, the power caller is kind of dangled in front of them as, oh, if you do very well for us, then we'll promote you to sort of, to power caller, whatever that means, and it's not well defined.

But, you know, and, and what, what it turns out to be is just a very, very luxurious office. But before we get, we get there. Um, so in, in the job itself, uh, he's, they are given a, a say, kind of a leadership meeting almost from their new, uh, team manager, uh, which who is essentially like a business inspiration Facebook post, but rendered human, uh, and I real, I don't know about you guys. I really felt that sales leadership bullshits theme where the manager says,

uh, you need to know when to tag him and when to bag him. And someone just says, uh, what does that mean? And he just can't think of any way to explain it because this is what happens. We have a business culture that's run by guys who watched Glenn, Gary, Glenn Ross, just for the Alec Baldwin monologue at the very beginning and then zone out for the human drama that occurs the rest of the movie. Um, and the team leader lady says we're a team. We're together, but of course we're not going to pay you more because who

needs money anyway? Actually, studies have shown that people prefer social capital. Uh, so what did we think of that scene? It's so close to home as far as bad jobs that I was just like squirming watching it. Yeah. I've, it was very close to home for me. Wendy, do you feel familiar with that as well? Yeah, definitely.

I mean, it feels like, um, just like an amazing depiction of the prevailing ideology under neoliberalism, right? So she actually talks about, she throws around the words capital and labor. She's like capital labor. Like what is that anyway? Right. And just like there is this prevailing idea right now that the old class divisions don't exist anymore and that we exist in a very liminal space

where, um, you know, everybody owns capital and like no one is really just late labor power. And so we're all on the same side. And this is something that you really, really get within tech companies, especially because a lot of the time they'll give people stock. And so, you know, you technically own capital and you don't feel like you're just a worker. Um, and yeah, I thought, I thought that was brilliant.

Just like, um, trying to get everybody to see themselves as like, uh, as a family. And you know, they, they all have the same role within the company and they all should be treated the same way. And it's like trying to gloss over the power imbalance between, you know, her and like the, the other managers, whereas everybody else is just not even getting paid for their work. And I think the family thing I found interesting was, um, I kind of thought of that movie office space and like the flare and like we're just one happy

family and, and, and wear your flare. And she's like, listen, do you want me to wear the flare or not? Like just tell me and he's like, well, do you want to wear the flare? I like to think we're, I actually think we're a family. And I feel like tech has kind of created a, um, a more respectable version of that. Like people wouldn't think of, um, a nice office tech job as what Jennifer Anderson was going through with, uh, in office space, but I know people who have worked for like tech companies and they, they'll say the same thing.

Like, you know, there's, there's no cubicles. There's just giant tables and everyone's sitting at this thing and there's these, uh, Taco Tuesdays and this whole fake, um, family feel and whatever. But then one of my friend's companies went, um, one of my friends companies went public and after it went public and then it, um, started having actual shareholders and quarterly reports, suddenly there's layoffs and he was saying how it just became like every other shitty job he's ever had. Like all the fake, um, coolness of the job.

Like, like there's a bike room. There's a dog day you can bring the dog in, you know, there's, um, Star Trek day, like all this stuff, it just proved to be this bullshit. The end of the day was just the same bullshit he had in every other company. Um, it went public. There was terrible layoffs, whispers, people being pulled to the side to say, don't tell anybody, but there's layoffs today, but you're safe, but this person's not safe.

Now go back and interact with them for the rest of the day. Like I didn't just tell you that they're a dead man walking and you know, bullshit like that. Man. And the whole time having to be like, sort of have a, again, just having a big smile plastered across your face while you do a climbing wall or whatever. It's, it's, it's the same shit that's been happening. Um, well, I mean, I, I feel like you can relate that, you know, as, I know

you're moving through the plot Riley, but like, because a similar thing sort of happens, like not necessarily not as much layoffs, but rather like individual success at the expense of other people. Like that's a thing that happens where, you know, it's, it's a weird, uh, when you, you start to realize how much of this is intentional in the film to, to sort of, I, the, I, you know, get across the point that people are basically being hoodwinked into ignoring their own class. And that's what happens to cash.

I mean, my sort of like ignorant, I haven't finished watching the movie comments and this is why I belong on a film podcast. Um, is that like a lot of it? This sounds like a very dark energy, Wolf of Wall Street. Like I'll come up, I'll come up with like a smarter take of this. Eventually, like one of these episodes comes out probably, but so much of like Wolf of Wall Street was sort of like, had these similarities in regards to kind of these weird kind of work, like, you know, working

institutions with underlining, like, you know, liberalization of capital tones and, um, ignoring, you know, the class conversation that occurred and like that in, in Wolf of Wall Street was sort of like non-existent, but also kind of, it was kind of there, but it was glossed over as being something that you could transcend with. And this movie, at least like from what I saw of it and what I've been hearing about it, it sort of feels as if it's like it has, it's a critique of like those undertones and like that particular type of genre

of cinema, which is, you know, very much like business guy doing business things, do you know what I mean? Like maybe, maybe you can kind of provide like better terms. Well, it's the, no one could ever, the thing is like a lot of people watch American Psycho or Wolf of Wall Street and they're like, damn, what a cool film, but a guy with an awesome job and cool suits. And they may all be trying to mount a criticism of capital, but what Sorry to Bother You does is it does it in such a way that no moron could ever

watch this movie and be like, damn, I got to get myself hit in the head. I think it like, I think it, I think it like, it represents like the absurdity of like living in, living in like neocap, like neoliberalism really well in a way that like other films that have tried to critique it and almost tried to be like too clever in doing so, like have confilled, like, I think the simplicity in this story kind of is a lot more powerful in terms of its critique of capitalism. Can I actually suggest like a, like a cinematic parallel?

So, you know, you guys might give me shit for this, but when I was watching it, I thought a lot about the Hunger Games. And specifically, so Mark Fisher had this blog post where he wrote about the Hunger Games and he describes it as this delirious experience where he keeps thinking like, how can I be watching this? How can this be allowed? Because I mean, the Hunger Games is a fairly strong critique of capitalism, but the thing is it's not, it's not as visible because it's not set in our

world, you don't necessarily see it. But the whole point about the Hunger Games is that it's this world where these people are made to compete with each other for something that is created just like by the system. And you can see the whole power collar thing in kind of the same light, right? Like the management has created a system where a few people who work harder than their peers who succeed, who sell more, whatever, than their peers get promoted to power collar.

And it's this hierarchy that's completely imposed from above. And the people who are in it, some of them realize that it's something that they don't want, but when Cash is exposed to it, he's just like, all right, well, here's this hierarchy, I'm going to succeed within it. And the whole message of the Hunger Games is like, you need to get to a point where you realize that this hierarchy, this competitive like battle to the death between you and your peers is not something you should just accept. It's something you have to refuse.

And so, yeah, I mean, I saw this film in kind of the same light. And I just, what I loved about it was how it was in like a very contemporary setting where we look around and we see things are like very familiar, we see, you know, the modern office job. And I thought that was kind of the brilliance of the film. Yeah. And I think the other thing is like it's in the Hunger Games, it's this, you know, this big epic rising up and so on of people that sort of happens

because they rally around a charismatic leader. Whereas here, in fact, we'll sort of moving to the next plot point, we meet Squeeze, who's played by the walking dead Steven UN. And he talks about organizing a union for the telemarketers, which is sort of, I guess you could say the main sort of protagonist, almost one of the main sort of protagonistic forces of the film is this union. And what I noticed, like we're talking about organizing a union at a job that doesn't traditionally find itself unionized as telemarketers are usually

sort of casualized temp workers. I was going to add to Wendy's point about the Hunger Games. Like she was saying, you guys might give me shit about this, but I don't think it's a reach at all because at the end of the day, the Hunger Games is a game show. Like it's really what it is. It's like a game show, like on steroids and, you know, mixed with. But I think it's a.

Exportative type of concept that goes back to like gladiator times, you know, where it's like these people are going to fight and they're going to fight for their lives in this case in the gladiator arena, the literal lives. But on a regular game show, it's the mortgage or the chance to not be evicted or the chance to finally pay off their student loans or whatever. And I think it's like not a coincidence that there's a game show conceit within the within the sorry to bother you because it's kind of like we're so inundated with that whole capitalist realism that Mark Fisher

talks about, that we even start turning this horrible struggle into our entertainment, you know, and part of the joy of watching a game show is seeing the people overreact. And, you know, a lot of times when there's like poor people on the game show and they're really doing all these theatrics, it's almost like this kind of class mocking. We get to get to like see people like entertain us as they fight for their lives in a way.

And I always find it interesting how game shows kind of lend themselves so easily to being good critiques of capitalism, whether it's like or society, whether it's like The Running Man or The Hunger Games or any other game show. There's a Black Mirror episode that was called One Million Credits or something. And I think Black Mirror has a lot of overrated aspects and problems. But I thought that was a good episode about the idea of how game shows kind of turn our microcosms of our struggle and get used to entertain us. And we don't kind of realize that we're trapped in the same kind of thing

in real life that we call jobs and stuff. So I love that. Yeah, that's I think it's an amazing take. And in a way, the workplace becomes a spectacle, right? So it's not it's not just about like the workplace as such. It's about this sort of ideological apparatus and, you know, it creates a certain reality and like a very performative reality. And it makes it hard to imagine anything outside that like you're saying

about capitalist realism. Yeah, and you can even see that in the way the office is set up because they have a little light that dings when they make a sale. And then whenever cash sort of performs well for a friend of other people at the office, like he and the manager do the all these exaggerated dances. Like he's sort of he's performing how much he's winning at this at this job as well. So yeah, the whole thing is just a crazy game show. Yeah, isn't it it's not even like a word to use now that like gamify?

I wish tech companies talk about we're going to gamify this and gamify that. Yeah. In fact, well, so initially, initially, when we talk about the union, cash is sort of interested in joining it because he's like, well, I'm not doing super well at my job. I'm not making a lot of money. But then he he learns the white voice. So what if from an older coworker is like, no, you can sell, you just have to use the white voice.

So, Trevor, what's the white voice? I want to remember Danny Glover's exact description because I thought it was so good. Do you guys remember it? Like like he said, not Will Smith White, it has to be. But like the kind of feeling that your problems are going to be OK. All your bills are going to be meant. Like it was interesting because it wasn't just like a stylistic thing. Like he made it clear it wasn't just the deaf comedy jam voice or the

in that Simpsons episode, we're making fun of black comedians. And that white people drive like this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't just like, yeah, yeah. Oh, my God, this is true. We're so lame. Like, you know, it wasn't that it was it was like act like you like exactly. It was a mentality like you imagine that you don't have any bills and you never have to worry about whether or not you're going to have a job.

Like basically because I agree with you that had it been in the hands of a less astute writer, it would have been, you know, haha, talk like a white guy. White people talk like nerds, but instead he basically saying, imagine you're the kind of person who has the supreme confidence that you never have to worry about whether whether or not you're going to be closed out by the economy or by the society. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's a critique of power, right? Because it's not it's not about like, you know, whiteness.

This is like biological essentialist thing. It's like it you're talking like a white person, which means you're talking as if you're someone for whom the economy is made. You're talking as if, you know, you absolutely expect to have economic power. You expect to just like fill in any, you know, job openings will open up for you. You can become a CEO. It's like think the world is going to bend itself around you. And if you talk like that, then you can find you can connect with people.

You can make your customers think that that's going to happen for them too. If they buy their product, buy it. Yeah, it's not just yeah, it's not just optics or stylistic ticks. It's a actual materialist position, you know, that's. Well, and the thing is, and this is what I've sort of been thinking about. This thought has sort of been living in the back of my skull, which is that one of the reasons that Britain is in such a dire political state is that our whole system is government by people with this sort of white voice, if you like,

like that the like the the entirety of the sort of the Oxford Union politics that have sort of, you know, basically made our country shit for so long. It is just David Cameron sort of walking up and sort of blithely announcing that he assumes he'll win the referendum. So we did Brexit referendum. So he doesn't really have to try of sort of overconfident columnists just saying, well, I'm sure we'll be in and out of Iraq very quickly. It'll be the history. It'll be the history's easiest war or David Davis saying,

oh, no, the Brexit deal will be history's easiest negotiation, whatever, just with having having grown up with such unimaginable privilege that and that the world has just handed them so much that they then just assume that all of the problems of the world are going to be very simple for them to solve because from a from a personal point of view, you know, Dave Brexit is not that much of a risk for David Cameron. You know, he's still going to get his twenty five thousand pound shed. But but it just feels like that that kind of sort of the confidence of coddling basically has just created the Jacob Rees mobs and so on.

And it's interesting too that but also specifically for sorry to bother you that when you think about cash as managers, they're not the kind of people that he's selling the stuff to like his one manager who makes all of the killing people and bagging, bagging and tagging him and putting him at the morgue. Like he's obviously someone who's kind of lived on the margins, but now has it has a job that he's good at. But he's he's got that sort of like, you know, recovering addict intensity about him and the other people like they're they're sort of kind of parodies of

a kind of office worker, but they're they're they're not they're not the same as the character who's played by our army hammer. The was it Joe Lyft, I think his name is or David Lyft, something like Steven Lyft. Yeah, I just picked a white guy name and I just I just just going and going. Yeah, that in a way like he's having to affect a voice and a mentality that's even like of a higher class standing than his bosses. And so it's interesting because his bosses aren't the one who told him to do that. Danny Glover's character, who's been like suffering in this world forever,

is the one who taught him to do it. This is so this is the sort of the trick he learns. And and so in doing this, he gets so good that when even when they the union that we were talking about arranges a sort of wildcat strike and puts their phones down when he when he gets taken aside, he thinks he's about to get fired. But actually, I say, no, we're going to make you a power caller. And it's so far, it's been unclear to us what this means.

It just seems like an arbitrary rank, but you come to realize and this is kind of where I'll throw to Wendy that it's sort of just a nice office and I feel Wendy like you would sort of have a lot, a lot to unpack here of just the sort of environment in Blythe superiority of the sort of high ranking tech people. Yeah, yeah, I mean, there's there's there's so much there. I'll try to keep the short. But I guess it's the point is that that's a job that doesn't feel like a job.

It's something that it feels like a lifestyle. It feels like something you've earned. And so he goes up in the elevator, right? And I think that just like the motion of that is, you know, it's not an accident. He's he's been elevated to this higher plane of existence where everybody wears like nice designer suits and there's like champagne that they just like pour over people and you have like an actual, you know, floor to ceiling windows. And and so it doesn't it doesn't feel like he's just a worker, right?

And like, there's something about that that is so insidious and just really so dangerous, but he really starts to think that this is like his calling. It's his destiny and he's earned it. So like he's worked really hard making all these calls. And now like this is just something he deserves. And so he looks he thinks about, you know, all of his old colleagues and his even his fiancee and he's like, well, you know, maybe if they worked harder, they could be where I am instead of thinking like, oh, wait, why?

Why do they pick me? Like, why is it fair that I get this this world of like luxury and plenty while everybody else is down there barely making rent? And so, yeah, there's something just like like incredibly real about that scene, which really made it hard to watch. I would also throw in that I mean, he's got pressure from his family. I mean, he's able in that scene where he takes the job, he's able to give his uncle money to like resolve his issue with his house.

He buys a car. He's able to get a nice apartment. But then it's very deftly does this where like you can understand where he's coming from, then you also start to watch him become like in scene by scene, become more poisonous towards the people on the lower floors, because all of a sudden this becomes his new home. There's an amazing montage where he transitions from like apartment to apartment and the apartments get progressively nicer.

Like the furniture becomes like more slick and more expensive. And it literally falls apart and then regrows. You actually see it sort of replace itself. Yeah. And it's like an amazing like it's a cinematic masterpiece, like those scenes. But I mean, what that tells you is just like the once this process is put in motion, once he gets promoted, he's going to keep wanting more and more. The just by virtue of the way the structure works and all these carrots being dangled in front of him, it's not enough for him to just be like, OK,

I'll get promoted once I'll pay off my mortgage, you know, and I just don't have to live in precarity. Now he's like, no, I just want now that he's gone up the corporate ladder, he wants to keep climbing it. I think that is like a great critique of what these systems actually do to people. They start out thinking, oh, I'm just going to work this job just for a bit. But then just like the way the job works, the people within it are doing their best to get people to to buy into the system in a way that really like damages

their self and themselves. And you know, it's also not just a great critique of what those corporations do to their workers, but it's kind of a great critique of how those corporations actually operate themselves, because the whole point of it, a corporation is just to grow and there's just this kind of cult of growthism. Like it doesn't matter how good you're doing, you're always supposed to be doing better than last time. So even with Facebook, it'll be like they pretty much dominate everything.

But then the quarterly report will happen. And I discovered this when I had a little bit of extra money and decided to try to buy a couple of stocks and see if I could have any luck buying stocks. And then when I just started following what the company was doing, I started realizing my brain was getting warped and what made it a good company. You know, because you would like own a stock and the stock would drop and you had to read why the stock dropped. And then it would say, well, this report came up and Facebook only grew

10 percent, but, you know, it was supposed to grow 15 percent. That's why it was projected to grow like it's user growth. And it's like how many people in the world are left for to even to even get more people like like it's supposed to always be finding more people to like pretty soon they're going to sign up babies. It's going to have them come out the womb. Well, who's saying to do that? Was that who's saying is going to do that?

Yeah, who's who? But also, too, I mean, something, you know, specifically related to this in the film, too, is that like if a corporation, if for some reason they decide in whatever moment of whatever you want to call it, self interest or public relations, they decide they want to give their workers a raise, for example, that's going to probably affect their share price. Yeah, exactly. And that's actually going to be received negatively by shareholders

and specifically by their board. And it's entirely possible that their leadership will just get replaced because they're like, no, we're not paying you to fucking pay your workers more. We're paying you to make us money. No, you're. You know, it's actually this actually grow like that's what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to keep growing. But this is whether or not there's whether or not Facebook is helping to worsen,

you know, ethnic tensions to the point where there's a genocide happening because of information, disinformation shared on Facebook. That doesn't matter. What matters is growth. Yeah, you see that you see. Go ahead. It's like I was going to say, because it's not profit. People think it's about profit, but it's still profitable. That's a crazy thing about when the stock price drops. No one's saying that you're becoming unprofitable.

You just didn't grow, which is I think is amazing that, you know, there's never enough money. Like you're actually making more money than you're spending, which is what you think a business is supposed to be about. Everybody doesn't want enough money to go around, but you didn't grow. You weren't bigger than you were yesterday. So you fail. Yeah. And that's something you can really see in the film as well,

because then I think we'll transition to this soon. But Steve Leav, the CEO of Worryfree, he has this like diabolical plan that's going to increase, increase profits, but also just like grow the company. And the thing is, you wonder, like, what is driving the sky? Like his company already has dominance over the whole world, basically. And yet he still is thinking, like, how do we make this company grow? How do we keep keep doing this? How do we dominate more and more of the planet?

And it's just like, it really is. There's this line, actually, that I think I feel like Riley, you'd really like because he says that everything he's doing is rational. And there you can really, you know, you can think about like Adorno and Hawkeimer's critique of rationality and how capitalism is this very rational system. And that this like idea of what is considered rational under capitalism is actually pretty horrendous to, you know, most of us when we, if we like care about morals or anything, but at the same time,

it's rational because it's what the system incentivizes. I actually copied down this line that I'll skip ahead sort of to where it ends up happening because who say now is the time for you to think, hmm, are they fucking with me with the end of this film or not? But where sort of Cash says to Lyft, he says, wait, so you're making half human, half horse hybrids to make more money? And Lyft's answer is just, yes. I mean, it's just like, it's the unicorn poop thing again, isn't it?

It's just like an extended form. Someone like said to you a couple of years ago, yeah, the best like, we're making a toy in which kids play with unicorn poop. And the unicorns are like unreasonably sexy, but also sort of childlike. So it will make you feel a bit awkward. Like, how would you respond to that? Whereas now it's just like, yeah, OK, fine. All right, cool.

Yes, right. Now the best film of 2018 is a strong horse car. Yeah. And you know, and my Christmas job up here in the woods is being the social media manager of unicorn poop. Sorry. Well, I also feel like one thing to point out, too, is to try to bring to kind of catch us up on the plot is that he finds out about the plan that they're going to make workers from worry free, take a drug that turns them into human horse hybrids so they can work harder.

But he finds out about this in a meeting with Lyft at a party he gets invited to because he's performed so well. So pulling us slightly back also, I want to say I want to say like, what do the power callers actually do? Because it seems like they are still just doing telemarketing. It's just they're telemarketing something different. So what what they're doing is they're doing this higher tier of telemarketing. So instead of selling direct to consumer, they're selling to businesses

and they're selling to the sort of businesses who would essentially use worry free slave labor. And so there's there's one like really amazing scene where cash, you know, who's obviously done his homework manages to get this one. I think Japanese company to switch to using worry free, which means, you know, they get to they they have greater profits, lower labor costs. And so I mean, this is what they're doing. And they're also, I believe, selling weapons to the military.

And it's just like everything you can imagine about the worst, the worst possible jobs, like the most morally depraved things you can imagine. And this is what they're doing. And me for me, they're like really strong parallels to what a lot of tech companies are doing now. You see all these big tech companies with contracts with ICE, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement or with the US military. And it's it's yeah, it's like it's hard to watch, right?

Because when he went on Boots Riley wrote the script, I think he started writing in 2012 or something. I don't know how much it's changed this then. But like in the last few years, it's come out that a lot of these big tech companies have these contracts, which are really kind of doing the same thing that worry free power callers are doing. But I mean, yeah, I think that's like a case of just being really prescient, but also the fact that the military industrial complex has been around for

a while and it's it may have changed form, but it's it hasn't really gone away. And these new tech companies are just like taking part in it. Yeah, I think the the other thing I think that's absolutely right. And I think the other thing I wanted to sort of to bring up as well was that one of the rules in the power caller suite is white voice at all times and white voice only. And so what that kind of made me made me think of and I might sort of I might throw to you for this as well, Trev, but but like this is also the world

of pure classless identity politics, where it's like, oh, no, we're empowering the we're empowering like POCs by having them sell weapons or modern day slave labor, and it gets kind of the same thing as when someone tweeted out yesterday, you may disagree with her Brexit deal, but opposing Theresa May as misogynist card. Well, somebody doing that as a joke already being it was the women's quality party. Wasn't there that thing about like a woman being pushed off a glass cliff

by men? Yeah, that's them. Oh, God. Yeah, that was that one. Yeah. Yeah, bad. But that's that kind of reminded me of that, right? Like it was this it was this classless, pure ID Paul. I'm trying to think about it. Can can can you unpack that a little bit? Yeah, because wait, one of the because wait, one of the when they say, you know, that you're when you you have to sort of you can come into

these sort of high status positions, right? And it's like, oh, yeah, we have like a lot of like women and people of color even in these positions, but it's like what we're just representing them among the like cabal of people who are kind of like in these managerial roles, making the world worse. So it feels like it's it's almost like the way I say like classless identity politics, where it's like we're not thinking about the class impacts of what we're actually doing.

We're just trying to make sure we have good representation within it. I can't remember because I saw the movie a while ago. Did they hire them because they were for representation reasons or just because they were the best? Well, like was there any point where they said, look at the diversity we have in the power carter suite? I think what what made me think of it was when they were when they talked about, yes, you is that it's the white voice.

It's like the representation through almost through transformation and homogenization. And also the way that they also the way that they treat cash with like, oh, no, of course, well, we definitely want to hear you rap because we think that's cool. Like the way they talk to cash is so patronizing. Well, yeah, I was going to point out that exactly that like even though what you you could you could come away from this from the impression

like, OK, well, they're good at their job there by their equal. But like you the way he and Mr. Blank, Omari Hardwick's character get treated at the party. Yeah, the way that like the way that Steve Lyft is so patronizing towards Omari Hardwick's character, the way that they make him rap, all these things like it's very much made clear that like your your acceptance is absolutely contingent. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree with that.

Like I feel like they got there due to some warped idea of meritocracy. But it's no matter what they accomplish, they're still kind of just boiled down to that essence, like this idea that you just always going to be there, a rapper or curiosity. I do see that part of it. Yeah, and also something that was really interesting, Riley, is, you know, when Omari Hardwick's character and the Mr. Blank is talking with with cash after the rap thing,

after they've humiliated him and cash is is sitting by himself while people are just having an orgy, Omari Hardwick's character comes out to him and he doesn't use his white voice. And he starts talking to him and he's like, you know, you can take this meeting with Steve Lyft and he's like, don't, you know, don't get in your own head to the point that you cut yourself out of this opportunity. But it's this very, very strange scene because up until that point, they're sort of like been been acting as though this is normal for them

to talk in this completely like dehumanized voice. But when this between the between the just the two of them, he's like, it's very obvious, like they're not accepted in the group. And that I feel like was really that was there to be noticed whether or not people noticed it, you know what I mean? But I felt like I was interested in whether or not, you know, you all saw that as well, or if it was just sort of like because I mean, my wife and I were watching and we're just like, yeah, this is this is so deeply

uncomfortable the entire time. Yeah, yeah, like the one thing where I didn't fully agree with Riley was the idea that the power suite was kind of created or was meant to represent the identity politics. But I do agree with the idea that once they are there, the identity keeps them from ever being like, like it's a fake acceptance. Like they try to act like, like I don't think it was classless to power suite. I thought the power suite was trying to be tend to be raceless.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, actually, yeah, I'm I've been convinced by you now. I no longer agree with what I said earlier. OK. Yeah, yeah, and they're and they can't get past the race part later on because, you know, no matter how much they try to pretend that, hey, you know, we don't care about what color you are, just that you're the best. But, you know, at the party, like you said, they're just like, you know, just rap for us, just do this. So there's this there's a sense that the acceptance is always on a

contingent precarious basis. But one thing I liked about that scene that you pointed out is how the other power color that's represented by Amari Harjirik was just fully committed to selling out, and he was like trying to tell the other guy, listen, don't get in your own head, don't let racial pride or self respect or class pride keep you from missing out on this opportunity. And I feel like that a lot of neoliberal identity politics is kind of based on that, where it's like, you know, you're supposed to not let these things

stop you from, you know, what's a famous thing like more female wardens, you know, like higher moral guards, higher more female guards. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think you see something like the exact analog with this with like, you know, lean in like Sheryl Sandberg's lean in feminism as well, where it's like, OK, you recognize that the structures are oppressive and they're not suited for you and they're deliberately designed to exclude you. But fuck that.

Just like lean into the structure and then get find your way up to the top, even if it means like stepping over other people of your class on the way. And it's like really just like depressing to watch that, I guess. Yeah. And then, of course, that leads us to the meeting, which is him telling him, here's my secret plan. And do this spiral line to an enormous line off of a horse plate. And then when he has to pee, he goes to the bathroom and he encounters the horse stick mutants.

Yeah, you've got with a with a with a really big hog on him. Yeah. So yeah, that's that's where it got. Let's let's talk the plan. So Lyft's plan is, as we sort of alluded to before, is to improve the profitability and just sort of drive growth endlessly of his company by transforming the workers themselves into half horse hybrids, who are much stronger and more able to like lift and carry stuff. That was and the weird thing is like this is this is not sort of super far

from like the way that Marx wrote, because like when Marx was this sort of this weird sort of deformation body horror thing with the horse transformation. Because like when Marx was was writing talking about capital, he sort of he was immersed in like in gothic fiction and literature. And so that's why he sort of talks about about about specters of communism and the sort of capital as a vampire that sucks the life from living labor and so on. Like critiques of capitalism have used these kind of methods of sort of horror and deformation like for as long as they've been around,

which I thought was very interesting. I think an interesting thing with capitalism is that it has it works off of machines a lot like literal machines. But also the idea of turning people into machines or extensions of machines. Like people become like beasts of burden. Like like like the oxen that pulls the plow. Like where does the apparatus of the machine begin? And where does the living being begin?

Like the oxen is just an extension of the it is because a part of the machine. It's just the total machine is like the horse and carriage or the total machine is like the oxen and cart. And I feel like assembly lines do that to people like you go from. I think Marx talks about how people become alienated from the work because they go from something where, say, you're a farmer, you know, everything about farming from beginning to end. And then you end up getting like a final product.

Like, you know, you can point to this and say, hey, I created this. I planted the seed or if you're an artisan or a blacksmith, you can point to a sword or if you're a cobbler, you can like point to this finished product and you have a relationship to the product. You have a relationship to your work where once industrialization happens, you get this you get this assembly line and you have one single thing to do in that assembly line. Like you just put like the bell on this thing.

There's like 500 things that come down and each time one passes by, you just put the bell and you can't point to something with a sense of pride, saying, like, you know, I created this or I have a skill or you can't show your kids. Hey, this is what daddy did. Like, you know, you just like, hey, did you see that one stitch and that product? Like, yeah, your daddy did that. You know, you don't have that you kind of just become part of a machine.

And I think the horses were a great, like they made literal the whole beast of burden. Yeah, definitely. And I think I mean, it's like it's so dehumanizing. But what it really does is it makes it completely turn someone into just a worker. Like their whole identity is as someone to produce some, you know, some goods. And all they really get from that is just the conditions for being able to sustain themselves. They, they, they, you know, they, they're able to reproduce themselves.

And that's all they become. They become a worker. And what's really scary about this is the fact that Steve Lyft is someone who just has the power to do that. He can look at a human being and see, ah, this is someone who's going to give me, you know, this much profit. And then he has the ability, he has the power, he has the resources to actually turn this person into just like the literal manifestation of a beast of

burden, like you were saying. And the thing about the power, which this might actually speed up the plot somewhere a bit is the fact that when, when cash is like, you know, I'm going to expose you. This is like, this is so fucked up and you try to stop it. Nothing happens because at one point, you know, cash goes on TV and it's like, oh, you guys need to call your congressman, tell them that this is happening. And then the real, the right, the next scene is a shot of, you know, Democratic

and Republican senators, like kind of like shaking hands with Steve Lyft and being like, congratulations, what a great plan. And I like that scene. I mean, that itself was like such a, such a really political statement. And I thought it was just brilliant. I was so happy that he did that. I absolutely like, I was, I was telling Riley after I saw the movie, I'm like, this is the thing where really it was like, I'm very glad this movie was

written by a communist because he does the thing, you know, cash does the thing where he's like, the authorities have to stop this. And what immediately happens right after, like you just said, when the stock price goes up, basically, yeah, the stock price goes up because it's like, no, this this is how the system's supposed to work. And having that illustrated in such a way in a film, I was like, I was sitting there in the theater and I was like, wow, this is this is very, very subversive. And I'm really enjoying it because like, it's not an appeal to authority.

The idea is that the only authority is that the only authority that you can respect is the workers organizing. And that, I mean, it also made me think about slavery, like, like literal slavery. Like, you know, there was this thing where people, because it was fueling like the progress of their country and capitalism. And by the dehumanization of these horses, it was adding an extra level of comfort to people's lives. People got okay with this dehumanization like pretty quick.

Like, you know, he exposed it and society just, you know, got numb to it really fast. And the exposing didn't do anything. I mean, we think that's probably what like slavery was like, like, you know, you could expose all the horrors of like African slavery and transatlantic slave trade. And like the first abolitionists probably ran up against that a lot. Like, you know, what look at these horrors and people are like, oh, you know, we can live with it, you know, I saw this article is pretty interesting. It made the case that the whole professional managerial system that came up

under industrialization was actually created under slavery. Like basically slavery was the first professional managerial quarter driven like all things they'd be taken to take for granted in modern workforce and industrialization was actually a case of people just taking techniques that were created and perfected under slavery because in slave times, that was the only real thing that had that type of professional managerial like structure. There wasn't it was like artists in times. There weren't really factories yet.

There weren't really offices as we know them now as workplaces. Like, you know, that came later and the article made a pretty good case. I wish I could remember the name of it, but that basically it was just literally slavery, but just transferred over to white people. Yeah, I feel like the analogy to slavery is actually really useful because what it does illustrate is that like like you guys were saying earlier, an appeal to authority won't help the the people who are oppressed under the system. They need to be the ones to kind of like rise up and to you know, to change things

because otherwise like the people who are who have attained power in the current system, why would they buck the system because it works for them. And they're they're they're basically happy with it. And so, you know, you need people to collectively organize kind of like what they're trying to do with the union to put a stop to it. And I guess like, I don't know, Riley, if you want to talk about the last scene or if that's too much of a spoiler, but the climactic final battle. Go for it. Yeah.

Yeah. OK, so I mean, this scene is actually like I cried several times kind of loudly, too. But anyway, so there's this. So basically the the telemarketers who've been on on strike, like they're still on strike, even when cash is becoming a power caller. And the the police have been cracking down on them really hard, right? And like every day they send they send a ton of people to try to like to break the break the strike.

But then when cash kind of like has this big realization and he realizes that, you know, this whatever worry free is doing, it's not going to be put. It's not going to be stopped by calling your congressperson. So then he says, OK, I'm going to join my my colleagues on on the pick a line. And he also comes up with this like pretty brilliant plan where eventually he enlists the help of the the horse people who have been who he's managed to free. And after after some of the protesters have been, you know,

roughed up by the cops, the he kind of like blows open a door. I think we're like he he there's like an alarm that he figures out how to activate and the like half human half horse people come out. And they end up on the side of the workers as they should. And there's a scene where squeeze is like, you know, standing next to one of these horse people. And they kind of like look at each other and there's this growing recognition that they're on the same side.

And so squeeze kind of takes his hand and he like makes a fist. And he says same struggle. And that just like that just like killed me because what it really reminded me of is migrant workers and how there's often this idea that, you know, migrant workers are brought in by by the boss to try to like lower wages and that there's no way to, you know, bridge the gap. And that migrant workers should be seen as the enemy. But that's not necessarily true.

Sometimes migrant workers can be even more militant and can be the ones to really like force some sort of change in workplace conditions. And I mean, like watching that scene, it just completely reminded me of this. The fact that workers are often divided by capital, but they don't have to be. And if they find a way to kind of like bridge the divide, then they can resist so much more effectively. OK, I would say like my final impression is like, there's this scene at the end where he's kind of talking to the horse, like, like the horse is like a stupid.

And and the horse has to remind them like, hey, I'm from the I'm from the Bay. Like, you know, I was once a human. And I think that's kind of like what capitalism can kind of do. It can dehumanize workers to the point where you forget like the person's even a human, even when you're advocating for them. Like, you know, whether it was abolitionists who kind of were fighting for slaves, but still thought of them as like dumb animals. And, you know, forget that this person was, you know, a human being at one point,

you know, they had a home country. They weren't, you know, created to be slaves or whether it's the migrant worker who people just kind of see as just this fruit picking machine. Like even the ones who ostensibly are on their side and fighting for them. And I thought that was like a nice touch about how sometimes even the people who can be so-called fighting the good fight can still fall into the trap of forgetting the humanity, because that's what it trains us to do. Capitalism is just accepted dehumanization of people.

Yeah. So my concluding thoughts on the film, I think it came out at this like brilliant moment, right? Like this is this is a time when people are talking about unionizing and class politics, and especially in the tech industry where in the last few months, and this is something that I talked about on an earlier episode of Trash Future, but we've seen the rise of pretty militant actions by workers against their companies. And most recently in the games industry, Game Workers Unite, which is a union

that recently affiliated with IWGB in the UK. And the games industry is another one of these industries where for a long time there hasn't really been any unionization because people are thought of as not workers, but as part of a team, part of a family. They do it because they love it, and therefore they're not workers. But then the people in the industry, they know they're being exploited. They're not happy with their conditions. They're starting to resist and fight back as a collective.

And that's just so inspirational. And we're starting to see the beginnings of this in Silicon Valley and the big tech companies. And I mean, I really hope that people who are working at these companies watch this film because I mean, I watched it already having like pretty radical politics, but I watched it and I was like, wow, like if I didn't, I think I would have definitely become a communist after watching it. Because it's like if you can relate to the kind of workplace conditions

that are depicted, then it is quite a compelling vision. And this idea that we don't have to just sit back and let the authorities take care of us, there's actually something, there's room for agency. And there's room for us to act and take control of our lives and to make this better world ourselves. I think that's such an important message. Yeah, I think that's quite right. I love the film.

I'm really excited to see how this inspires other films that are like this. I agree with you, Wendy, that I'm very happy it came out in this moment because I feel like to see something that's so unabashedly socialist makes me really happy. Like the Ashley talks about beasts of burden and owning the means of production and like, you know, the only ones who can save us are ourselves. But like, does it in a way that's funny, that's memorable, that you don't feel like you're being preached to?

I am really, really appreciative of that. I agree with you, Trevor, from earlier that you made the point that in a way it's so quickly paced that it's almost like you want it to to slow down a little and be able to learn a little bit more about some of the people. Like I definitely feel like Danny Glover's character would have been interesting to learn more about. I definitely think that that Tessa Thompson's character Detroit, his girlfriend would have been interesting to learn more about.

I mean, we do see some of the scenes with her at her her gallery opening. Also, another character, I feel like squeeze Steven Young's character. That would have been interesting because he tells a story about how he helped organize the the sign twirlers union in Los Angeles. You know what? Can I just interject here? I have heard that he was based on an actual IWW organizer who's active in California, like like a wobbly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, you know, I agree. It would have been amazing to learn more about him. One aspect about learning more about Detroit. I find it interesting that she was critiquing, you know, his white voice, but then they show her at her exhibit and she's putting on a British accent. And I felt like it was kind of trying to say like everybody kind of sells out in their own way and doesn't kind of realize it. And that was an example of something that I would have like to have seen unpacked

more like just to give a concrete example of how they kind of just brush past things. And I find that's interesting that her fake British voice for a second. Oh, yeah. The whole then that whole scene is also a great critique of like art that's supposed to be sort of a very high concept and to sort of make a point. But it's still just being sold to rich people that sort of assuaged. Exactly. Like that's like that's that's something I bang on about all the time. And I was very I was so happy to see, you know,

the same critique of freeze that I want to make all the time as well. Well, yeah. And she's having to basically get abused. She's having to like make the audience abuse her in order to be taken seriously. And yeah, it's weird because like what you described, it makes cash incredibly uncomfortable. And he's basically critiquing her. But then she she's at this point has left him because she can't stand the fact that he's crossing the picket line.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She can see how he's selling out, but is unable to see in herself, you know, which is I find was an interesting thing I would like to see unpacked a little bit. Absolutely. For sure. I mean, that's what you're saying, although I love this film and I'm excited. I'm hoping that Boots, because I I don't know. Boots Riley has been around for a long time. I mean, the coup have been around for a long time.

I I've always amazed. The coup had an album that was scheduled to come out on September 11th, 2001. And the cover of their album was them blowing up the World Trade Center. You know, needless to say, they've been on the radical side of politics for forever. So it's it's kind of amazing. And just the idea that that Boots Riley from the coup has directed a movie and it's really good and been really well received is so mind blowing to me

that I'm very excited to see more. Yeah. Well, this is one of those examples of how it could have been longer, I think. I would love to have seen that unpacked more as well, but it is exciting. I want to see what Boots Riley does next. Hussain, I'm looking forward to actually finishing this movie, especially the stuff about the horse sticks. That's really the main thing I took from this. I understand that maybe there's a lot of practice in here,

that maybe this is a very interesting and good, actually good critique of capitalism. But I'm just going to be honest with you, I am looking forward to the horse sticks. Well, that's the thing, it's ordinarily we are a comedy show that does comedy. But I think when we're just talking about something we like, that already is a comedy. It's pretty hard to do more comedy. So we've just ended up and I think that's kind of what I wanted to do with it. Having a more like straightforward, serious conversation about just a very good movie, which is a nice way to spend a Sunday, in my opinion.

It is possible for us to like things. Yes, very, very rarely, but on occasion, we occasionally will like things. So my favorite thing, my sort of final impression is I thought like that there was this sort of relentless underlying critique of like capitalist rationality that was sort of flowing throughout the whole thing, where it was like where all of these sort of where you can see all of these decisions that are sort of rational to a calculating actor are sort of patently irrational if you take a sort of longer view of the world.

You can see it when when cash elects to sort of initially to not join the union and instead choose sort of personal promotion to sort of fulfill a sort of short term material need. It's like, well, actually, like this is just going against your long term needs or the idea that you know, that the that lift is going to transform everyone into a horse because eventually the idea is that this one company will employ almost everyone in the world and then they'll all be horses. And then it will be Steven Lyft and he'll be living on a planet with just a bunch

of other just a bunch of horses, essentially, that he wants to make Bojack Horseman World real. And but and what I also the other thing that I was thinking of right and sort of I think of this quite a bit, you know, it's if it's it's not always required to pay people, it's not always required to pay people enough. And whenever they can, capital always will will elect to pay its workers nothing over something, you know, and and and they'll always and if there was a way that they could if there was a way that they could that they could actually create a sort of dumber, stronger class of laborer, we have to remember

they will do it, they'll find a way to do it and then they'll do it. They're not sort of bound by the same compunctions that you and I are because they're just the it is essentially a form of like psychopathy where they're like, you know, it's growth at all costs, growth at any cost. And so that's why I always just think it helps you sort of be so skeptical of the motives of capital, I think, if that makes any sense to know that like your employer would turn you into a stupid horse if they could and it was if they could make it legal to there are very few things stopping them from doing that.

Everybody, thank you very much for calling in today. This has been a delightful conversation. Um, yeah, I was sorry to bother all of you. I can't believe I made it to the entire episode. I made it this far. I made it this far and I only did it now. I earned it. Um, now you can take off your anonymous mask.

So, uh, Wendy, where can people find you online? I'm at Dell system on Twitter. Don't ask me why you had your Dell system. Uh, and, um, do you, do you have anything, anything to plug you? You're, you're still writing that blog as well. So I'm writing a book right now called abolished Silicon Valley. Awesome. Yeah.

When's it coming out? Um, hopefully sometime in 2020, we'll see. Okay. So get those pre-orders up for abolished Silicon Valley. Uh, and Trev, where can people find you on the internet? Um, you can find me on Twitter at Ricky Rawls, no underscore, but you can also find a champagne sharks podcast, any place where you listen to podcasts, you know, iTunes, all that stuff, just Google champagne sharks.

And you'll find it on sound, soundcloud, iTunes and Stitcher and all those places. Hell yeah. Uh, Nate and Hussein, people know where to find us. Yeah. I mean, you can, I mean, you can probably find me in prison. What's Canon arrest with Q and on, but arrest me. So write, so write me, write me letters, send me movies that maybe I'll watch in time.

I don't know. Um, and in fact, if you want to support us, we have a Patreon. There's a second episode of this show available, um, on, on Patreon, uh, if it's $5 a month, it's, uh, very fun. I suggest you subscribe. Additionally, if you were so inclined, you could commodify your descent with a t-shirt from a little comrad. Perhaps you could get the entire script of a story to bother you printed on a

t-shirt. I'm sure you can figure out how to do that. And, uh, finally, our theme song is here we go by Jin sang, uh, and you can find it on Spotify. And I was slightly lying cause that wasn't finally cause we're also, uh, producing like mugs or something for some reason. They say we're going to have a link. We're going to have a link in the show notes for some merch for, uh, end of year,

last minute gifts. If you've got somebody who likes a lot of annoying podcasts, this is coming out on Christmas, well, they might give gifts at the end of the year. You don't know, Riley. Maybe they have non-traditional gift giving habits. All right, long story short. If you want a mug that says soup on it in the style of the supreme logo, you can buy it from us.

I wonder what we actually have made them. I wonder what merch we're going to make to commemorate Hussein's insane doctor tweet. Maybe we'll figure it out by the time this episode comes out. Yeah. All right, everybody, uh, I'm going to, uh, call it there and I'm going to say good night and Merry Christmas, I think, depending on when this comes out.