Been awhile since we've done this thread, and it's always fun. Here are some of my picks:
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The Pursuit of Happyness (2006) is really bad. Will Smith's inspirational moment is going to the New York Stock Exchange and seeing all the happy rich guys in suits walking around, and wanting to be like them. Having to do stuff like brown-nose executives, sleep in train station bathrooms and pull his son out of daycare due to lack of money are presented not as flaws of the system but evidence of Smith's smart bootstraps-oriented thinking. This movie is the Mein Kampf of liberalism.
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Air (2023) is really bad too. Literally a feature-length Nike commercial coupled with a fuckton of Michael Jordan worship, the message being that a bunch of rich guys deserved to get even richer because they signed a sneaker deal. The closing 5 minutes of the movie are a "where are they now" montage showing how much money all the Nike executives made, yay!
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Anastasia (1997), which portrays the Russian Revolution as the result of a wizard's curse and communism as bad because it got in the way of the Romanovs living in big palaces and wearing fancy dresses.
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The Post (2017), about a wealthy, heroic girlboss newspaper executive who makes the heroic decision to...uhh...not block the publication of a story that would expose the lies of a corrupt president threatening our democracy (take THAT drumpf)
post more.
Sorry to Bother You (2018).
I know people want a good radical comedy, but that's not it. It's been a while so I can't remember everything about the film but there are some major points.
The protagonist gets wealthy by selling arms, then moves to an apartment in the sky where he essentially looks down on the people. At the end, he leaves it all behind because he realizes the fucked up nature of that life and moves back to his uncle's garage, but he kept some of furniture of the apartment and said something to the effect of like 'We're back to where we started but there's no reason we can't have some nice things.' These pieces testify as corpses of his class betrayal. He is, on the exterior, the garage which symbolizes working class politics and struggle, but within his garage, he has the desires and furnishings of one of the worst aspects of capitalism as his interiority awaiting a repetition. He never fully let go of, or totally rejected, the desired niceties—literal furnishings—of that lifestyle. The ideology lives on within him.
And the moment of Revolution, which brings the hope of the new world, is carried through by Capitalism's own dark creation. I think Riley wanted to show this classic idea, since Marx, that Capitalism has sown the seed of its own destruction. But this is not a protletarian revolution. It is a 'Equisapien' revolution. I think this shows Riley's pessimism that revolution is impossible. Humans are ready to betray their class and humanity as a whole for luxury and will never be the same, even if they have a moment of rectification, they will always remain stained and corrupted—the protagonist and the new garage. But these mutant, super-humans have the capacity because—I'm not entirely sure why anymore. The point being, humans are the ones who need to carry through an anti-capitalist Revoltion in real life and we need to do it by organizing with other fellow humans who have the revolutionary potential to see it through. We cannot wait for a literal new species/race to come into existence to save us from capitalism as a deus ex machina. This is almost a Communist's pseudo-superhero movie, with the super/antihero coming in when everything seems lost and saving the day. Just because it is some unattractive, monsterous creation of capitalism doesn't mean it necessarily has a different meaning from a typical superhero movie—don't worry, someone will come save you from yourself because you simply cannot do it yourself. Total lib fantasy where you still get to keep your ill-gotten treats.
I'll also mention this is totally on-brand for Boots Riley, the middle-class son of an attorney who wants to play at revolutionary but still keep his nice things that he's accustomed to having.
So I agree with some of the points you're making, but wanted to point out.
Riley's father was an attorney but from what I understand he mostly did probono work for left wing groups in Chicago, and from his account it sounds like he grew up lower middle class at best so I don't think this is a fair characterization.
Also I think some of the criticisms you're making stem more from the fact that Riley is really into absurdist allegory, sometimes more absurd than allegoric, his work can be said to be a bit symbolism over substance. I too felt a bit weird about the whole 'Equisapien' thing but I think he was trying to make a point about the commodification of labor, though I think it didn't quite work.
I'm curious if you've seen "I'm a Virgo", because while that show also has a lot of similar flaws to "Sorry to Bother You" it does address the whole "leftist superhero" thing.
Not trying to shit on his dad, for what it's worth, he is a good guy and I respect him. I couldn't decide whether to mention that since I'm really not trying to dig in on his dad. But I do think Riley had an admission of sorts with that end, he wants to keep his nice treats. And I know Riley doesn't make arms dealer level money but there are plenty of people who aren't wealthy and who dream of the treats.
I haven't seen "I'm a Virgo" so I can't say but maybe I'll check it out.
The appropriate amount of treats is some, not zero. Socialism is not poverty, people want bread but also roses, etc.
As I said, I'm not anti-treats.
But if you gain your treats through suffering and death, then you deserve no treats.
We want class traitors, we want people to voluntarily reject big money they know is gained through suffering and death. The price of that decision shouldn't be abject poverty. We're materialists, right? Tell people "you can reject capitalism and live decently" and many will, but what if you tell them it's either that or poverty?
I never quite said state-mandated poverty is the way. I said ill-gotten treats aren't deserved.
And this is straying from movie, but I don't quite agree that we should just welcome back whichever capitalist for the sake of 'getting more on our side' or whatever. There are those who might side with us eventually and mean it genuinely and we need to figure out how to work with them, but my point is precisely that I don't think the protagonist quite got rid of his capitalist ideology and desires—as symbolized by his treats. It's not quite so much the treats themselves as what they symbolize, and to me it looks like he is one who could betray a revolution to keep his treats.
No one should have to live in their uncle's garage, but if we're talking about reactionaries who say they're on our side while being a high risk of turning counterrevolutionary then, sorry, but treats aren't the solution to that problem.
But we've digressed from the film.
Haha has to happen a lot when you're talking allegory, right?
In-movie, I can see it the way you describe (he hasn't fully shed his capitalist desire for treats), but I think that presumes that wanting any amount of treats (here, just some new furniture and a TV) = lurking capitalist mentality. I could see them representing the potential to backslide into capitalism, but I can't think of much support for that from the film itself. It's a real short ending scene.
Outside of the movie, committing to the idea that everyone should have a minimum decent standard of living cuts through a lot of questions about what's deserved. Until you hit whatever that minimum standard is, you deserve everything you have because everyone deserves at least that much. And guaranteeing people a decent standard of living is absolutely a (partial) solution to political opposition -- again, aren't we materialists here?
It's a short ending, but, yes, it is symbolic and allegorical. This isn't reality. So, I just want to say again that the treats themselves are irrelevant, as well as other concerns about needs and materialism under pre/post-revolutionary life, but what they could mean in the film is what matters. And the film is very clear that he gains them through the sale of arms, and that he values them as a socio-cultural elevation of status and lifestyle. There's no question there. They are intrinsically tied in the movie both to blood money and capitalist elitism.
So, in my interpretation, his decision to move back to his uncle's garage but with his capitalist treats rings hollow as a sign of real paradigm shift or repentence. He didn't have a change of heart, turn around and sell arms to Hamas. He didn't give away all his shit and completely start over with a new sense of self. He was a struggling working class person with some internalized desire to be an elite, reached some new elevated heights and profits via capitalist war machine, used those profits to have a better luxurious lifestyle, and then realized he did a wrong, so left the job and moved back with his uncle but kept his stuff. That seems significant. Honestly, yeah, if he really realized the extent of what he did he would have probably been disgusted with those items and either discarded or donated them. I've been disgusted with items for less. His keeping of the items is something which is intentionally meaningful or has the capacity to be interpreted with a meaning. Materialism and political pragmatism aside. This was included in the film for some reason, consciously or subconsciously, related to the plot. And I believe, given his previous embrace and comfort under a capitalist form, that these are symbolic of that ideology which he has not yet shed. And, as such, I don't believe he is an honest or apologetic person. I think he continues to carry his capitalistic desires and dreams, as symbolized by his still clinging to the items he gained when his capitalistic desires reached culmination in reality and he could buy pretty much whatever dumb shit he wanted—and he literally bought that very shit with his blood money. Dude is deeply captured by capitalism but also wants to feel like he's on the side of angels by leaving his old job but still keeping his ill-gotten gains. I don't know about you, but I've met shitty rich people like that who did shit fuck to get rich and now volunteer on the Board of some nonprofit or whatever and feel like 'they give back' after robbing everyone. Fuck that.
Outside of the movie, again, yes, all living people should have some decent standards of living. However, I think some people don't deserve to live in a revolutionary society.
I mean, yeah he keeps some nice furniture but he also moves back into a garage. Also he turns into a horse at the end.
I think the ending was a little weak, but I also think perhaps you're reading into the character keeping a TV a bit too much. Him throwing the TV into the dumpster wouldn't solve anything, it'd be a purely symbolic move. Socialism isn't asceticism, and almost all products are tainted by capitalism so really anything short of a full Unabomber lifestyle in the woods isn't going to free you of it.
I know socialism isn't asceticism, but it isn't temporarily working as an arms dealer to make hella cash, buy nice shit, then renounce the unethical lifestyle to stay humble but keep the nice shit either.
It would be symbolic, but you yourself said Riley's works are more symbolic than substantive, and this would be an appropriate symbol.
I think Sorry is supposed to be somewhat autobiographical, Riley was a broke indie artist, his work got popular enough that he could "sell out", he did for a bit but got grossed out by it and quit, now he's back to being an indie artist but he's a bit more mature and smart now and can capitalize on his work enough to live decently without full on selling out, but even when he's "independent" he's still a slave to capitalism, hence the final transformation into a horse. I think making it arms dealing and not writing for HBO or whatever was just some hyperbole to get the point across. At least that's what I think he's getting at if I had to guess.
It would be a symbol but also an empty one. He's still back in the garage, I think him remodeling it is more meant to be a sign that he's taking shit more seriously now, just because he's not loaded anymore doesn't mean he has to be a slob. If I talked some guy who worked at Northrop Grumman into quitting his job and he moved out of his condo into a studio on the bad side of town I wouldn't exactly berate him for bringing his Playstation and electric toothbrush. But also he still turns into a horse at the end, which could be a sign that Riley actually AGREES with you, Cash still hung on to the trappings of his bourgeois life and it corrupted him? Idk there's various ways you could read it.