In The Coming Revolt of the Guard, Zinn talks about the issue of the division between the wealthy and the poor and the different classes which we also see in the movie Sorry to Bother You. The United States as a nation is extremely divided where it has a majority of middle and low-class people who are exploited most. If these people do not see an issue with the system and stand up against it, instead of fighting each other, the system will not change.
In the movie, we see how the middle working class felt exploited and protested to fight the wealthy in order to gain money to live their lives normally and not have to struggle in order to survive. I think this is where the media plays an important role in highlighting the issues with the class. We see how cash wanted to get money for himself at first and betrayed his friends and then when he realized how inhumane the company exploited people of lower class he decided to stand up against them, however, fails to achieve that as a single individual. This relates to what Zinn mentioned about the country being created by the leaders and founding fathers exploiting the poor and black people. It is fascinating to see how these issues of class, wealth, and colorism still exist until this day and there is so little done by the middle class to show dissatisfaction with the controlling system.
The movie ending implies that middle or lower class people will always be inferior to the wealthy and will lose no matter how much they try to make a change. These revolts are really important as they are the only way for society to achieve equality.
This movie both relates to the podcast we listened to and the reading. The podcast talks about how media has the power to motivate and go into the issues that affect our country. While the movie didn’t cause a revolt, the themes bring awareness to an issue that has affected our country- the class divide and the exploitation of the poor.
I found myself thinking a lot about the conditions that led Cash to allow himself to become corrupt in his position at RegalView. Cash has clearly been struggling financially until he earns his position as a Power Caller, and while he recognizes this job as unethical, he sees it as his only way out. I think this serves to demonstrate that the only method of success, or even simply survival, under capitalism involves corruption and the exploitation of others.