Peter's Blog

Sorry to Bother You  is an interesting film, to say the least. For the majority of the film, everything seems believable and realistic, and suddenly they're turning people into half-horses. So why was this part of the film? The most obvious reason for this sudden change is the shock value. Before the scene where Cash tries to find the bathroom, WorryFree was the most shocking thing the corporations had created. Many of us have heard of tech giants using factory labor for their products, so a lifetime labor contract doesn't seem too far off. By showing how suddenly WorryFree shifts from exploiting humans for labor to modifying the humans themselves, the film gets us to worry about the real world. Tech giants have been using factory labor for years, how long until they do something similar? (Though it wouldn't be as drastic as in the film, with the recent advancements in gene editing, how long until a factory uses this to make their laborers stronger?) The film sends a me...

In Paul Beatty's The White Boy Shuffle , Gunnar Kaufman begins his story by telling of his early life as a black boy in a white community. Among his white friends, he's known as the "cool black guy" with a sense of humor. Gunnar himself doesn't mind this, and even embraces it, saying "white kids will believe anything anybody a shade darker than chocolate milk says" and using their gullibility to his advantage. At the same time, he is aware that he's not "as black" as pure black communities, refusing to attend an all-black summer camp because they are "different." When his family moves to Los Angeles, a mostly black community, he is quickly targeted by the local gang due to his lack of street knowledge. Overall, Gunnar is "blacker" than the average white, but "whiter" than the average black. Many of us have also probably gone through a similar experience. In our respective middle schools, we were among the ...