‘My whole thing was, I want it to be janky,” says Boots Riley, talking about the ramshackle imperfection of his show I’m A Virgo. “Everything is too smoothed out. You make it a little janky and jangling and people feel it more.” Among this year’s slick small-screen dramas, Riley’s I’m a Virgo sticks out like its main character: a 13ft-tall Black teenager. The premise alone is outlandish enough; what Riley and his team do with it, and how they do it, make I’m a Virgo one of the most bracingly original things on our screens this year or any other. And one of the most revolutionary: the show culminates in a full-on, top to bottom critique of capitalism – in a show streaming on Amazon. How did he get away with it?
Riley, a former musician and activist, already made a name for himself with the 2018 movie Sorry to Bother You – a similarly surreal satire of corporate commerce led by Lakeith Stanfield. “People knew what they were getting into, right?” he says on a video call from Oakland, California, recalling when he pitched his new idea to various streaming platforms. With his mutton-chop sideburns and giant red felt hat, the 52-year-old could be a lost nephew of Sly Stone. “I don’t think they knew everything, but they knew it’s me. They know the thing is crazy.”
