It may focus on a 13ft-tall black man, but make no mistake, I’m a Virgo is a giantkiller. Compared to most big-budget streaming series, Boots Riley’s surreal, absurd, ramshackle yet sincere new show is clearly made on a shoestring, but it knocks its bloated rivals into a cocked hat with its boundless imagination and originality. The specific Goliath that I’m a Virgo threatens to slay is superhero movies, but really it’s a show that aims to bring down the entire capitalist system. Despite being on Amazon, it is as radical and revolutionary as any mainstream entertainment in recent memory.
For the uninitiated (and watch the show first to avoid spoilers from hereon in), I’m a Virgo’s central premise is beautifully simple: Cootie (Jharrel Jerome) is born twice the size of a normal human. His aunt and uncle keep him confined to their Oakland, California home for his own safety, building him a giant-sized cabin in the yard, where he spends his time watching TV and reading superhero comics (which look like little flick-books in his giant hands). His comic-book hero is a character named … The Hero. Played by Walton Goggins, he’s a billionaire businessman in a Tony Stark/Elon Musk/Bruce Wayne vein, who fights crime in a superpowered suit in the show’s “real” world, as well as marketing himself through comics and TV shows.
When naive Cootie inevitably breaks free and discovers life outside his home, he falls in with a bunch of local kids who teach him the ways of the world: weed, joyriding, fast food and (this being Oakland) radical politics. But he soon falls foul of the law, setting up a confrontation with The Hero – who turns out to be a total “tool”: humourless, psychologically damaged, and driven by an almost fanatical commitment to the rule of law.
It takes some time for this plot to emerge and unfold over seven episodes, but one of the joys of I’m A Virgo is its gleefully absurd diversions and details. There is Flora (Olivia Washington), Cootie’s crush, who is cursed to live on fast forward and, therefore, perceives reality in slow motion (their romance is surprisingly tender). There are mock burger brands and TV shows (one of which is so powerful it paralyses whoever watches it). There is a bizarre cult, whose members dress like Steve Jobs and believe Cootie is the chosen one. There are cameos from the likes of Elijah Wood, Morgan Fairchild and even Slavoj Žižek (voicing a baby). It’s a tone all of its own, but reference points might include Michel Gondry, The Simpsons, Atlanta and The Boys.
Another charming element to the show is that there is little in the way of CGI trickery – Cootie’s size mismatch is ingeniously handled through old-school tricks such as forced perspective and giant and miniature props, which give it a homemade quality. This alone puts it at odds with the slick, soulless superhero content endlessly churned out by the likes of Marvel and DC, but when I’m a Virgo targets the “superhero industrial complex”, the impact is devastating.
A climactic showdown between Cootie and the Hero is literally written (The Hero has published a comic about it), but the deciding factor in the battle turns out to be Cootie’s beanie-hatted, politically switched on friend Jones, played by Kara Young. Jones has a superpower of her own – “psychic theatre”, a form of immersive persuasion, somewhere between avant-garde theatre, hypnotic trance and economics lecture.
Jones tells The Hero: “You’re part of the reason that crime exists”, before leading him through a bracing presentation on how the capitalist system necessitates unemployment, poverty and violence, uses the law to regulate it, and keeps the masses compliant through media and popular culture – not least superhero movies. “If you wanted to stop so-called criminality and the violence that grows from it, you’d be a revolutionary,” Jones tells Hero. “But you’re not, you’re a tool that helps capitalism run smoothly.” Boom!
Like The Hero, we come out of the encounter into a world where we’re fed stories of superheroes fighting imaginary enemies to preserve a status quo that suits the few beneficiaries of capitalism rather than the many who are exploited by it. Superheroes are not the good guys! Especially not a “tool” like The Hero.
Riley wrote, directed and produced I’m a Virgo, and he seems to be the real deal. Formerly a musician, his 2018 feature Sorry To Bother You served up a similar mix of surrealist comedy and political satire, and he has been involved in political activism since his teens. He describes himself as a communist, supports grassroots democratic and labour movements and was prominently engaged with the recent Hollywood writers’ strike. “What I do is I look for the contradictions in life, and I ramp them up to the point of absurdity,” he told a recent interviewer.
Of course, the irony that I’m a Virgo is backed by a deep-pocked corporate giant like Amazon is not lost on Riley, but all credit to them for taking a chance on him. And it looks like a better return on investment than their underwhelming $1bn-plus Lord of the Rings saga. Riley has said he has plenty more where this came from, and that his music, films and shows are “all part of a larger plan”. Let’s hope he keeps it up, and keeps it unreal.
I’m a Virgo is on Prime Video now.
