Boots Riley's film, "Sorry to Bother You" was overflowing with ideas and opinions and calls to action on social issues, and his series for Amazon Prime, "I'm a Virgo" is no different. On the surface level it's a satirical fantasy series about a thirteen-foot-tall African American teenager named Cootie (Jharrel Jerome), who has been hidden away by his parents (Mike Epps, Carmen Ejogo) for his whole life. However, he eventually sneaks out into modern day Oakland, and befriends some young adults his own age - Scat (Allius Barnes), Felix (Brett Gray), and political activist Jones (Kara Young). He also falls for a fast food worker named Flora (Olivia Washington), who turns out to be special in her own way.
Cootie not only has to learn the way the world works, but he also has to unlearn how he thinks the world works from the mass media he's consumed. He loves comic books, especially the one about the exploits of The Hero (Walton Goggins), a wealthy vigilante, but in real life The Hero is an extension of racist law enforcement, and only means trouble to black and brown folks. Cootie is obsessed with a fast food place called Bing-Bang Burger due to their omnipresent commercials, but is the first to admit the food is terrible. Riley clearly has a lot of grievances with the current state of American culture and media, and is staunchly anti-capitalist. It's weird that the series is being released on Amazon Prime, but then again "I'm a Virgo" seems to take place in a universe mostly dominated by old media, and the anti-superhero messaging is similar to what we saw in "The Boys." Riley's just a lot more blunt about who he thinks is to blame.
As Cootie gets to know Oakland, the public's reaction to him evolves from episode to episode. First, he's an urban legend dubbed The Twamp Monster. Then he becomes part of an advertising campaign for a clothing brand, a curiosity for capitalism to exploit. Finally, when he tries to express his frustrations against injustice, he's pushed into the role of convenient villain. Thematically, "I'm a Virgo" is very similar to "Sorry to Bother You," but tackling the ideas through the lens of superhero mythology. Cootie being a giant immediately makes him into a symbol of black exceptionalism, and is thus innately a challenge to the oppressive systems that keep African Americans down. The villain isn't really evil, but has simply bought into the messaging of the corrupt system to an even greater extent than Cootie has.
The show is bursting with visual inventiveness, employing a huge array of visual tricks and techniques to make Jharrel Jerome look thirteen feet tall, and interact with regular sized people. The production design is fantastic, full of little DIY details. The bungalow that Cootie's parents build for him is so huge, it takes four regular sized doors stuck together to make a door sized for Cootie, and he bench presses a junker car instead of weights. Later on we meet a group of dispossessed people who have all been shrunken as a side effect of their economic instability, including one poor guy using a receipt as a makeshift toga. Flora's powers are shown using these beautifully low tech collage effects, while the Hero's gear seems to take its aesthetics from '80s sentai shows and action figures. His headquarters is a mobile skyscraper that may have escaped from a "Godzilla" movie. "I'm a Virgo" contains a show-within-a-show, a cartoon called "Parking Tickets," that everyone seems to find hilarious despite only delivering disturbing portents of doom.
What I really appreciate the show for is showcasing the talents of Jharrel Jerome and Olivia Washington, who are both fantastic in the roles of Cootie and Flora. Cootie is an incredibly physically challenging part, with him constantly trying to navigate a world that isn't built for him, where he's bigger and stronger than everyone else, but still has plenty of reason to be fearful. He connects to Flora because she's also an outsider. We see how she's learned to adapt, and can help Cootie find ways to adapt. The two share a tender, absurd, magnificent sex scene in the fourth episode that is the most original thing I've seen in any series in years.
So don't miss "I'm a Virgo." There aren't many things in the American media as pointed and daring and all around interesting as this. It does what genre media is supposed to do, which is to talk about difficult aspects of life through allegory and fantastical constructs. "I'm a Virgo" has its rough patches, and not everything comes off as intended, but Riley is fearless, his intentions are clear, and his vision is out of this world.
---
No comments:
Post a Comment