Boots Riley’s show about a 13ft teen is so boundlessly, brilliantly radical it could not just kill off the superhero genre – but help bring down the entire capitalist system
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.
