What would life be like for a 13-foot black man in today’s society? Boots Riley answers with the new series I’m a Virgo, writes Abbie Willock.
Cootie is a Virgo. He values friendship above all else and has an insatiable appetite for adventure. But when you’re a 13-foot black man, friendship and adventure come with dangerous complications.
Directed by Boots Riley, director of surrealist black comedy Sorry to Bother You (2018), I’m a Virgo introduces Cootie’s world, a near-dystopian yet all-too relatable version of Oakland, California in which capitalist corruption reigns supreme and the cracks between class and race are quickly becoming destructive craters.
Born as a giant baby to unseen parents, Cootie is taken in by his aunt and uncle (played by the talents of Carmen Ejogo and Mike Epps) who spend the first 19 years of his life trying desperately to hide him, shielding him from the all too familiar dangers of life outside the safety of their family home.
Eventually the hedges become too short to hide Cootie, and he is discovered by a group of young friends: Felix, a fiery figurehead all too aware of his social standing as a young black man, Scat, who’s dream is to see his name high on a billboard, and Jones, a community driven activist striving for change.
His guardians warned him, so once Cootie steps outside of their walls, there is no going back. Life is about to change forever. At first, his coming-of-age story is sweet. Having learned everything, he knows from comic books and TV shows, Cootie goes in search of fast food, music, and Flora, the young woman he falls in love with, who lives life quite literally at the speed of light.
But soon tragedy hits, and Cootie, along with the audience, are slapped in the face with reality. It’s time to grow up. It’s time to see things as they really are; ‘Hero’, Cootie’s childhood idol, is nothing but a self-destructive narcissist, Aunt and Uncle are packing more of a punch than we expected, and everyone has their own little secret to hide, or to exploit.
With each episode, Cootie’s story becomes more intense. Every time the story twists we lose breathing room, until we’re sat on the edge of our seats begging for more.
From the very beginning, Riley indulges our imagination, and his writing omits nothing. The question ‘What would life be like for a giant?’ is answered in explicit detail, from the costume choices (Cootie wears an ensemble of colourful clothes hand stitched by his guardians, because – of course – you can’t just go out and buy clothes for a giant) to an insanely intimate sex scene between Cootie and Flora. Riley is no more scared of the taboo than he is of socio-political comment, and it makes for a beautiful story line.
