I’m a Virgo (Riley, 2023) is streaming on Prime Video (Seven episodes)
One of the more interesting developments in the streaming world we now live in is how each service has developed its own personality.
Netflix continues to try and be all things to everyone which is a brand persona unique to itself.
AppleTV+ doesn’t put out much but you get the impression that what it does serve up has been tightly curated and quality controlled – an expression of good taste, if you will, that reflects how Apple fans feel about the physical products they make.
Disney+ prioritises the family-friendly corporate product that has made the company a fortune since we first met Mickey Mouse in 1928, even if the grown-up content that they inherited when they bought Fox lurks just below the surface in the ST☆R branded area.
I’ve just signed up for AMC+ so I’ll report back on that one at a later date.
And Amazon’s Prime Video makes lots of content aimed at black audiences (The Underground Railroad, Selah and the Spades, One Night in Miami) as well as releasing stuff that is often just plain weird (Tales from the Loop) .
Boots Riley’s I’m a Virgo ticks both of those boxes and then some.
Jharell Jerome is Cootie, a 13-foot-tall black teenager raised by his uncle (Mike Epps) and aunt (Carmen Ejogo) out of sight of the authorities who would no doubt choose to do experiments on him. Eventually, his naïve curiosity about the world gets the better of him and he makes some friends who try and introduce him to the perplexing real world.
His aunt and uncle’s fears turn out to be well founded, though, as a self-actuated, pseudo-fascist superhero known as “The Hero” (Walton Goggins) decides to make Cootie the supervillain that every superhero needs to define them.
The show is composed of mostly practical effects – puppetry, forced perspective, split diopter lenses, physical model and prop making – making it feel like something that could have been made for kids, although it very much isn’t.
Each episode focuses on someone else in the community, as well as Cootie’s journey, so that Riley can make his profoundly socialist observations about inequality and capitalist indoctrination. It never ceases to amaze me how the richest companies in the world will happily fund artwork that calls them out for the destructive role they play in our lives.
I’m a Virgo is seven roughly sitcom-length episodes so is pretty easy to knock off in a couple of days. There’s no word yet on whether there will be a second season but I’m not sure it really needs one.
