Boots Riley turns class struggle into comedy with I Love Boosters
The Verge • • entertainment
Key Points:
- Boots Riley, known for his socially conscious films Sorry to Bother You and I’m a Virgo, channels his pro-worker, anti-establishment politics into his latest feature, I Love Boosters, which focuses on class struggle through a comedic lens.
- The film is set in a fantastical San Francisco Bay Area and follows a group of women who shoplift luxury fashion items to sell them affordably to their underpaid neighbors, highlighting economic inequality and systemic exploitation in the global fashion industry.
- I Love Boosters contrasts spectacle-focused activism with collective political organization, emphasizing the need for a militant labor movement to challenge capitalist power and demand systemic change.
- Riley critiques the hype around generative AI in filmmaking, calling it largely overblown and rooted in pre-existing technology, and expresses no interest in using AI or creating sanitized, utopian narratives disconnected from real social struggles.
- The film is currently in theaters and continues Riley’s commitment to centering class struggle and exposing systemic injustices through bold, imaginative storytelling.