In the late 1990s, the films The Truman Show (1998) and EDtv (1999) were noted for their uncannily similar premises, in which reality TV shows go to increasingly invasive and unethical extremes in the pursuit of higher ratings.
So-called “twin films” like these are often explained as the result of studios vying to capitalize (literally) on an idea more successfully than their competitors—I’d argue that they can also be a sign of a society attempting to metabolize troubling social and political realities through reiterative storytelling. For example, Truman and EDtv grappled with the contemporary social anxieties of surveillance and privacy erosion by taking the concept of reality TV to satirical extremes.
Filmmaker Boots Riley’s new film, I Love Boosters, also works within the medium of satirical extremity. The absurdist comedy, about Bay Area shoplifters waging financial and conceptual war against an unethical fashion mogul, overflows with surreal visual gags and fantastical plot devices, unbound by the conventions of any genre. But despite its wacky aesthetic indulgences, Boosters is satire with a purpose—a film conscientiously grounded in, and unabashedly opinionated about, social realities like poverty, poor working conditions, and wealth inequality.
Booster’s twin (dare I say “evil twin?”) arrived in theaters a month earlier in the form of The Devil Wears Prada 2. Their twin credentials are clear: both movies are comedies set in the fashion world, featuring young women clashing with older, wealthier, more powerful women in the industry. But the two films diverge in their ability to honestly reckon with the ethical implications of the stories they are telling. Boosters commits to a rigorous critique of the fashion industry (and economic inequality at-large) by incorporating its critiques into the very fabric of its storytelling. A political problem like sweatshop labor is skewered not with a throwaway quip, but by making it the focal point of the film’s second half, when a Chinese factory worker literally teleports into a Bay Area luxury outlet to steal back the clothes she made in abusive conditions.
Tellingly, sweatshop labor is also (briefly) name checked in The Devil Wears Prada 2, but only as a plot device to facilitate the reshuffling of jobs within the glamorous skyscraper offices of the film’s main characters. Prada, for all of its commendable surface-level messaging, is fundamentally a story about the fashion industry elite, told entirely from their perspective. When it comes to the political and economic conditions the rest of us are facing, Boosters—the surreal sci-fi featuring teleportation devices—is actually more in touch with reality.
