Boot’s Riley’s I Love Boosters film, which premiered May 22nd, centers a collective of women who are shoplifters with a cause —think of it as community service, even.
The star studded cast including Keke Palmer, Eiza Gonzalez, Taylour Paige, Naomi Ackie, and Poppy Lui go on a fashion-forward journey of sourcing designerwear clothing made by Metro Designs owner Christie Smith played by Demi Moore to resell for the low making them the Velvet Gang. Keke Palmer’s character Corvette is the ring leader of the group but what begins as survival and rebellion soon spirals into a strange, reality-bending journey that forces her to rethink identity, belonging, and the world around her.
Known for his bold and unconventional storytelling, Riley crafts a world where classism and capitalism collide, and where community takes center stage through a group of women of color reimagining what collective action can achieve. “I was thinking about the economy of that and how fashion and art manifest: how people make and consume art while they’re struggling and how communities work together,” Riley said in the film’s press notes.
I Love Boosters showcases a classist society, the reality of what we’re living in today. “It gives a blueprint for what potential sort of intermovement class solidarity on a global level can look like and what it is capable of achieving. We’re all under the thumb of the same oppressors,” Poppy Lui tells Remezcla during a press junket. At a time when we’re all navigating life with the current administration, this film feels important to watch now more than ever.
“Boots’ political point of view [shows the] need for the people to come together and truly have power, like political power, militant power, social power. Not letting sort of the propaganda of our separation be what divides us because, like sorry, down with the billionaire class. There should be no billionaires.” Liu states.
“In a way, we are both Dorothy and the Wizard,” Naomi Ackie says of the contradiction of a world on both sides of the coin. Eiza Gonzalez adds that it’s truly the setup of society that we’re living in today. While It’s unrealistic to think that change can happen in just a matter of a day, change can start by simply investing in your local community, Lui emphasized. “Be really involved with your neighborhood. Know your neighbors. Get your church together.”
The cast members shared on the importance of community, “a lot of times we feel alienated because we are not sharing and we’re not being amongst one another. We’re so quick to judge one another,” Keke Palmer says during a press junket. “We’re so quick to think we can’t get along when reality is like let’s actually touch grass. We say it a lot online, but let’s actually touch it, though.”
Fashion plays a major role in the film. Corvette is an aspiring fashion designer with a bold and distinct sense of style. In many ways, her story recalls Selena Quintanilla, who balanced a rising music career with her ambitions as a fashion designer. We see parallels between the icon and the world of I Love Boosters.
“[In I Love Boosters they don’t have much] money but you still have a view of an artist and who you want to be and I got a lot of love and passion and I think that that’s why she would connect with the movie,” Gonzalez tells Remezcla. All these girls are just sort of like their own artists. Sisterhood is at the heart of I Love Boosters. Although the women are not related by blood, they move through the world as a chosen family. Family was also central to Quintanilla’s story and legacy.
As the cast reflected on their earliest memories of Selena, many recalled watching Jennifer Lopez portray the singer in the Selena film. Growing up in the UK, Ackie mentions that she didn’t learn about Selena until later in life and saw the love of Selena through others.
“Growing up in Mexico, she was a staple, she was one of the women that represented our community across the border in a way that was inspiring and aspirational and that was rare for us as a community, ” Gonzalez says of the late artist. “That’s what we love when we think about people like Selena [Quintanilla] or Aaliyah or any of these icons— they really were [a form of] representation early on.”
Boots Riley’s I Love Boosters is now playing in theatres.