American dream or nightmare?

KARACHI:

The Boys is a four-season satirical action series developed by Eric Kripke. Set in a fictional representation of the modern world, the Amazon Prime Video production focuses on superheroes as the most prominent group of influencers in the media landscape. In the show’s universe, these individuals are often given the same respect as religious figures.

The show primarily focuses on The Seven, an elite group of heroes tasked with protecting the world from crime. The team is led by Vought International, a fictional entertainment conglomerate responsible for branding superheroes. Initially, the members of The Seven include Homelander (Anthony Starr), Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott), A-Train (Jessie T. Usher), The Deep (Chace Crawford), Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell), Translucent (Alex Hassell), and the most recent Starlight (Erin Moriarty), all of whom are as revered in their world as fictional superheroes are in ours.

However, something acutely sinister lurks beneath the surface that the eye cannot see. Behind closed doors, these superheroes (or Supes) often derive pleasure from varying degrees of depravity, including but not limited to sexual assault. Homelander, the leader of The Seven himself, is revealed to be a rapist and mass murderer, with the added bonus of strange fixations on his secret service record.

The Boys follows the titular team led by vigilante Billy Butcher (Karl Urban), who sets out to take down Homelander and eventually all of the Supes in order to satisfy a personal vendetta. The series opens with Hughie Campbell (Jack Quaid), whose girlfriend Robin Ward (Jess Salgueiro) is murdered by A-Train in a moment of carelessness. The trauma haunts Hughie until Butcher finds him and the two form a mutually beneficial alliance.

Other key characters joining the anarchist mix include Mother’s Milk, or MM (Laz Alonso) and Frenchie (Tomer Capone), who are old acquaintances of Butcher’s, and outsider Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara), who is a Supe herself but has a history of militant child exploitation. Throughout the seasons, the group goes on various missions to take down The Seven, primarily Homelander.

The Evolution of Superheroes

Based on the mature comics by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, the dark comedy series is filled with verbal and visual debauchery that subverts expectations of the family-friendly superhero genre. The creative choices are brave, to say the least, and commendable in their sarcastic presentation of what it means to possess extraordinary physical prowess.

Superheroes, dating back to their origins in the late 1930s, have cemented their place in popular culture, whether through movies, TV shows or comic books. The earliest known superhero is the Phantom, a crime fighter who made his newspaper debut in 1938, just two years before the fan-favorite, idealist Superman.

This image of nobility has clung to superheroes since the genre was invented, and it is more accentuated in some than in others, as in the case of Marvel’s Captain America. What such a character clearly represents is an idea of ​​justice that falls short of realism.

At their core, even privately, these superheroes champion a sense of pristine American excellence that ignores human depth and dimensionality, which is precisely what the Supes of The Boys reject. Homelander, who functions as an ironic caricature of the self-denying American hero, is an explicit depiction of what would happen if an image-driven superhero existed in real life. Instead of an altruistic force, he would be an unstable politician at best.

In The Boys universe, people are safer saving themselves rather than relying on Supes. Homelander proves this fact in Season 3 Episode 2 (The Only Man in the Sky) by murdering a suicidal girl he was supposed to save as an annual public stunt. “How come you get saved when a beautiful, perfect god gets murdered?” he asks the girl, referring to his dead white supremacist lover and Supe, Stormfront (Aya Cash).

“You know what? I think you should jump,” Homelander says after a moment of contemplative silence. The girl refuses, fearing for her life with renewed vigor as she calls for divine intervention. In a fit of rage, Homelander demurs: “No, no! No god. The only man in the sky is me.” He then lasers the girl to death, sabotaging the efforts of his media team, but with no real consequences.

Real world politics over fantasy

Marginalized groups are generally not safe from the Supes’ fragile wrath, even Supes themselves, particularly women. On her first day as a resurrected member of The Seven, Starlight is sexually assaulted by The Deep, who downplays the severity of the violation by dismissing it as a common initiation practice. In simpler terms, he suggests that Starlight remain silent if she values ​​her position in The Seven.

Likewise, even Maeve, a senior member of the team, is heavily implied to have suffered domestic abuse at the hands of Homelander, with whom she was in a forced relationship. In Season 3 Episode 5 (The Last Time to Look on This World of Lies), Maeve openly tells Homelander about her feelings regarding their previous relationship: “From the start, I hated you.” She builds up the strength to seek revenge over the course of the story after developing immunity to her previous fears, much like Starlight.

The way male characters like Homelander and The Deep are portrayed seems less like superhumans and more like evil men preying on the vulnerability of women who are subordinate to them. This mirrors real-life sexist cruelty. In doing so, the show makes an important contribution to political art.

The showrunner’s vision

Portraying Supes as self-absorbed celebrities is a conscious decision by the creators. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter , showrunner Eric Kripke claimed, “They (real-life superheroes) are supposed to be uber-celebrities. So I would say that’s what makes this show, honestly, more realistic than any other superhero show.”

He added: “It’s about where celebrity and politics intersect, it’s about how people now package their political messages in slick entertainment bites to persuade the American public to act against their own best interests, and how it’s almost indistinguishable between the people with political power and the people with celebrity power. It’s terrifyingly prophetic.”

Some of the genre’s longtime devotees, however, remain fervently committed to its roots, with many oversimplifying The Boys’ creative intent. Antagonists like Homelander and Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles), who are clearly branded as the villains in many characters’ lives, are reduced to people worthy of unchecked sympathy.

In another interview with The Hollywood Reporter , the showrunner expressed his concerns about those who don’t get the message of the villainous maverick story. “Some people who watch it think Homelander is the hero. What do you say to that? The show is a lot of things. Subtle is not one of them,” he stressed.

This is not to say that the villainous characters are beyond critical appreciation, as fans generally subject them to memes and light-hearted jokes. Instead, as Kripke has argued, the show begs its audience for some basic media literacy. Perhaps that speaks to how unprepared local consumers are when it comes to processing content that deviates from the genre’s traditions. Of course, that doesn’t make The Boys any less of a masterpiece.