Amazon’s vicious superhero satire The Boys has definitely struck a chord with audiences, but why? Erin Moriarty (Starlight) illuminates things for us.
The Boys has taken the world by storm with its graphic, subversive, uncensored take on the superhero genre. More often than not, we can depend on the heroes to fight the villains. In this world, the heroes are compromised at best, and often, they are the villains. And what’s an ordinary person to do in that situation?
This is what makes The Boys such an intriguing watch. The people the public believes to be heroes very much aren’t, and the rowdy, inconsiderate Boys are the ones fighting for freedom, and even they step over the line plenty. This intriguing mix of ideas has made The Boys a big success just two seasons in.
Erin Moriarty (Starlight) talked about the series to The New Yorker. “What we’re mainly satirizing is the Zeitgeist,” she said. “If this were real life, do you really think that superheroes would be good?” If you look at the statistics, “men in power abuse their power.” And men like Homelander, the most powerful superhero in the world, definitely abuses his power.
It’s crazy to think that the second season filmed nearly a year ago, pre-COVID-19. But if you’ve been watching on Amazon Prime, some things feel eerily familiar, what with superheroes like Stormfront (Aya Cash) deliberately dividing people with alarmist rhetoric and all the heroes being incredibly conscious of their brands. “We wanted to tackle systemic racism and other issues in society that we don’t talk about enough,” Moriarty said. “The show would have been topical no matter what. But we didn’t know that this would be, you know, sort of the theme of 2020.”
For those that haven’t checked out The Boys or haven’t gotten around to the second season just yet, I urge you to do so. If you thought the first season was a wild ride, then you’re in for a treat with season 2.
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