The Boys isn’t afraid to wear its politics on its sleeve, nor is its showrunner Eric Kripke, who has some issues with more mainstream superhero stories.
Amazon Prime Video’s The Boys takes gleeful aim at Hollywood’s current superhero obsession, creating a world where super-beings aren’t out to protect the public good, but are deeply flawed people who use their powers mainly to help themselves, and in the worst cases literally want to commit genocide. We’re used to the cleaner, friendlier heroes from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so watching this show can be a jolt. It’s definitely struck a chord with people, and I already can’t wait for season 3.
The Boys showrunner Eric Kripke actually does enjoy the MCU movies, but as you might expect, he has some issues with them. “They’re snarky and fast and glib and I like that style,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “My issue with them are not the movies themselves, but that there’s too many of them overall.”
Heaven knows there are a lot of MCU movies out there, with more on the way, not to mention all the upcoming TV series. But Kripke’s problems go a bit deeper than bloat:
"I sort of believe it’s dangerous, not to overstate it or be overdramatic, but it’s a little dangerous to train an entire generation to wait for someone strong to come in and save you. That’s I think how you end up with people like Trump and populists who say, “I’m the only one who can come in, it’s going to be me.” And I think in the way that pop-culture conditions people subtly, I think it’s conditioning them the wrong way — because there’s just too much of it. So I think it’s nice to have a corrective, at least a small one in us, to say, “They’re not coming to save you. Hold your family together and save yourselves.”"
I’m hesitant to give too much credit to Marvel movies to shaping people’s opinions about politics, but I can kind of see his point, a little, if I squint. I’m more happy The Boys exists as a corrective to the one style of superhero drama that Marvel has turned into an empire.
And Kripke and his team do skewer some Marvel scenes very specifically. For example, remember that patronizing bit from Avengers: Endgame when all the female superheroes fought the forces of Thanos at once?
The Boys hit back at this dross in season 2 with a subplot involving superhero company Vought forcing an empty “Girls get it done” slogan on its female heroes. “A lot of that came from our executive producer, Rebecca Sonneshine, who came in after the weekend Endgame opened,” Kripke explained. “She was just furious. I saw it, too, and I was like, ‘That was the dumbest, most contrived—’ And she’s like, ‘Don’t get me started.’ She found it condescending and I agreed. So that just created for us a target, a satirical target. When there’s something really ridiculous in either superhero or celebrity or Hollywood culture, we’ll immediately go after it. It’s an easy shot.”
If you ask me, their own version of all an-female fight scene — with heroes Starlight, Queen Maeve and Kimiko kicking the s**t out of Nazi supervillain Stormfront — worked much better:
In general, I appreciate that Kripke and his team put a lot of thought into the political and social dimensions of superheroes, even if not everyone will agree with what he has to say. “The myth of superheroes themselves — though often created by young Jewish writers in the ’30s and ’40s — doesn’t really apply as cleanly today, because there’s these undeniable fascist underpinnings to it,” he said, referring there to Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the creators of Superman. “They’re there to protect white, patriotic America. That’s what they were designed to do, that’s what they do. They’re protecting the status quo. When the status quo is problematic, suddenly they become adversarial — not your hero. And I think it was written by a lot of people who at that time were trying their level best to fit in and vanish within white, American society.
"But we just don’t live in that time anymore. So the myth of the superhero taken straight, that’s where it starts to become fascist. Because they’re protecting a world that doesn’t and shouldn’t exist. Superheroes are inherently MAGA. In terms of Stormfront, there was nothing specifically personal behind it. It was just, I hate Nazis. I hate alt-right white nationalism. I hate racism in all of its forms."
To be fair, various superhero stories have taken on this contradiction in other ways. The entirely of Captain America: Civil War was about whether the superheroes should bow to government pressure or not, although admittedly it didn’t explore the subject with much depth or bite.
At any rate, I’m glad that Kripke’s iconoclastic take on superheroes is out there; it’s good to have another voice in the room.
Meanwhile, speaking of Marvel movies indirectly contributing to the rise of Trumpism, a bunch of Avengers — including Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Don Cheadle, Paul Rudd, Zoe Saldana and writer-directors Joe and Anthony Russo — are getting together to raise money for Joe Biden at a campaign event called “Voters Assemble.” There will be a trivia game and Q&A. The whole thing is going down tomorrow. If you’re interested in attending, head here.
Okay, enough politics. Kripke also dropped a few other interesting hints about The Boys season 3, which is well on its way:
- “We have a few insane things coming in season three that was just over the moon about. Some of the wildest shit I’ve ever even contemplated.”
- The Deep is going to go…deeper into Hollywood satire. “For us, The Deep is the Forrest Gump of Hollywood trends. So in season one, he was embroiled in a #MeToo moment. And in season two, we’re like, ‘All right — he should be like Allison Mack and go join a cult.’ And then in season three he’s gonna be like Leah Remini in fighting back against the cult. He’s just going to keep blowing through these different Hollywood points. The idea of him trying to self-realize when he’s just such an idiot was entertaining to us.”
I wouldn’t be shocked in Leah Remini herself shows up as a talking head at some point.
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h/t NME