The Boys - Focus, Reputation and Audience Retention
Initially, I had 4 or 5 false starts when starting 'The Boys' a year after the first series came out, but after the insane marketing push and brilliant build of anticipation for the second series I finally stuck with it and it's fair to say it got me thinking. It probably is going to ruin my reputation as a film student to say I am a big comic book fan, I was brought up on some of the weirder DC comics and every week I'd pick a random comic from the library and struggle through it with no context and very little understanding of what was happening. I'm on the side that doesn't think it is fair to dismiss the MCU as much as people do, the films are fun and even though they aren't the be-all and end-all of cinema they still have value as massive cultural waves. However I only recently dipped my toes into the work of the infamous Gareth Ennis, the probably self-proclaimed 'edgy' comic writer who's content was aggressive, crude and viscerally graphic. His work is controversial, to say the least, I really enjoyed the 'Preacher' adaptation but I don't think it was ever for the reasons Ennis wanted me to, I loved the pacing and exciting details in the universe but I never loved the excessively graphic moments the show was known for. I think it is important to try and distinguish my perspective on 'edgy and graphic material', although I can understand the value of going to the extremes, how you handle the consequences is just as important.
'The Boys' striking opening episode shows our protagonist, Hughie, watch his girlfriend get torn into pieces by a character with super speed. The scene is in slow motion, as we track the body parts explode before Hughie's eyes, it is done with excruciating detail and seeing our protagonist hold onto the dismembered hands of his girlfriend is what initially put me off the show. It is brutal, horrifying and if I am honest completely unnecessary. My expectation going forward is that Hughie would be psychologically damaged from this event, the way it is shot is so visceral and the implication is horrifying but I personally struggle with the idea of where this character is going to go. Horrifying events arent a placeholder for character development, Eric Kripke flaunts this show as being cutting edge, revolutionary and aggressively unlike anything we have seen, but in reality that is such an easy character decision and the show never builds on top of that. It is the classic joke from the show 'Community' "If I told you this pencil had a name and a life and then snapped it in front of you, you would feel something". Doing the extreme is a safe option and I think that is a trap 'The Boys' falls into repeatedly, it always searches for the most extreme outcome to every situation as a guise for drama. Hughie seeing his girlfriend torn into pieces is a good start for a character, but if you don't really act on that it just falls into this pattern of being nothing more than a pattern of extremity with no payoff.
The hook and the drive behind this show is this idea of 'What if superheroes were the worst people in the world" and the inclusion of 'The Boys' themselves are a team of people fighting back against everything these superheroes have done. So Hughie as a character gets the revenge plot as his arc, but it never really hits hard enough., the anger and the trauma aren't really there, instead the focus is on 'The Boys v The Seven' and it just frustrates me. Every time I think something interesting is going to happen with a character, it will one-up an edgy event for the sake of it. The most blatant and god awful handling of this is an event that happens to Starlight in the pilot and the consequences explored throughout. Weirdly the politics of 'The Boys' is a subject that is up in the air, it appeals to a lot of extreme violence anti-SJW archetypes that a stereotypical right-winger would love, but it actually tends to focus on some quite Social Justice subjects, with a focus on anti-capitalism and a lot of feminist content that is surprisingly refreshing. The show tends to include a lot of quite unique feminist ideals, addressing the #MeToo movement in an empowering and often with quite a progressive view. Female characters get a lot of agency and the focus is often on how they can break out of chains of male oppression through power and strength. It includes some fantastic commentary on corporate Christianity and the hypocritic ideals behind it and sometimes even barely addressing race issues.
One of the ways it does this is by showcasing a horrific scene where Starlight is raped by The Deep in order to keep her position in the company. Although implied, it is a horrific scene and really paints The Deep as a detestable and god awful person who uses his power over this woman to his own gruesome pleasure. But this scene is followed up with an empowering scene where Starlight publicly condemns The Deep and he gets fired and goes through a spate of depression. This should have been the end of his character and we never needed to spend so much time with 'The Deep' as he goes down a rabbit hole. The main issue is that they play this for comedy, in a way that often evokes an ounce of sympathy. He is the goofball character, his d-plot is a bunch of scenes as he becomes more and more cartoonish as a man having a breakdown. The pinnacle of this is a genuinely awful rape scene that is honestly the moment that really made me question watching this show. The scene is a major misstep, if it is interpreted as a comedic scene then it makes light of a serious issue by portraying sexual assault as only serious when a woman is assaulted by a man if it is interpreted as a moment to garner sympathy than it implies redeems an act of rape with another act of rape. This is a major issue and it got me thinking about a problem I had with the show as a whole
Fighting fire with fire is an idiom that is chucked around so much in all discourse. The idea with 'The Boys' is that our team of antiheroes are bringing down this corporation of superheroes by violently bringing them down from there are pedestals. But the issue is that there's a real untapped potential in this concept, there is an interesting discussion about morality and how far we are willing to go for revenge, Billy Butcher is a great example of the extreme but we don't really get the other side of the argument. The show is so preoccupied with portraying these characters as edgy and cool that it often doesn't want to risk genuinely debating their moral conscience. Swearing, drinking, doing drugs and being violent arent character flaws, an obsessive need to take revenge has the potential to make an interesting flaw but they very rarely touch on it. It becomes weirdly consistent, often Hughie will say something along the line of 'This is bad we shouldn't be doing this' and they have a spat but they never really delve into it that much. Something about the pacing is just a bit off and scenes feel almost non-chronological in terms of character because it is so devoted to set pieces and having a 'big' scene in every episode I find myself completely losing track of character development and focus.
I do just have a lot of complicated thoughts about 'The Boys' I think it is possibly the most conflicted I've felt about a show in a while because I was very much enjoying it and utterly invested but almost as a bit of a guilty pleasure. I could tell it was manipulative and dangerous, I just couldn't look away and I think in many ways that is intentional on the show's half, appealing to the R Rated crowd with an obsession to pushing how much they can show and keeping people week to week to see how far they will go. That T.V plot structure of emulating that 'just one more episode' feeling hasn't been done this well for a while, but I do find myself worried by how people are responding to it. It isn't doing anything that especially new with the formula, it isn't even that honest with its social critique it's almost just an attempt to cash in on the animalistic impulses of an anti-corporation anti-MCU crowd that comes off weirdly as sleazy. The show is essentially pointing the finger and going "arent these things bad, look how extremely bad they are" and then kind of doing those things themselves which is a worrying thought.
There's a lot to love throughout, in particular the performances of Anthony Starr and Karl Urban, who steal every scene they are in. Starr especially deserves every ounce of praise he gets when playing this character, he commits and is so entertaining to watch as the main villain. Everything about it is pure entertainment, the characters are fun and stupid and the action set pieces are delightful when they come in. I just worry about the show's reception and marketing as this angsty rebellious show fighting the system, when in fact it's politics are all over the place and honestly, I'm worried about how people will truly respond to it. It is still a superhero show, it is still a product and it isn't genuinely rebelling against anything. The marketing portrays it as this dangerous and deconstructive piece of rebellion, but it is just another fun junk food superhero show that I enjoyed but am deeply concerned about.
Thanks for reading!