If you’re here for a review, I’m going to keep it short. In my opinion, The Boys is an 8 out of 10. It’s worth the watch, but note that at some parts, it’s particularly violent and insensitive. So if that’s not for you, I’d recommend steering clear.
The best way to describe The Boys is a satire of the already established superhero media. From Superman to Batman to Spider-Man to Wonderwoman, and everyone in-between, the show paints a picture of what our favorite heroes would be like if they lived in a non-ideal world; a world where everything is not sunshine and rainbows, where corporate greed and ego and corruption hail supreme, and morality is a virtue of the few. In other words, the world that we live in (shucks).
The show portrays parallels of characters omnipresent in popular culture, showcasing what they would really use their superpowers for, and how their abilities would be exploited for business. In the show, the root cause of everything the majority of superheroes do is for personal fame and money, or for the financial gain of the company they work for, Vought, which is responsible for manufacturing superheroes and marketing them.
For the most part, the show does this excellently. But binging it throughout the muggy days and cool nights of late July, I saw as it gradually devolved into the very thing it mocked.
I saw the cracks in its anti-corporate message, being that the show is made by Amazon and heavily branded for profit. I saw the show’s cast promoted and turned into marketed figures, despite the plot denouncing that very thing. I saw the blatant irony in the claim that they are not like Marvel or DC, even though The Boys is assuming the attributes of those very studios, i.e. multiple seasons, a spin-off, and plans for more underway.
However, in and of itself, that is not a problem. After all, The Boys is a show, and the message it is trying to send will still transmit regardless. Whatever company it is owned by, or celebrities they market, or franchise they cultivate is irrelevant in that sense. I mean, America does run on money, and the world does for that matter, so what can we really do?
The Boys exists within a paradox. As I mentioned earlier; its goal is to showcase our favorite heroes in our own, imperfect world. But the problem is that The Boys itself is a product of this imperfect world and its imaginations and ideas. So it’s unsurprising when its hypocrisy is indubitably obvious.
You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain. The hypocrisy within The Boys exemplifies this message, and it goes to show that in this world we live in, nothing and nobody is truly what it prides itself to be.
Humanity has its flaws. If it didn’t, why would The Boys or similar critiques exist? But hey, even though we can’t control humanity, the world, the universe, and whatever exists beyond it, we can control ourselves. Let’s be virtuous people. The protagonists within The Boys try to be that, and at times, they are able to leave positive impacts.
Because who knows, the truth that The Boys seeks to depict may very well be proven as a myth amidst our efforts to do so, and in ample time, become a reality associated with a memory.
