re: Im surprised Amazon aired "The Boys"

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For those of you who haven’t watched it – and, really, you should – The Boys is a satirical comic book adaptation about a team of vigilantes tasked with taking down the unchecked powers of a band of superheroes. The de facto leader of the superheroes is Homelander, a Superman analogue dressed in a Stars and Stripes cape. Homelander presents a smiling, all-American front to the public, but in private uses his powers to intimidate and murder his rivals. He is, without exaggeration, one of the most terrifying TV villains for years.

The problem is, some of Homelander’s behaviour this season has seemed a little familiar. He’s given an open platform on a rightwing news network. His popularity soars after he starts saying the worst things possible. He becomes the head of an over-reaching corporation and immediately finds himself out of his depth. He’s a self-destructive mixture of professional ambition and personal insecurity. In other words, as if it needed to be spelled out, Homelander is Donald Trump.

Talking to Rolling Stone about Homelander recently, showrunner Eric Kripke said: “All he ever wants is to be the most powerful person he can be, even though he’s completely inadequate in his abilities to handle it. So it’s white male victimisation and unchecked ambition. And those issues just happened to reflect the guy who, it’s just still surreal to say it, was fricking president of the United States.”

This should not have come as a surprise to anyone at all. The comic book that The Boys is based on was originally a snarling reaction to George W Bush’s post-9/11 policies. Two years ago, when a Trump supporter attended a rally dressed as Homelander, Kripke tweeted: “Um … are they actually watching the show?” In its previous season, The Boys made Homelander a rapist who fell in love with a Nazi.

And yet, a small but vocal band of right-leaning fans have only just realised that they’re the punchline.

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