The Boys — The Capitalism in Its Worst Form

It’s not just another super hero story!

the image is from pinterest

Recently I watched this television series. The Boys was originally inspired by the comic with the same name. Initially it was not a very interesting plot. What’s the point if the most powerful superheroes are not saving the world, but being narcissistic people. I am not going to give any explicit spoilers, but if you want to experience these things by watching yourself, don’t read further.

But here the problem is that we assume supes (superheroes — the term used in the series) will always be good. After all, these supes are just human beings with extraordinary powers. So what is preventing them from making wrong decisions? If humans are the ones who are going to be superheroes, there is a high possibility that they are going to make a lot of mistakes.

Even worse, when some capitalist can decide who can or can’t be a superhero. What are all the ways for us to become supes? Maybe some miracle can happen but it’s a highly impossible thing to happen. The feasible way we can achieve this is through some scientific research.

Who controls these scientific researches? Either corporations run by capitalists or some governments. Even if some government organisation is doing all this research, they are not very different from capitalists. Instead of thinking about a single corporation’s profit, they will think about the profit or advantages of their country.

The Boys clearly explores this philosophical thought process. Also, it tries to show what could happen if some narcissistic human gets tremendous power — what will be the consequences?

The Boys is not just a superhero story, it’s a bloody war against Capitalism in its worst form, Corruption and Narcissism. Here, most of the characters are victims of either their parents or the society. I specifically want to highlight two main characters here: The Homelander and The Butcher. These two characters mainly carry the whole story. They are like two ends of the same rope; even though they are far apart, they share a traumatic childhood.

For the Butcher, the source of the trauma was physical abuse from his father. But more than what his father did to him, what he did to his brother (Lenny) bothers him more. He has huge regret about what he could have done to prevent the things that happened to his brother.

The Homelander, who doesn’t even have a proper parenthood, was brought up as a lab rat by the Vought corporation. He longs for the love from the people, which he missed throughout his childhood.

But there was a turning point in both of their lives. The Butcher had his mother, his brother (Lenny), Becca, M.M, and later Hughie. These people shaped him in some way.

But the people who shaped the Homelander were Vought and the people who worked there. All of those people used him for their own advantages. Even if someone wanted to fight back against the corporation, Vought would have taken any measure against the renegades.

So at the end, the Butcher turned out to be reckless, but kindhearted here and there. The Homelander turned out to be a narcissistic psychopath.

Similarly, all the characters fight their own battles: Starlight (Annie), who wants to be good, was trying to weigh between what is actually good and what is considered to be good by society.

Hughie, who is a normal and good guy next door, was trying to find his identity in a world where people have superpowers. The death of an important person changes him totally. The love between Annie and Hughie is an anchor of hope that helped Starlight navigate that cruel world.

All the other characters like A-Train, The Deep, Stormfront, and Soldier Boy have their own psychological stories to tell. Each one of them is uniquely different. The Deep, who is obsessed with validation from the Homelander; A-Train, who is obsessed with money and fame; Stormfront with her Nazi ideology; Soldier Boy with his male chauvinist character. Like this, each character has a lot to tell.

The Vought Corporation is the absolute definition of capitalism in its worst form. It doesn’t care about good or bad — all it wants is profit and survival in the market. They will go to any extreme to achieve that. It is the most powerful evil of all.

The supes will come and go. They can be created or destroyed. The CEOs will come and go. The idea of profit never dies. If one person dies, another comes to roll the wheel of profit. If Vought is destroyed, there will be another corporation in the market. This series clearly depicted this idea at the end of the fifth season.

Originally published at https://abishekatp.github.io.