After having a personal little mini-crisis earlier today about the dreadful state of media literacy in online spaces built around popular fiction (esp when the lack of media literacy converges with general political unconsciousness), the depth, research and degree of care put into this analysis gives me hope
I've been desperate in my search for someone to examine the blatant neoliberalism apologia and faux-revolutionary energy contained within The Boys. I wanted to find an individual who could examine why The Boys feels utterly repetitive and why none of the characters seem to grow or decline in orthodox storytelling mannerisms, and I've always felt it was because the script writing and characterization was more interested in telling a political message rather than exploring politics through personal stories- and the showrunners and writers seem to feel that the audience doesn't 'get it,' and thus keep telling the same story, over and over again, trapping the characters in their hamster wheels so that they can repeat the same mistakes in the hopes that the audience eventually 'gets' what the show is trying to do. But if no one 'gets' what Kripke is trying to do, it's because he's an ineffective storyteller- that is a failure of the show, its showrunners, and the writers- not the audience. As a result, any political message provided gets stunted by the trappings of the medium it is contained in. You cannot make me feel disgusted by Starlight's sexual abuse in S1 and then expect me to laugh at Huey's sexual abuse in S3 and S4, or empathize with Starlight's frustration with Huey sleeping with faux-Starlight during a time when Huey as a character appears distraught, broken, insignificant, if not downright helpless. So much of the show is dedicated towards violence as the cause and solution to all problems. Violence is what begins the television series- A-Train violently running through Huey's lover, Robyn- and violence is how every character resolves their problems. If it's not straight violence, it's through sexual violence. Starlight's career as a pagent girl is streaked with violence and sexuality? So she 'confronts' her past rival by being violent, and then confronts her 'mirror self' making perfectly astute points about Starlight's shortcomings with... Violence. Everything seems to insist that "If only the correct people were wielding the institutional violence, we'd all get along" which, as you succinctly note, is a reaffirmation of existing neoliberal paradigms and does nothing to actually critique or comment on existing status-quo or its dangers. I find it curious that the one character that has avoided becoming either a caricature, or a flat-static never-changing object like Frenchie or Kimiko, is A-Train- a man who, by S4, is genuinely sick and tired of violence and obtains happiness by doing good deeds where there is no camera, no script, and no material reward. A-Train comes off as the most genuine and realistic person out of all the cast and he is also the only one who adheres to the typical character-journey of antagonist-turned-protagonist. Thank you for such an insightful commentary. Edit: 27:57, IOF, The Israeli Occupation Force... Fucking hell, well done. Well done. For folks interested in early CIA government overthrows, including how every single one of them between 1954-1979 were successful pretty much by mistake, stumbling their way towards one of the largest black-listed budgets of any intelligence group in the world, look up the documentary "Counter-Intelligence: Shining a Light on Black Operations" and read the works 'Bitter Fruit' or anything by Schneider concerning the Guatemalan Coup.
Thank you so much for your comment! I initially wanted to talk more about the complete mishandling of Huey's sexual assault, but honestly, that deserves it's own video! I'll be checking out that documentary you mentioned for sure - thank you again!!
i'm kind of disappointed in some of the points made here. i've found myself aligning more and more with liberalism over the years as opposed to communism, so maybe that's the root of my frustrations, but regardless: - I don't think it makes much sense to suggest the CIA would be opposed to or disinterested in stopping a corporate coup within the country. they didn't just do all those overseas coups for fun, after all, they did them to maintain american hegemony and suppress foreign economies. the CIA works to maintain its own influence, they have plenty of good reasons to want to maintain a stable, nominally liberal united states. their goals are aligned with the boys' at this point in time, and it's a bit frustrating that you lend validity to "getting your hands dirty" when it comes to throwing away other peoples' lives but draw the line at using the resources of The Bad Guys when they offer them. either way, your takes on the CIA's relationship with the boys feels a lot less like negotiating the CIA's incentives to act and more like supposing they are ontologically evil. - i think claiming neuman is a fascist is a very shallow read of her character, especially after expressing sympathy towards Ashley's turn to complicity. i don't buy that her years of participation in electoral politics are a facade for the two minute ass-kissing she gives to rich people under the watchful eye of super-hitler. this is besides the point, of course, that anti-democratic beliefs are not unique to fascism. just about anywhere you go on the political spectrum, there are strong arguments against democracy. - regarding edgar, i feel like you're neglecting the personal relationships he has with zoe and victoria. sure, he's willing to expend the nameless babies of desperate parents, but how is it unbelievable that he wouldn't want his own grandchild to suffer the same fate? the king doesn't treat his family like all the serfs he rules over. edgar made the mistake with victoria, and doesn't like that it happened again. - populism and optics are, in fact, crucial to operations within a liberal society. if you want to win a state, especially assuming you are pro-democracy, you do need people to like you. i definitely wouldn't describe Annie as radical, but her wanting her base not to be throwing fists in public is a smart move for anyone to make in a political situation as described in the show. this is something that comes up a lot irt radical politics, and i always feel like it falls short. the western left (particularly American) needs to be able to negotiate with liberals because that's who lives here. a bunch of liberals. - it feels a bit silly to me to criticize the show's handling of mm's revolutionary paraphernalia. i mean, liberal people and institutions co-opting revolutionary aesthetics isn't exactly a new phenomenon. we have a holiday dedicated to martin luther king jr. i'll also raise again that him negotiating with liberalism and knowing when to play along with the alphabet guys isn't hypocrisy, supposing he does hold radical ideals. it is a means to an end. one that the contemporary left needs to contend with if it wants to be anything more than a social club. - broadly, i think my biggest contention is with an expectation you have for the show that i don't see much reason to have. this is definitely more personal territory, but i read the boys as being a lot about humanizing bad people. it portrays a wide variety of dumb, selfish, and shortsighted characters and it wants you to sympathize with them. mallory doesn't feel regret about Operation Charlie because as far as she's concerned, it was the right thing to do! we see one battle where she loses *all* her men. i don't think it's realistic to expect her to turn around and say all those lives were lost in vain for a bad operation to do bad things. she *needs* it to be the right thing to do. that's a common theme across the characters of the show, and it feels like a lot of your criticisms come from a place of "why does this character believe something that's wrong?" when to me that feels like the whole point. i'm not trying to be a hater, i promise, i hope this comes across as constructive. i don't waste this many calories on people i don't like or don't think are in the right place.
I agree with your point on Edgar and Zoe, I feel that point was missed in the video. I do disagree with your point on reaching out to the other side as while you’re it also shouldn’t compromise the morals because at that point you are just acting in best interest of your oppressor for no gain. The situation with MM is obviously more complicated then stated in this video as he is a Black man living in this society but I feel the video still brought up a valid point in that he is less radical in his ways which coincides with the centralist ideas being pushed more in the show. I believe the show and the creators have made it clear the political element is apart of what the show is trying to present, and while showing bad people and humanizing them, it’s not the main theme the show writers want you to take away from the show. I also suggest maybe taking the idea of the TH-camr treating people’s lives as expendable as just them treating the characters as fake because this is about a TV show rather than a lack of care for human life. A comment above has great resources about the CIA and there are other great videos on how they weren’t great and might actually be evil, so that would be good for you to check out as well.
Here's a comment for the algorithm. I have no idea how I was recommended a video with such low-views from a channel with so few subscribers, but it happened. I also know you'll read this comment. I cannot give you the view-time now, but I will be listening when I lay down for the night. So you WILL get the view-time later. Take care.
Woke politics is not radical politics. Woke politics is neither revolutionary nor radical, more like nagging based on identity politics rather than class politics without changing anything systematically in a meaningful way.
After having a personal little mini-crisis earlier today about the dreadful state of media literacy in online spaces built around popular fiction (esp when the lack of media literacy converges with general political unconsciousness), the depth, research and degree of care put into this analysis gives me hope
Thanks Zee that means so much coming from you😭I'm gonna keep putting the work in!!
I've been desperate in my search for someone to examine the blatant neoliberalism apologia and faux-revolutionary energy contained within The Boys. I wanted to find an individual who could examine why The Boys feels utterly repetitive and why none of the characters seem to grow or decline in orthodox storytelling mannerisms, and I've always felt it was because the script writing and characterization was more interested in telling a political message rather than exploring politics through personal stories- and the showrunners and writers seem to feel that the audience doesn't 'get it,' and thus keep telling the same story, over and over again, trapping the characters in their hamster wheels so that they can repeat the same mistakes in the hopes that the audience eventually 'gets' what the show is trying to do. But if no one 'gets' what Kripke is trying to do, it's because he's an ineffective storyteller- that is a failure of the show, its showrunners, and the writers- not the audience.
As a result, any political message provided gets stunted by the trappings of the medium it is contained in. You cannot make me feel disgusted by Starlight's sexual abuse in S1 and then expect me to laugh at Huey's sexual abuse in S3 and S4, or empathize with Starlight's frustration with Huey sleeping with faux-Starlight during a time when Huey as a character appears distraught, broken, insignificant, if not downright helpless. So much of the show is dedicated towards violence as the cause and solution to all problems. Violence is what begins the television series- A-Train violently running through Huey's lover, Robyn- and violence is how every character resolves their problems. If it's not straight violence, it's through sexual violence. Starlight's career as a pagent girl is streaked with violence and sexuality? So she 'confronts' her past rival by being violent, and then confronts her 'mirror self' making perfectly astute points about Starlight's shortcomings with... Violence. Everything seems to insist that "If only the correct people were wielding the institutional violence, we'd all get along" which, as you succinctly note, is a reaffirmation of existing neoliberal paradigms and does nothing to actually critique or comment on existing status-quo or its dangers. I find it curious that the one character that has avoided becoming either a caricature, or a flat-static never-changing object like Frenchie or Kimiko, is A-Train- a man who, by S4, is genuinely sick and tired of violence and obtains happiness by doing good deeds where there is no camera, no script, and no material reward. A-Train comes off as the most genuine and realistic person out of all the cast and he is also the only one who adheres to the typical character-journey of antagonist-turned-protagonist. Thank you for such an insightful commentary.
Edit: 27:57, IOF, The Israeli Occupation Force... Fucking hell, well done. Well done. For folks interested in early CIA government overthrows, including how every single one of them between 1954-1979 were successful pretty much by mistake, stumbling their way towards one of the largest black-listed budgets of any intelligence group in the world, look up the documentary "Counter-Intelligence: Shining a Light on Black Operations" and read the works 'Bitter Fruit' or anything by Schneider concerning the Guatemalan Coup.
Thank you so much for your comment! I initially wanted to talk more about the complete mishandling of Huey's sexual assault, but honestly, that deserves it's own video! I'll be checking out that documentary you mentioned for sure - thank you again!!
i'm kind of disappointed in some of the points made here. i've found myself aligning more and more with liberalism over the years as opposed to communism, so maybe that's the root of my frustrations, but regardless:
- I don't think it makes much sense to suggest the CIA would be opposed to or disinterested in stopping a corporate coup within the country. they didn't just do all those overseas coups for fun, after all, they did them to maintain american hegemony and suppress foreign economies. the CIA works to maintain its own influence, they have plenty of good reasons to want to maintain a stable, nominally liberal united states. their goals are aligned with the boys' at this point in time, and it's a bit frustrating that you lend validity to "getting your hands dirty" when it comes to throwing away other peoples' lives but draw the line at using the resources of The Bad Guys when they offer them. either way, your takes on the CIA's relationship with the boys feels a lot less like negotiating the CIA's incentives to act and more like supposing they are ontologically evil.
- i think claiming neuman is a fascist is a very shallow read of her character, especially after expressing sympathy towards Ashley's turn to complicity. i don't buy that her years of participation in electoral politics are a facade for the two minute ass-kissing she gives to rich people under the watchful eye of super-hitler. this is besides the point, of course, that anti-democratic beliefs are not unique to fascism. just about anywhere you go on the political spectrum, there are strong arguments against democracy.
- regarding edgar, i feel like you're neglecting the personal relationships he has with zoe and victoria. sure, he's willing to expend the nameless babies of desperate parents, but how is it unbelievable that he wouldn't want his own grandchild to suffer the same fate? the king doesn't treat his family like all the serfs he rules over. edgar made the mistake with victoria, and doesn't like that it happened again.
- populism and optics are, in fact, crucial to operations within a liberal society. if you want to win a state, especially assuming you are pro-democracy, you do need people to like you. i definitely wouldn't describe Annie as radical, but her wanting her base not to be throwing fists in public is a smart move for anyone to make in a political situation as described in the show. this is something that comes up a lot irt radical politics, and i always feel like it falls short. the western left (particularly American) needs to be able to negotiate with liberals because that's who lives here. a bunch of liberals.
- it feels a bit silly to me to criticize the show's handling of mm's revolutionary paraphernalia. i mean, liberal people and institutions co-opting revolutionary aesthetics isn't exactly a new phenomenon. we have a holiday dedicated to martin luther king jr. i'll also raise again that him negotiating with liberalism and knowing when to play along with the alphabet guys isn't hypocrisy, supposing he does hold radical ideals. it is a means to an end. one that the contemporary left needs to contend with if it wants to be anything more than a social club.
- broadly, i think my biggest contention is with an expectation you have for the show that i don't see much reason to have. this is definitely more personal territory, but i read the boys as being a lot about humanizing bad people. it portrays a wide variety of dumb, selfish, and shortsighted characters and it wants you to sympathize with them. mallory doesn't feel regret about Operation Charlie because as far as she's concerned, it was the right thing to do! we see one battle where she loses *all* her men. i don't think it's realistic to expect her to turn around and say all those lives were lost in vain for a bad operation to do bad things. she *needs* it to be the right thing to do. that's a common theme across the characters of the show, and it feels like a lot of your criticisms come from a place of "why does this character believe something that's wrong?" when to me that feels like the whole point.
i'm not trying to be a hater, i promise, i hope this comes across as constructive. i don't waste this many calories on people i don't like or don't think are in the right place.
I agree with your point on Edgar and Zoe, I feel that point was missed in the video.
I do disagree with your point on reaching out to the other side as while you’re it also shouldn’t compromise the morals because at that point you are just acting in best interest of your oppressor for no gain. The situation with MM is obviously more complicated then stated in this video as he is a Black man living in this society but I feel the video still brought up a valid point in that he is less radical in his ways which coincides with the centralist ideas being pushed more in the show.
I believe the show and the creators have made it clear the political element is apart of what the show is trying to present, and while showing bad people and humanizing them, it’s not the main theme the show writers want you to take away from the show.
I also suggest maybe taking the idea of the TH-camr treating people’s lives as expendable as just them treating the characters as fake because this is about a TV show rather than a lack of care for human life. A comment above has great resources about the CIA and there are other great videos on how they weren’t great and might actually be evil, so that would be good for you to check out as well.
Here's a comment for the algorithm. I have no idea how I was recommended a video with such low-views from a channel with so few subscribers, but it happened. I also know you'll read this comment. I cannot give you the view-time now, but I will be listening when I lay down for the night. So you WILL get the view-time later. Take care.
Woke politics is not radical politics.
Woke politics is neither revolutionary nor radical, more like nagging based on identity politics rather than class politics without changing anything systematically in a meaningful way.
Well-said, my man.