Grim Reaper Knocking Door

. . . and slowly, slowly, the queerness in yourself. The Boys is doing what it has always done.

The politics in The Boys, identity and otherwise, could be ignored in previous seasons because of the quality. The recent episodes are too "In Your Face" with them to enjoy.

The politics were integral to begin with. In 2021, a professional reviewer wrote about the show: "it places a lens on how modern society is so quick to place people on pedestals with barely any understanding of what they are truly like as people. The Boys Season 1 is a superhero satire that perfectly deconstructs the superhero genre whilst tackling serious real world issues.. . . .The leader of The Seven, and Captain America wannabe, smiles for the cameras and says all the right words but behind the scenes, he is shown to be a sick, selfish, and sadistic individual."

In 2021, a show written and produced during the previous year or two was clearly satirizing the emergent Right, and clearly understood to be doing so. So, congratulations on your critical reading skills having improved over the last three years. Enjoy!

Most folks only watched The Boys in 2021 because it was a breath of fresh air amidst the oversaturation of Superhero films and TV shows. They didn't come for a "satire" of The Right. Hell, the audience score got lower with every season because the Left-Wing Politics (which could be ignored in previous seasons due to the quality) were causin' people to tune out, with the recent season bein' barely above fifty percent due to the writers gettin' "In Your Face" with those politics.

It sounds as if that's your experience as a viewer, almost certainly true for some others. However, since those elements that you're pointing to now were definitely there from the start, maybe it's just that you got better at reading and identifying them.

I had a parallel experience from the other side reading Robert Heinlein: the more of his work I read, the more his politics bothered me, even though they were embedded in the text from the very start. But that was me developing as a reader, and to a certain extent we can change as we develop as well, sometimes discovering that we are more open to the pieces of the text that we initially ignored or were uncomfortable about. (Why I included the queer subtext of Supernatural, the other big Kripke show, in my response meme).

Again, the politics could be ignored in the previous seasons because of the quality. The recent season, as I previously stated is too "In Your Face" to be enjoyable. Also, you can't compare the writers of The Boys to Heinlein. Heinlein was a literary genius who was all over the political compass with his beliefs. The writin' staff of The Boys are Woke hacks who can't be bothered to make the "satire" fit into the world they've created. Homelander is supposed to be a Supervillain stand-in for Donald Trump, yet he is beloved by the Mainstream Media (which hates Trump).

So, you are saying that the writers decided to . . . fictionalize . . . to make the situation more urgent-seeming? This sounds like sound story-crafting to me. Also, TB is probably satirizing the conditions that lead to fascism more broadly than just the rise of our current would-be dictator.

And, honestly, the rise of fascism will still be topical even if he goes down in the infamy he's earned so well this fall, our country is still at risk, given that we have the conditions in which the far right are eagerly running after a fascist demogogue, the mid-right is being rapidly radicalized, and many of the traditional conservatives are keeping silent out of fear or complicity.

Dictator? If Trump was a dictator, he wouldn't bother askin' mayors and governors for permission to send in troops to deal with riots. Fascist? That word lost its venom after the Left used it to paint everythin' right of Marx as evil. Not to mention that Trump never gave a Hitler-style speech about his opposition in front of Independance Hall with a red light in the background and surrounded by US troops. That was Joe Biden. As for fictionalization, satire still has to fit into a fictional world or it loses believability. Homelander doesn't work as a Trump stand-in because he's beloved by the Mainstream Media. Firecracker doesn't work as a Supervillain MTG because IRL MTG is a politician, not a right-wing podcaster with movie deals (which ruins the immersion because current day Hollywood doesn't reward Conservatives. It punishes them. Just ask Gina Carano about Disney givin' her the boot over a Tweet while lettin' Pedro Pascal off the hook for his Tweets).

Your man is not yet a dictator, hence the "would-be".

'“We love this guy,” Trump said of Hannity. “He says, ‘You’re not going to be a dictator, are you?’ I said: ‘No, no, no, other than day one. We’re closing the border, and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator.’”' -- quoted by the AP (consistently rated one of the most politically neutral and trustworthy news outlets). So, your guy wants to be a dictator when he starts his next term . . . and you, apparently, trust him to put that power down. He's no Cincinnatus, and not even as competent as Sulla.

Last time I checked, AP is in bed with the Left. I've said it before and I will say it again: the Mainstream Media hates Donald Trump. They pushed the lie of "Russia! Russia! Russia!" after the Steele Dossier was proven to be a hoax. They pushed the lie about Trump callin' Neo-Nazis "very Fine People" until Snopes admitted that it was a lie. They denied the existence of the "Laptop From Hell". They lied about there bein' no widespread Election Fraud in 2020. It was the Democrats who weaponized Federal Agencies against their political opponents. It was the Democrats who subjected Trump to a show trial where the Guilty Verdict was decided before Trump entered the courthouse. As for competent, Trump gave us a secure border, the greatest economic recovery in recent history, and energy. Biden had the deck stacked in his favor and lost the debate.