Pax Americana

“4 of The Boys, however, has dispensed with even the pretense that it isn’t talking directly to the situation in the U.S. today. It asks the question, “what if Fascism came to America, and half the public really, really liked it?” ⁦@BrynnTannehill⁩ https://t.co/r4DaxdLU0Q

— Charlie Sykes (@SykesCharlie) June 19, 2024

Well, except the premise of “The Boys” is that marketing is stronger than government.

Vought is the major company in the show that provides the substance which creates superpowers in people who use it. Superpowers, but not super integrity. Vought promotes its product by hiring some of these super characters as actors in movies where they save the world from super villains (actors, not real villains. Those are the superpowered characters). So Vought is also a media company that markets its products, and a TV news channel that controls how the superpowers are perceived (always to the benefit of Vought.)  Vought News is Fox News crossed with Newsmax, and only serves the purpose of promoting Vought’s narrative about supers. A narrative that insists they are a benefit to the country, even as they as greater danger than national disasters, and frequently cause mayhem and mass deaths and casualties.

Vought just as frequently disposes of supers, literally, to serve the purposes of Vought. And the public buys it all because Vought is very good at controlling the narrative.

Even though the Superman character (“Homelander”)(did I mention Vought comes out of Nazi experiments?) is a raging psychopath, the real villain on the show is Vought. And their real interest is their bottom line. Not running society, but managing enough of society’s expectations to continue exploiting it.

When Homelander uses his heat vision/laser eyes to kill a protester who’s annoying him, we know it’s not the first time he’s been a killer rather than a hero. But this time it’s in public, and he has to stand trial. But we know, as the audience for the trial knows, that Homelander won’t be found guilty. Inside or outside the story, we know how that story plays out. Even when he’s the murderer, Homelander is the good guy.

The real “lesson” of “The Boys” is how much modern capitalist society likes being exploited  There’s no doubt Homelander is a fascist (the show had a super powered character who was real Nazi; but she was destroyed by Homelander’s son). But he’s found being in charge (or at least terrorizing everyone into submission), isn’t really all that great. The inability to hold him accountable bores him, and leads him to question what his place is. Vought knows it can be held accountable, so every move is meant to hide its accountability from the public. It is the true power because it seeks power, and it succeeds by simple means of media manipulation. Vought knows what the public wants, and Vought sells it to them. Government is almost entirely secondary. In fact, the good guys (if there are any), is…the CIA.

What half the country really, really wants, is entertainment. At least that’s the story “The Boys” is selling. Which is far more accurately the situation in the U.S. today .