Written by: Jackie Johnson
Edited by: Timothy Jett
Extreme Nationalism with in Stormfront
The Boys offers a biting satire of capitalism by portraying Vought International as a mega corporation (or what I’d like to call, big pharma) prioritizing profits over human life. It explores the topic of commodification, and commercialization of culture, social justice, and superheroes, where “heroes” are products and PR campaigns and are used to mask corporate, pro-military, and fascist agendas, which as we explore the main cast of heroes, we get to explore the many aspects of what keeps capitalism afloat today, for example
Stormfront: Leveraging capitalist structures for political influence and to further marginalize racial minorities through brutality, as well as criminal enterprise. before I explain, let’s discuss stormfront’s name of origin, stormfront is also the name of the first hate group website, and I quote “Stormfront began as an online bulletin board system in the early 1990s before being established as a website in 1996 by the former Ku Klux Klan leader and white supremacist Don Black. It received national attention in the United States in 2000 after being featured as the subject of a documentary called Hate.Com. Stormfront has been the subject of controversy after being removed from French, German, and Italian Google indices; for targeting an online Fox News poll on racial segregation; and for having political candidates as members. “
So her name is pretty on the nose, she also highlights the alt-right pipeline, (this being a pipeline, that feigns innocent, conservative or contrarian content, but gradually nudges listeners to go into the direction of racism, sexism, or homophobia through “anti-sjw” or “anti-feminist” facades. Stormfront uses her persona as a “real” and outspoken person to create a loyal fanbase, leading to rising racial tensions and race based violence utilizing internet memes and digital propaganda to spread white supremacist ideology disguised as anti-establishment sentiment. memetic warfare is even covered briefly in the show
The pipeline disproportionately targets young, often lonely or alienated men, offering them a sense of community, purpose, and scapegoats for their frustrations.Homelander being the excellent representation of someone who would consume that content, because he has no sense of belonging, he was manufactured, a profoundly broken, lonely, and insecure psychopath who uses violent power to mask deep feelings of inadequacy and a desperate desire for adoration.
Starlight: Christian Nationalism and Familial Trafficking
I would like to start off by saying there is a difference between having religious practices, spiritual practices, and then having christian nationalism, in the christian bible, jesus went to a temple, flipped tables, he was deservedly furious about the situation, it was a warning, A warning about the corporatization of christianity, blending religion with political agendas and corporate greed, specifically the mega church Capes for Christ and the Believe Expo. One man one woman, being gay is impure, guide your paganist friends to the right religion and save them from eternal damnation. That sorta spiel.
I’d like to start off by saying, All of the supes are a victim of trafficking, but I believe Starlight is the best example we have in the series so far of familial trafficking, her parents, namely Starlight’s mother, Donna; agreed to have Vought inject her baby with Compound V to make her a “special” super, effectively selling her future to Vought’s corporate interests, making her Vought’s intellectual property as a mere infant, and what for? Proximity to money? Power? She exploited her child, groomed her through strict regimens, and even claimed her “power” (which was gifted by a mega-corporations pharmaceutical exploit) was a gift from god, she treated her child as a show horse, consequently, her daughter developed eating disorders and body image issues, (you see this in season one, where Ashley is going through potential pr disasters on her tablet, and someone claimed “I went to high school with Annie January. She was always super sweet, but girl definitely had bulimia.”) and used religion to groom her daughter into complacency, the show straight up shows the “hyper-sexualization” of young children through spray tans, fake teeth (“flippers”), and adult themed costumes here
A-train: The minimization of Racial Brutality and Performative activism
Within the same breath, the hypocritical commercialization of social justice, Performative activism, and the disposable nature when you are not “useful” anymore (not production efficient) He is forced by Vought to rebrand himself to appeal to the Black community, using corporate sanctioned, insincere ally ship to protect the company’s image, rather than pursuing genuine systemic change, his desire for wealth and fame reduces himself to a rotten, addicted, and disposable commodity.
The most blatant form of the commercialization of social justice, is in a high-budget ad, A-Train walks into the middle of a tense standoff between Black Lives Matter style protesters and heavy riot police. He hands a police officer a “Turbo Rush” soda, and everyone starts dancing. A-train is quite literally the vehicle in which vought reduces serious racial injustice to a consumer product. In his dialogue with blue hawk A-Train is pressured to overlook the violent actions of Blue Hawk, a white superhero over-policing Black neighborhoods. Vought uses financial restitution to “buy” the silence of marginalized victims, often using A-Train as the “Black face” of this corporate transaction to make it more palatable. instead of firing Blue Hawk, they treat his brutality as a PR issue rather than a crime. A-Train is not innocent, he is complicit, oftentimes choosing to protect his wealth, and protecting his position, which is a very real issue in which wealth and celebrities are used by the machine to make marginalized individuals complicit in their own oppression.The “Apology” Scene At the community center, Blue Hawk reads a bored, Vought-scripted apology before abruptly offering $10,000 as a fix-all for his brutality. A-Train facilitates this meeting, believing that his celebrity influence and Vought’s money can “solve” systemic violence. Vought uses A-Train’s desire for a “redemption brand” to trick him into selling a false peace to his own people.
Queen Maeve: The commodification of queerness, and rainbow capitalism
Much like A-Train, Maeve is forced to perform a version of herself that suits the machine’s needs, often at the expense of her actual relationships. Homelander essentially throws her out of the closet, and Vought insists that Maeve and her girlfriend, Elena, adopt specific “gender roles” (one wearing menswear, the other more feminine) because research shows Americans are “more accepting” of gays when they fit traditional molds, and When Maeve pushes back, the machine reminds her she will be “compensated,” using wealth and the threat of exposure to keep her performing the role of the “proud lesbian icon” Vought created. Something that was unique to me was that they lightly touched on bi-erasure as well; they even insist on calling Maeve a lesbian because it is a “bit of an easier sell” and “more cut and dry” than her actual bisexuality.
Black noir: The “masking” of black identities
Black noir represents the “masking” of black identities in favor of the “classic” red, white, and blue, blonde hair, blue eyes, manufacturing supes and super terrorists for the sake of the war industry, silencing his individuality and treating him as disposable property for the Vought brand, similarly, how war veterans are treated when faced with the physical and mental trauma of war. The most blatant example of this exact masking of his identity for a more digestible idea of the red, white, and blue is in the 1984 Nicaragua flashback, ( timestamp 3:03) Earving expresses the desire to be the “next Eddie Murphy” and take off his mask. Vought executive Stan Edgar shuts him down, citing that a Black member is a “non-starter” in certain parts of the country. There is also a devastating metaphor for the military industrial complex, His physical and psychological states mirror real world combat trauma, where soldiers are used as high stakes assets and then discarded once they are “broken.” He has obvious signs of a traumatic brain injury (TBI) common in high-intensity combat. During the 1984 Nicaragua mission (a direct stand-in for the “dirty wars” of the Cold War) Soldier Boy crushed Noir’s skull and burned his face. His inability to speak is a physical manifestation of damage to the brain’s language centers (Broca’s area). This mirrors veterans who return from war with life altering neurological conditions that make re-integration into society nearly impossible. It’s such a sad moment for me personally, in The Nicaragua Betrayal the exact moment his “individuality” was physically beaten out of him, transforming him from an aspiring actor into a silent tool of the state. Stan Edgar is even quoted saying “sometimes old soldiers just fade away.” Directly referencing General MacArthurs famous speech when speaking of the betrayal to soldier boy, and replacing him with his son, homelander. Later on in the show, Black noir suffers the exact same fate, betrayed, killed, replaced by another “better” supe, and in the end, also being interchangeable property.
During my dive, and in conclusion of my essay (lol), I wanted to highlight how when talking about the system in which we live in, we are not special, we are all utilized for a goal, democratic or republican parties isn’t, in my opinion, not even a political philosophy, it’s a mask that manipulates everyone’s ideals/personal philosophy to utilize it for fascist agendas, it’s chameleon like, I always shared a similar idea to Noam Chomsky, in which it is a “plutocracy” (where formal democratic structures exist but are rigged against any genuine challenge to the governing duopoly) mass media acts as a “system supportive” ideological institution, but, realistically, It filters out independent information so that the news agenda stays dominated by those working for the wealthy and powerful, elections are often orchestrated by the public relations industry to focus on a candidate’s “image” rather than substantial policy issues, and even slight differences between the parties can have life altering consequences for marginalized people and global issues like climate change. The boys understand all of this, and is a refreshing view outside of the current migrating political sphere, where i feel like I’m going insane thinking that the modern day republican party is a radical insurgency that prioritizes power over democratic participation, and modern day democrats mirror moderate republicans of past decades.
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