How Did It Take Four Seasons for MAGA To Realize ‘The Boys’ Is About Them?
MAGA supporters have begun review-bombing The Boys season 4, revealing that it took them this long to realize the show is inspired by Donald Trump and his supporters.
The Boys has always received stellar reviews from audiences and critics alike, so it was odd when the Rotten Tomatoes audience score for season 4 suddenly sunk to 51% as opposed to the critic score of 95%. To be fair, the newest season is off to a slower start than usual. While viewers have been accustomed to the show constantly dropping bombshells and shocking them with unpredictable deaths and disturbing scenes, season 4 has felt a bit tamer. It’s still very watchable, and the political satire is as sharp as ever, but after the explosive endings of The Boys season 3 and Gen V season 1, it’s not surprising the slower pace in the first three episodes of season 4 is making viewers impatient.
However, one can’t judge the entire season based on three episodes. The season still has so much potential as Homelander (Anthony Starr) grows more unhinged, Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) continues feeling the effects of Temporary V, a supe virus exists, and a few Gen V cameos may be in store. Also, one can’t ignore how terrifyingly relevant the story is in today’s political climate. Needless to say, it doesn’t deserve a Rotten audience score. So, what’s really going on with audiences?
Conservatives forgot The Boys has always been political
The Boys season 4’s Rotten Tomatoes audience score isn’t necessarily accurate, as the show is merely the latest to experience review-bombing from conservatives. It has been inunated with half-star and one-star reviews, complaining that series is “garbage” without any evidence to back up the claim, as well as nonsensical one-sentence reviews like “The Boys is no longer The Boys anymore” and “They just couldn’t help themselves.” One review suggested that the show poached “some writers from Disney” for season 4, since conservatives believe that Disney is the epitome of everything they oppose. A few reviews also directly complained that the show suddenly went “woke” or was taken over by “leftists.”
Of course, reading these reviews, the only question we have is how it took this long for conservatives to realize The Boys is literally about them. It’s hard to miss that Homelander is a metaphor for Trump. He has always paralleled the corrupt former president as a white, racist, and sexist megalomaniac who has long avoided consequences for his actions. The parallel grows stronger every season, as Homelander plays the victim every time he receives justified backlash for his actions, and his botched takeover of Vought and destruction of the company from the inside out mirrors Trump’s presidency. Additionally, the show has long been building up to tackle the MAGA crowd more directly.
The Boys season 3 poignantly demonstrated the growing radicalization of Stormfront (Aya Cash) and Homelander followers. There’s even a particularly powerful scene that tracks the ease with which radicalization takes root in a montage where a white man spends all day being inundated with Stormfront’s extremism and slowly goes from living a quiet existence to murdering a man. Similarly, we see the extremism take root within Todd (Matthew Gorman), the stepfather of M.M.’s (Laz Alonso) daughter. Suddenly, he goes from bonding with his young stepdaughter to cheering Homelander on as he murders an innocent person in cold blood.
Again, it’s hard to miss the parallels between those who support Homelander regardless of how many terrible things he publicly does and those who support Donald Trump so whole-heartedly that they’re willing to storm the Capitol and threaten physical violence in his name. However, this apparently went over conservatives’ heads until The Boys season 4. It’s true that the season has been the boldest in its political commentary, as the Homelanders and Starlighters are unmistakable representations of the political right and left, respectively. However, it literally took the Homelanders defending a criminal, instigating violence, and spreading wild conspiracy theories that every Starlighter is a pedophile in a secret Satanic cabal for conservatives to go, “Hey, this show is talking about us!”
It’s quite ridiculous that conservatives are now belatedly review-bombing The Boys and claiming it only just got political. However, it also makes us wonder if this means they’re admitting to actually listening to and agreeing with The Boys for three whole seasons before realizing what it was about. Perhaps shows and movies could learn from The Boys in realizing all it takes is a tiny bit of subtlety to throw right-wingers off the scent of “wokeness” and avoid their ignorant attacks and harassment.
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