How accurate is the TV show "The Boys" in reflecting the current state of American society, including everyday life, politics, and broader social dynamics as a parody?

Posted by Still-Ad9074@reddit | AskAnAmerican | View on Reddit | 19 comments

Hey Americans, an Indian here who is a huge fan of Hollywood and western TV shows like majority of the world. The new season of the Boys just dropped and I've been loving it so far. Anyways, I've been seeing many memes on reels of the fact that The Boys pretty much acts as a parody to the current American politics and real life scenario. I know America is politics heavy and pretty much the whole world hears the news when anything happens there. They have shown parody of quite a few American figures in them, like I think they went unhinged on the show.

Now even though I know the show is just a parody and makes fun of some things in there, how accurate would you say it depicts the political and social aspects of America in general?

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Nicklorion@reddit

Season 3 is bang on.

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HonestLemon25@reddit

It’s about an accurate representation of American culture as GTA 5 is.

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Landwarrior5150@reddit

Largely based on real things at the base level but exaggerated for entertainment value since it’s a satire/parody?

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Fast-Penta@reddit

It's not at all accurate to everyday life to most people.

I've only watched the first season, maybe part of the second (I forget), but it's true that you have the rise of the MAGA movement where a terrible person gets away with murder and nobody cares. That's Trump. And you have a rise in actual Nazis, that's parts of the alt-right.

But most Americans only notice politics when gas prices rise.

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JoeMorgue@reddit

Can we please stop the "Durrr is the thing on TV real?" posts.

Imagine how ignorant an American would be called if we asked "Is Harry Potter an accurate representation of the British school system?"

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Landwarrior5150@reddit

The more embarrassing thing is when people think that the set up of Hogwarts as a school is entirely fictional and then are shocked to learn that some things, like houses & prefects, actually exist at some schools in the UK. It’s like people think that a fictional story must be 100% fictional in every aspect and detail. Also, people seem to forget that allegory and metaphor exist, and can’t understand that stories with fantastical or “unrealistic” elements (like magic or superheroes) can still have story elements that provide contemporary political or social commentary.

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jesusmansuperpowers@reddit

Obviously a lot of comments here from people not watching the show. They are doing a pretty accurate reflection of politics in the Trump era.

I will say they’re leaving out the other side completely, so even the craziest shit just happens without any real backlash.

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pawsplay36@reddit

It's about a bunch of guys with comic book superpowers. It's not a documentary.

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Landwarrior5150@reddit

I haven’t seen the show so I can’t comment on it directly, but just having fantastical elements in the story doesn’t automatically mean it can’t have any sort of commentary on social or political issues. Allegories and metaphors exist…

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pawsplay36@reddit

Ok. Homelander has directly said and done things that parody Donald Trump, and less directly, commenters like Charlie Kirk and the like. But he's also parodies these young conservative guys that were basically raised in cults to be future leaders, are members of weird churches, were secured congressional page opportunities, etc. And all of those things are real, so I guess, yeah, it's "accurate" in that it does depict things similar to the power and corruption we see in American nationalist politics.

Also, the corporations do own almost everything and will screw you over, so that's basically accurate.

It's not accurate that governments and corporations frequently get away with brazen assassination, but of course that has happened, but of course, a lot of people recognize that. Cover-ups are hard.

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dr_stre@reddit

You’re not wrong, but The Boys is just way over the top about everything. It’s not something you can look at as an outsider and expect to get any sort of realistic peek at American politics or society.

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Still-Ad9074@reddit (OP)

Ik, I saw memes of how it shows parody characters of people like Charlie Kirk, how the President and Vice President are puppets of someone, how politics is faked for the most part, and how media and public act in general. How the American public is shown to blindly follow a side and vandalize everything without researching themselves Basically the whole faking and manipulative stuff. Ofc I didn't mean it from the perspective of a superhero show lol.

Maybe I've been watching too much reels because I've been seeing lots of those memes so I was just curious

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paxrom2@reddit

I had the same thought while watching the show. Vaught is pretty much MAGA coded. Homelander as the head of the cult. The discussion about AI videos, internment camps, propaganda with social media. The writers definitely took current events in the US as inspiration.

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notthegoatseguy@reddit

The Boys is a 20 year old comic book series basically making fun of super heroes

The Boys (comics) - Wikipedia

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Cerulean_IsFancyBlue@reddit

I don’t think that’s even a consideration for them. To the degree that people are wearing normal clothes and speaking in an American dialect, it’s because nobody specified anything otherwise. Almost nothing in the show deals with things normal people do.

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