I have a free Amazon prime account and I sift through mounds of shit to watch old westerns and whatnot. I just opened the home page and I see they're advertising a new episode of 'The Boys' coming this Thursday.
What do they show to entice viewers to watch it? Two women. A redhead and a dyke looking black chick with braids.
Fucking lol not even a show that's explicity called 'The Boys' is immune. I know this isn't surprising in the slightest and just because a show is called the boys doesn't mean it's only dudes. But still I got a good chuckle when I saw it.
I watched season one and thought it was okay considering how low my expectations were. Then I heard about season two and never even gave it a chance.
Wasn't it obvious that The Boys was always cultural propaganda? I mean homelander is literally evil superman. It's difficult to make it more obvious than that.
It always was meant to be, but it failed to accomplish its task hard in its first season.
Which is why they've been trying to triple down on everything as hard as possible to push their agenda, yet people still keep liking Homelander and the Soldier one more than the clear "good guys." Including when they do offensive or evil things that are supposed to make them look bad.
Its a real poster child for misunderstanding your audience and writing so bad you end up a parody of yourself instead of them.
Soldier Boy really was the biggest backfire for them ever.
They tried so hard to make him the villain, but funnily enough, despite his upbringing, he still turned out to be one of the most loyal and honourable characters on the show and held steadfast to his word.
Despite his flaws and shortcomings, Soldier Boy showcased what it meant to overcome your roadblocks and get the job done no matter the cost.
It's funny because his content is all over social media being used by a lot of guys to basically showcase that he was a badass and an overcomer, and what it means to be a real man. Lots of those shorts have gone viral featuring him, and Jensen Ackles did a superb job humanising him and making him root-worthy.
I guess that's why -- as you mentioned -- they had to triple down on everything and push their propaganda even harder.
It didn't help they cast Jensen Ackles in the role. A lot of people love him for his role in Supernatural, and a few other things he did, but mostly the Supernatural thing. So trying to make him the bad guy was doomed from the start.