“Absolute power corrupts absolutely”, said British parliamentary member John Dalberg-Acton. It’s a popular quote, but is too often treated like an antiquated concept that only applies to the structures of the past. Many think that just because we’ve made progress in many ways, somehow all the backwards and archaic notions of the past—fascism, racism, sexism, colonialism, etc—don’t exist anymore. And it’s that mentality that is perhaps the most dangerous way of thinking. It’s an inherently privileged one, a blatant ignorance of the fact that our society in its current structure is still an extremely problematic and dangerous one.
Now, I’m not trying to pretend like I’m on a high horse of any kind. Even though I’m a South-Asian woman, I recognize that there are many iterations of racism that will never directly affect me the way they affect people of different racial backgrounds, specifically Black people. Rather, it’s the active acknowledgment of our own mistakes, internalized racism, and privileges which are the first and most base-level steps we can take when tackling anti-Black racism. Secondly, we need to look at the systems that are put in place—capitalism and white supremacy, specifically—and figure out we can dismantle those damaging structures. Going even deeper into that, we need to critically magnify on the figures of authority in our societies, particularly law enforcement, and identify the blatant discrepancies and issues within that system. Hint: its entire structure is inherently flawed, built to benefit a capitalist, racist white supremacist agenda and harm BIPOC people simply for existing.
Then, we need to take a look at what law enforcement should be, and what the system tries to convince us it does do. In its very essence, its number one priority is to serve and protect the public. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not about filling a quota, and it definitely isn’t about toting power. But let’s face the hard truth: the law enforcement system has never been pure in its intentions to serve and protect. In the era of connectivity, now more than ever we are seeing the system reveal its ugliest and truest colours—that in fact it abuses its power and senselessly hurts and murders in cold blood much more than it protects. And if it does serve and protect, the first people who are served and protected are their own figures of authority, the very ones inflicting these crimes. Police officers are granted the legal immunity and protection that nobody else is given, making it nearly impossible for the punishment to fit the heinous crimes they commit.
It’s not just legal immunity, though. Right now, many of us been opening our eyes to the fact that we, as a society, tend to deify and place absolute trust into the people who “lead” us, specifically our law enforcement and justice systems. We are told to give them conceptual immunity, because they proclaim that their main priority is to protect human lives. But why do we place this blind trust in them? Why do we put the trust into these police officers who simply have to go to police school in order to become the arbiters of our fate, no questions asked? Why are they always protected at all costs, and yet they are able to take the lives of innocent people without consequence? (Short answer: that’s not how it should be. But that’s how it currently is.)
While we’ve seen the concept of corrupt law enforcement in countless mediums, a recent example who has done it in a way that mirrors reality uncannily well is the Amazon Prime Original TV series The Boys (2019). Based off the controversial graphic novel of the same name written by Garth Ennis, The Boys in its very concept exemplifies how its superheroes/superhero corporation, called Vought, act as direct metaphors of police officers and the reality of our current law enforcement system. The Boys delves into the nefarious underbelly of capitalism and corporate America, and boy, does it go all in. (Warning: Spoilers ahead!)
The superheroes in the show, colloquially called Supes, are people born with gifted abilities. At the top of the food chain of Supes is The Seven, who are turned into commodities, as they are managed by the Vought corporation. From conferences to public events, merchandise and more, it really is sickening to see how superheroes, who are meant to be benevolent and selfless, are turned into purely profit-making machines. The concept of a hero’s charitableness is subverted by the existence of Vought. These Supes are not kindly nor are they benevolent, though they do a convincing job at making the public think they are. Instead, they get so caught up in the idea of being untouchable and unharmed by the consequences of the every day world that they develop God complexes twisted enough to make your stomach turn. It is quickly shown that the Supes are not morally above murdering people, whether “accidentally” or not (see: Hughie’s girlfriend Robin), and are protected by ironclad laws when they do. We see it in action when Hughie is given a tidy settlement sum and an NDA to ensure he never talks about the murder of his girlfriend again.
The overarching theme of The Boys is made clear almost immediately: that the so-called “good guys” are really the corrupt ones, and that the Vought corporation is the root of all things evil. The Supes are posed to be the antitheses of superheroes we revere in real-life pop culture, thus forcing viewers to think about the idolatry and idealization we give to both these fictional heroes and real life “heroes” (ie. law enforcement). The Boys explores what it would be like if these superhero types lived in the world we actually live in, particularly that of capitalist corporate America. The chillingly villainous Homelander has the appearance and powers that emulate Superman and Captain America. A-Train has the powers of The Flash, with an appearance that mimics the Falcon. Queen Maeve is a direct allegory of Wonder Woman. The Deep is a knock-off Aquaman. Black Noir is Batman-esque. The list goes on. Elements of both DC and Marvel run deep, especially that of the franchization we’ve seen of each company’s films, conventions, and merchandise that have inundated the media in the last two decades. There are many layers to the subversion of superheroism that The Boys explores, but the blaringly obvious one causes us to ask ourselves why we instantly revere superhero types.
An example of just how heinous and far-removed the Supes are from reality is in the first episode, when Billy Butcher makes Hughie bear witness to A-Train laughing about Robin’s gruesome death on the club’s cameras. Hughie sees a person who is revered and idolized, a person who just earlier on the news played the part of remorse about Robin’s death, who is now crudely telling his friend that he “ran through her so fast that [he] swallowed one of her molars. Like a bug on the f***ing freeway”. A-Train and his companion then burst into laughter, showing their true colours: regarding Robin as an expendable object of amusement rather than a living, breathing human.
At the front of these superheroes values is a self-serving interest in maintaining a façade that best leads to their own profit. Their ability to act convincingly as paragons of hope gives them fame, glory, a power trip, and anything else they want. To the worst of the Supes, it has absolutely nothing to do with saving or helping people, because they could care less. Morals have very little to do in the equation. Their morals are a disclaimer on a contract, and nothing more.
Though not all of the Supes are corrupt, it is the complicity of the good ones that makes the whole structure a problematic one. Though Annie January/Starlight is the one new addition to The Seven who seems to be genuinely good, and is the only one who starts to fight against the moral dubiousness that is imposed by Vought, we have to question: is she doing enough? Queen Maeve, while extremely jaded and passive, also does not actively partake in the perverse activities that the others do, but still knows it’s happening and lets it happen because she’s completely given up on the fact that she has any ability to fight back and make change. If the “good” Supes aren’t doing anything to stop the corruption, nor the rape, murder, and injustices that the other Supes are doing, it doesn’t matter how guilty they feel. It doesn’t matter that they’re not directly partaking. Their complicity and silence means that they’re part of the problem, too.
Billy Butcher is of the mentality that all Supes are bad, or will eventually turn bad if they aren’t already. And ultimately, is he wrong? By very way of being part of and protecting Vought, of signing one’s life away to them, this equates to compromised morality in itself. Even with Annie, who tries to break out of it and be “real”, the issue is this: the entire system that Vought has created is not built for any deviations. It is a heavily curated, fixed, rigged, façade-focused, greedy, selfish, fame-driven, profit-making business. Any Supe who even remotely veers off that path is fired, stripped of any meaningful former glory. The corruption runs so deeply in the veins of Vought that the only way it will change for the better is by having the whole system torn down and rebuilt from the ground up.
This poses the question: can the Superheroes ever get to a place where they are truly the good guys? Where they are actually protecting people and helping people, and not just heartless money-making machines? The scene where Homelander and Maeve choose to abandon the plane that’s going down in order to save their own lives is one of the most gut-wrenching scenes in the whole season, and most telling of where the Supes’ values lie. Viewers have to deal with the jarring shock of realizing that Homelander is only ever willing to save lives when it’s at no detriment to his own life. He goes from assuring all occupants that they will be saved to snapping on them when he realizes he can’t save them without risking his life. He only protects when it serves him, when it’s caught on camera, when it looks good, and when it can give Vought money: and he is just as fine doing the opposite (ie. murdering, raping, and more) when it benefits him and them. He can abandon an entire plane full of people unblinkingly. Earlier in the season, he actually uses his laser-eye superpower to actively kill an entire plane full of people. He’s a villain posing as a hero. Maeve clearly has some demons she is grappling with, but the fact that she is so broken down that she is now complicit to these crimes speaks to how messed up the system is.
Vought profits off the death, despair, and violence of others. They feed off high crime rates; that’s how they get their Supes out there, that’s how they get the social media views, that’s how they get the press and fame. They actively twist the truth and even fabricate and exacerbate instances of crime to make themselves look better. They are performative con artists, a cancer masquerading as a cure. Vought shows up and creates more death and crime, rather than going for the self-proclaimed act of reducing crime and protecting human life. The public assumes that since it’s the Supes’ job to see the lawlessness and put a stop to it, that those same people abide by those own laws in their lives. That because they “recognize” what is good and what is evil, that there’s no way that they themselves could be evil. But that’s where it’s all wrong. And if you can’t already see the thematic links between the fictional Vought corporation and our own systems of law enforcement, then I’m telling you now that it’s a mirror image.
The Boys – Hughie, Billy Butcher, Mother’s Milk, and Frenchie – are the revolutionaries. They have been so screwed over by the Vought corporation and the world of corrupt Supes that they take it upon themselves to bring justice. They are the antiheroes, the vigilantes of the show, which in many ways, is a much more realistic depiction of true heroism. They fight fire with fire, and they get sh*t done. The Boys flips the concept of heroism on its head, forcing viewers to analyze their own blind faith in authority, making us question: who are we putting power into the hands of, and why? Just because a person may have superhuman abilities, that alone doesn’t give them enough merit to be placed on a superior level.
Eventually we find out that superheroes are actually bred, and not born with their powers, with a drug called Compound V. This reveal is an even further betrayal to the audiences, showing the level of fabrication and deviance that Vought fosters. This shows that these heroes are even less deserving of the God complexes they all have. It exposes that world’s concept of heroism as nothing more than a corporation that profits off a cyclical structure of crime, treating humans as objects rather than prioritizing peace and equality. Nothing is as it seems. No one is innocent. And if you don’t think that this is metaphor applies to the deeply embedded capitalist and white supremacist ideologies within structures of law enforcement, then you need to open your eyes.
There is no doubt in mind that serious reform, dismantling, and restructuring of a long-damaging system of authority is urgently needed right now. We need to stop glorifying and romanticizing the concept of the “renegade” or “corrupt cop” in media, and start exposing all the problematic elements of law enforcement and leadership in our societies for what they are. It’s shows like The Boys that force us to really analyze what we view as heroism and why, and whether or not our existing ideologies stem from the damaging ones that we have been force-fed our whole lives.
Defund the police. All Black lives matter.
~ Z ~
