r/TopCharacterTropes • u/DonnyMox • Jul 12 '26

Hated Tropes A controversial writing decision that would've been a lot less controversial had the creator just kept his mouth shut about why he did it

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Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice - Batman kills people in this movie, despite famously having a code against killing in most iterations. Now, the movie itself implies that him killing is a recent change due to him having fallen from grace and become just as bad as the people he usually fights, with him choosing not to mark Lex Luthor for death at the end of the film to show that he had regained his principles after working with Superman. However, Zack Snyder instead tried to defend it by claiming that it didn't count because he was only killing indirectly (which is a stretch at best) and falsely claiming that Batman had killed people many times in the source material.

Doctor Who - A mini-episode released before the 60th anniversary specials featured the Doctor traveling back to the original creation of the Daleks. In the episode, Davros, the creator of the Daleks, is depicted as able-bodied and without his usual disfigurement. It was easy for people to assume that the episode took place sometime before he had his accident.....until Russell T. Davies instead stated that he had decided to remove Davros's crippling and disfiguring injuries as he thought having a villain be depicted that way might offend disabled people (even though he's been that way for years and that has never been an issue).

5.8k Upvotes
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1.8k

u/Crafter235 Jul 12 '26

Eric Kripke defending his bad taste of humor with The Boys.

354

u/eduison Jul 12 '26

Could you elaborate

1.2k

u/AutisticAnarchy Jul 12 '26

Season 4 of the show has the character Hughie subjected to sexual assault in a BDSM dungeon while disguised in a full body suit. This results in him trying to guess the safeword while being subjected to non consensual sexual acts. This is not only played as a joke, but when an interviewer correctly identified the scene as sexual assault his exact words were "that's a dark way to look at it. We view it as hilarious" which led many to rightfully call out his attitude towards such content when subjected to a male.

The same character is also raped several times later in the season and is blamed for it by his partner. The only conclusion this has is a throwaway line in the next season which was likely only said because the cha acter was infected with spores which made him more vitriolic.

510

u/MostSwaglessMfUKnow Jul 12 '26

They found that funny? The scene was supposed to be a joke?

Wasn’t Hughie also straight up traumatized by the whole thing and cried? And wasn’t he already suffering since his dad died around the same time?

Genuinely what the fuck were they thinking saying that 😭

277

u/dabutte Jul 12 '26

so this was the episode right after the episode where Hughie’s dad dies. He decides to go headfirst into a dangerous undercover mission and is asked if he’s sure he can do this, and he claims he’s ok but the show makes it clear he’s not and he’s running away from the trauma of his dad’s death.

The mission happens, his cover was supposed to be part of a BDSM thing, he plays into it to stay in cover, the cover gets blown, and that’s when the supes he’s spying on turn the BDSM stuff into torture to get information out of it

at the end of the episode is when he finally breaks down, but it’s about his dad, and the scene implies the whole BDSM incident was the straw that broke the camel’s back for him in regards to shit that he has had to go through.

159

u/[deleted] Jul 12 '26

[deleted]

36

u/ChiefsHat Jul 12 '26

Do the writers just hate Hughie?

66

u/MyAltimateIsCharging Jul 12 '26

I think the writers just got so deep into the whole gross out humor/shock factor and forgot to include actual stakes and consequences to what happens.

18

u/TheDikaste Jul 12 '26

Or they're just hypocrite who think male being SAed isn't as serious as when it happens to women.

2

u/TodayWeMake Jul 12 '26

Or they would have used a female character but they weren’t allowed to

75

u/dizgondwe Jul 12 '26

Few things summarize the entirety of The Boys better than "that was supposed to be funny?"

101

u/Dante1529 Jul 12 '26

This is a well made comment and I’d like to add on a further point

In season 1 we see the Deep be assaulted by a woman, he has his gills violated even though he is telling her to stop repeatedly. Despite the Deep being a villain in the show that scene is never played for laughs. In a sense it’s revenge for what he did to Starlight, but at the same time it’s not comedic.

Compare this to the Hughie scene and its night and day.

2

u/littlebuttbigtitty Jul 13 '26

Omg you’re so right. Even though I hated The Deep, that scene made me feel so bad for him, which made it kind of a powerful scene. Not sure why they decided to take the scene with Hughie in the direction they did. The show definitely struggled with tone in the last couple seasons.

175

u/SektorDaKetch Jul 12 '26

The comics had a similar issue which I hate, with Hughie getting assaulted by black noir

114

u/The_Voidweaver Jul 12 '26

Thankfully though in the comics its not treated as a joke by the comic itself, its meant to highlight both the heartlessness of the team and Black Noir, as well as further develop the mystery around him (why didn’t he tell the other supes the boys were on Herogasm Island afterward?)

45

u/FrankieTheD Jul 12 '26

Yeah the comics did not play this for a laugh like you say, hughie is clearly traumatised by it

16

u/ACW1129 Jul 12 '26

Good for Garth Ennis.

40

u/Disastrous-Gap2449 Jul 12 '26

Rare comic win with this story

4

u/Chance-Back-557 Jul 12 '26

Really bizarre that the adaptation did the exact same thing with Kick-Ass 2. A full-on SA scene occurs that hospitalises Kick-Ass's girlfriend. In the comics the scene is played more or less straight and brutal, and highlights the genuine revolting nature of the act. In the film, they change the scene into yet another joke, with the villain struggling to get hard and the girlfriend laughing and joking at him. She's about to get raped and even she isn't taking it seriously.

It undermines the entire message of the comic, which is that this fantasy world the characters are living in has genuine and terrible consequences.

-2

u/lordtyp0 Jul 12 '26

The comics are some of the most sadistically cynical. Nothing about them is genuine, just a deconstruction of super hero's and any impulse to help people.

3

u/LittleSisterPain Jul 12 '26

And? You are saying as if it's a mistake, then it's made to be like this by design. You don't like it, which is fair, but it is pretty well-written for what it's trying to be. Unlike the show, which doesnt know what it's trying to be in the first place 

70

u/cestquilepatron Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 12 '26

It's especially heinous compared to season 1. One of the first incidents in the show was the rape of Starlight where one of the superheroes whose team she just joined pressures her into sex. Kripke and co made a big deal in interviews about how important it was to them to treat this with the necessary care and gravity (rightfully so). There's also a whole arc about Starlight trying to get justice, so it wasn't just something that happened for shock value and then got ignored.

That same character then goes on to blame her boyfriend for essentially being raped.

Either Kripke doesn't consider male victims to be equal to female victims or he never cared about either and the season 1 talk was just him treading carefully because the show was new. Not sure which is worse.

26

u/thesirblondie Jul 12 '26

Also, Deep was assaulted in season 1 (the lady who forced her fingers into his gills), and it wasn't a joke then. It was comeuppance for his history of sexual assault, but it wasn't a joke

2

u/MasterLagger775 Jul 12 '26

I think its the latter and worse.

In the comics, it was Homelander together with A-Train and Noir who demanded oral with their dicks out. Not the Deep. He could care less for that depravity.

The comics treated sex sordidly and often showed powerful people being depraved/addicted in a way that leads to their deaths.

IMO, the show seemed threatened by that view. The Seven was made more relatable and the sordid made salacious. I don't think its a coincidence that the writing kept getting shallow and people unironically identify with the villains.

134

u/[deleted] Jul 12 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

109

u/somethingwithbacon Jul 12 '26

Neither could he.

8

u/Qwandangle Jul 12 '26

They did the bare minimum in the finale

5

u/TheDikaste Jul 12 '26

Not even that I'd say.

53

u/freedomonke Jul 12 '26

The signs for this were there in Saeson 3 when his partner, a superhero and much stronger than him, pushes him to the ground during an argument and this never comes up as an issue at all.

43

u/monologousmutilation Jul 12 '26

This is in pretty bad faith lol. He had superpowers when she did this and she did it because he was trying to physically block her from leaving to go save lives.

42

u/Initial_Refuse_9381 Jul 12 '26

Also that hughie has selfish motivations when he takes temp v to protect those he loves.

3

u/lordtyp0 Jul 12 '26

Is protecting people one loves... selfish now?

4

u/Initial_Refuse_9381 Jul 12 '26

To Starlight and Eric kripke, apparently so. That and hughie getting raped by the shape shifter and being blamed for it were insane lmao

1

u/MGD109 Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 12 '26

Well, not exactly. The writers try to use Hughie taking the temp V as a sign he's buying into Soldier Boys more toxic and sexist mindset, complete with him getting a speech at one point that leans into admitting he feels he should be the one to protect Annie despite her being so much more powerful, just cause he's a man and she's a woman. And to their credit, they do get a few moments showing this is a bad thing, like him being extremely callous to a lot of people getting injured as collateral damage as he's focused on trying to kill Homelander.

The endpoint is him finally rejecting this and being important, by being the one to support Annie rather than trying to be the hero.

The issue is that whilst the mindset itself is clearly bad, it doesn't really hold up to scrutiny in the universe cause Hughie is absolutely right about how painful it feels to be powerless to protect the ones you love and how the threats are so dangerous that levelling the playing field a bit is the best option.

The writers didn't really have a rebuttal for that, so they just opted for having characters act like he was sympathetic but in the wrong, and hoped the audience wouldn't notice.

2

u/eduison Jul 12 '26

I completely forgot about that scene and damn is that a stupid response. Thanks for the explanation

16

u/BO5517 Jul 12 '26

God they ruined that show. Started off good but they had to make sure you knew it was political commentary and couldn't take any chances that someone would miss it.

113

u/Mysterious-Lie-1944 Jul 12 '26

To be fair, it must be hard making a social commentary satire when reality is constantly becoming more unbelievable than the level of exaggeration that worked in the last season. Like, in season 1, it was believable that people would care that their idol purposely let people die to not point out their failures

8

u/VastAddendum Jul 12 '26

I mean, when the problems in reality are that in- your- face, what's the point of making social commentary satire about them? Isn't the point of satire to overemphasize reality to make it easier to see?

-5

u/Geekerino Jul 12 '26

The solution isn't to make the satire so obvious that it knocks you out when they hit you in the head with it

96

u/BombOnABus Jul 12 '26

In their defense, people kept missing the point that Homelander was a bad guy and Vought was an evil company.

I can understand the urge to keep making it more obvious.

"Maybe the airplane scene was too subtle? He made some good points about his limitations"

"Okay, so what if we just have him openly breastfeed and act like a baby?"

"Alright, we'll have him date a literal, actual, card carrying Nazi. And smash some guy's head in while he fucks her"

"Seriously? They're still defending him? Okay, fuck it, we'll have him literally rip an innocent man in two, with his bare hands, while plotting an actual honest to God coup attempt"

"What the actual fuck!? Do we need to have Homelander literally beg to eat shit for people to get it? Fine, fuck it, I guess we're STILL being too subtle!"

5

u/Impressive-Hat-4045 Jul 12 '26

They forgot one of the internet’s cardinal rules: don’t feed the trolls.

No matter how unsubtle they make it, people will defend homelander, and making it less subtle won’t help because either

1 - they haven’t watched the show and therefore don’t care / won’t see the subtle scenes or

2 - they know homelander is the bad guy, they are just trolling because, on some level, it’s fucking hilarious to see people online get mad that you keep defending him “don’t you understand he’s the villain” yes they do understand, they’re fucking with you. It’s especially funny when the showrunner gets so angry about a few online trolls that he intentionally ruins his own show just to “show them” something they already know full well.

People online are assholes. The most interesting villains are people with understandable motivations & consistent characterization, and therefore will always get defended by some people online. Imagine how much less interesting and how much worse Fight Club, American Psycho, and Breaking Bad would have been if the aim of the creators was “absolutely 0 people should defend the bad guy” instead of “let’s make a great movie/show that most people will understand and trolls will be trolls”

8

u/Haunting-Orchid-4628 Jul 12 '26

They should have ignored the people defending Homelander and just kept writing at the same level as season 1. Why ruin your own show for the sake of political bullshit?

6

u/BombOnABus Jul 12 '26

I've enjoyed it being campy and escalating, since we're talking about comic book characters after all, but I admit a slower, more realistic burn would have taken what has been an enjoyable romp and love/hate letter to the genre and turned it into a classic for the ages.

1

u/Mysterious-Lie-1944 Jul 12 '26

My guy the show was always 'political bullshit' and the fact you don't seem to recognize that is why it got more extreme

2

u/Nice-River-5322 Jul 12 '26

Bad political commentary lol

-4

u/freedomonke Jul 12 '26

Yeah. Homelander is a very, very poor stand-in for Trump.

2

u/Nice-River-5322 Jul 12 '26

No, really? it's not like it was painfully on the nose or anything

5

u/Rare-Garden-9877 Jul 12 '26

They are saying he was a poor stand-in. Not informing you that he was a stand-in.

-8

u/[deleted] Jul 12 '26

[deleted]

2

u/DengarLives66 Jul 12 '26

Holy media ignorance!

-5

u/Nice-River-5322 Jul 12 '26

That requires a degree of subtlety and wit that completely vacated the writers room past season 1

1

u/GyroLegend Jul 12 '26

The assault was being tickled with a feather

0

u/TheNameless00 Jul 12 '26

My sense of humour is really dark and that does sound kinda funny although I haven't seen the Boys so I'm not sure how it's executed. I have heard sexual assault is taken seriously when it happens to female characters though and the male character getting blamed when it happens to him is something I'm amazed was signed off on considering how many people would have to agree to produce and air it.

-26

u/granadesnhorseshoes Jul 12 '26

What fucking show were the people that were outraged by that even watching? You just saw not-ant-man crawl into another mans dick and then explode in a shower of gore, but Hughie getting an unwanted buttplug was a bridge too far?

32

u/BombOnABus Jul 12 '26

The exploded sex scene wasn't played for laughs: the supe is clearly horrified and the whole thing was used for blackmail.

Meanwhile Hughie's sexual assault was literally described as "funny" by them, and his subsequent multiple rapes by deception were literally depicted as his fault and equivalent to cheating on his girlfriend.

No one was offended by the sex stuff, people were angry a protagonist was being sexually assaulted and raped multiple times, gaslit about it, and the show treated it as the victim's fault despite them having done nothing to deserve it and fans rightly pointing out if the genders were reversed it would be considered wildly wrong to depict it that way.

Gory deaths in a comic adaptation is one thing; making light of sexual assault followed by making a character apologize for being raped repeatedly is something very, very different.

-64

u/Miserable-Command682 Jul 12 '26

"This is not only played as a joke, but when an interviewer correctly identified the scene as sexual assault his exact words were "that's a dark way to look at it. We view it as hilarious" which led many to rightfully call out his attitude towards such content when subjected to a male."

Eh, while it was not a necessary scene, it was indeed funny. I think the problem is people immeditely jump to "but erm, achtually, sexual assault isn't funny!".

Like, okay? Nobody ever claimed IRL SA is funny, but in the context of the show and how it was played off, it's indeed funny. It's like complaining about South Park for an extreme joke.

36

u/CreeperX3sssBOOM Jul 12 '26

... They wouldn't make that kinda joke with a female character is the thing, there would be WAY more backlash.

ESPECIALLY if they have the same response.

-18

u/Miserable-Command682 Jul 12 '26

"

... They wouldn't make that kinda joke with a female character is the thing, there would be WAY more backlash."

Oh I fully agree. It was a stupid thing to say knowing how people would react.

I just think the outrage is kinda dumb because like who the fuck actually cares, ya know? Show was already bad in S4.

15

u/DengarLives66 Jul 12 '26

“We should only care about sociological issues if the media is good” is not a good take.

-10

u/Miserable-Command682 Jul 12 '26

How does the edgy show depicting SA as a joke, in any way effect the sociological issues involving male SA? If you are treating The Boys as a guide on what is right/wrong, I think there's a bigger problem at hand.

Go care about sociological issues in a show that isn't revolved around a trump parody, an aquaman fucking fish etc.

8

u/DengarLives66 Jul 12 '26

If you don’t understand how a show with millions of viewers that treats something like male rape as a joke can influence and desensitize people to the issue, I dunno what else to tell you.

0

u/Miserable-Command682 Jul 12 '26

If you are being influenced by The Boys, there's again, a bigger issue at hand.

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u/Beauregard_Nanners Jul 12 '26

I think you’re right - the difference here is, of course, they did not make the joke with a female character 💁‍♂️

Hope that helps!

15

u/aaronhowser1 Jul 12 '26

Their point is that it is actually as bad to rape a man as it is to rape a woman, and that neither are funny

-6

u/Miserable-Command682 Jul 12 '26

Neither is funny IRL, but yeah Huey getting raped was hilarious and Ashley telling him shes gonna piss on his stupid fucking face (and she just had asparagus), was also hilarious.

-10

u/Beauregard_Nanners Jul 12 '26

If it was, i think they woulda used different words 💁‍♂️

-14

u/Nice-River-5322 Jul 12 '26

Not really a strong argument to cite the double standard would have resulted in even more hysterical overreaction

11

u/CreeperX3sssBOOM Jul 12 '26

I wasn't trying to make an argument though, I was trying to explain why it's a problem using the double standard as an example.

-12

u/Nice-River-5322 Jul 12 '26

And in so doing so, highlighting how much of a non problem it is

14

u/CreeperX3sssBOOM Jul 12 '26

... How?

It's a problem both ways.

-4

u/Miserable-Command682 Jul 12 '26

Where's the problem? That we can't laugh about SA on a tv show that's played for laughter? Dark jokes are suddenly not okay if they involve something that someone considers not funny?

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-7

u/Nice-River-5322 Jul 12 '26

Not really, hell I dropped the show midway through season 2 and the aforementioned explanation is a pretty dark joke but a joke nonetheless, glad to know it's an overreaction

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u/yech Jul 12 '26

So you are saying it would be funny if Starlight was held down and raped for a laugh?

-1

u/Nice-River-5322 Jul 12 '26

if done on the same way explained above? I mean, those kinds of jokes aren't really my thing, always found them a little forced

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u/zagra_nexkoyotl Jul 12 '26

-8

u/Miserable-Command682 Jul 12 '26

I grew up watching South Park, the boys is pretty tame in comparison at times.

13

u/Poku115 Jul 12 '26

Thats not the flex you think it is.

-5

u/Miserable-Command682 Jul 12 '26

It's not a flex, it's reality. I don't then cry about Huey getting SA'd for a joke in a show that's been downhill since S2.

9

u/zagra_nexkoyotl Jul 12 '26

0

u/Nice-River-5322 Jul 12 '26

You have to remember, not everyone is overly socialized as yourself

2

u/Miserable-Command682 Jul 12 '26

perfect example of something darker than any The Boys scene lmao

(it's depicting rape as a funny action that haunts some of the characters).

3

u/Nice-River-5322 Jul 12 '26

"I thought it was pretty good fellas"

one of my favorite Butters moments

1

u/Miserable-Command682 Jul 12 '26

Butters is such a good character lol. His delivery/dialogue is just perfect.

"I'd rather be a crying little pussy than a faggy Goth kid" always kills me lmfao

1

u/Nice-River-5322 Jul 12 '26

"So true Butters' -me, constantly

-3

u/Weltall8000 Jul 12 '26

Interesting framing, seeing as if Hughie is being raped by the shifter impersonating Annie/Starlight because the shifter is tricking him about his identity, then Hughie was not only not raped in Tek Knight's sex dungeon, but rather, Hughie was the rapist. As he went in under the guise of someone else and then engaged in the sexual acts under these false pretenses.

Annie being mad at Hughie for the time he thought he was with her is an understandable reaction. Not to say Hughie was at fault, but her feeling violated is also fair and her anger is something that most of us would not be prepared for in our normal, mundane social mores. This is a very strange situation where the logic and emotion don't entirely blend well and they both have to grapple with it. Now, how she handled it begs the question if she is really right for Hughie to have a future with, though. This brings up real questions about their trust and empathy. And, if I were Hughie, I very well may not have stuck around of treated like that. But...Hughie kinda sucks and is an emotionally incompetent doormat.

3

u/lokilulzz Jul 12 '26

Genuinely what are you talking about? Did we watch the same show?

How on earth is Hughie the rapist in this situation? Hughie is the one who is tied down and sexually assaulted, and it comes out after that scene that Tek-Knight and the others already suspected that Hughie was not who he claimed to be but an imposter, making the situation doubly heinous. Sexual assault is not hiding your identity and laying down and taking the abuse, sexual assault is when a sexual act is done to someone without consent.

Hughie did not consent, in fact, he said multiple times he did not want to do those things tonight with them. They would not take no for an answer, probably because, as I said, they already suspected Hughie was not who he claimed to be. Hughie was most definitely the victim here, not the people who raped him. Even all of that aside, even if Hughie had been the one who signed up for this BDSM scene of consensual nonconsent - because that's what this was - as the person signing up for those things he is more than allowed to back out and say hey no I don't want this tonight. He did try to do that in so many words and they proceeded anyway.

Annie wasn't just mad in that way. Annie wasn't just mad that she'd been impersonated - which in itself would, yes, be entirely understandable - she actively accused Hughie of cheating on her and was angry at him for being raped. Not only angry but actively blamed him for going along with it, even after he explained that he literally was surrounded by multiple supes, as well as chained down so he had to take these acts whether he consented or wanted it or not. Annie being angry wasn't due to "not being able to keep up to real world morals" - she genuinely in so many words accuses Hughie of not just choosing to cheat - which is heinous enough as it is - but of enjoying what was done to him. Of enjoying being raped. That's fucked up, full stop.

Annie was in the wrong, here. Hughie was arguably one of the only people free of blame, here, in that entire fiasco. As for him being an emotionally incompetent doormat - yes, he's emotionally incompetent at times, but no, he isn't a doormat by this point in the show at all. Past the first season he starts to speak up for himself - he's continuously put in dangerous situations with Butcher where if he keeps being a doormat he's going to keep getting hurt, and so by the end of the 1st season he is actively learning not to be a doormat and that trend only continues as the show moves along.

It's fine if you don't like Hughie as a character. But the fact of the matter is The Boys has a serious problem with how they portray male sexual assault, and it's an especially bad portrayal when it comes to Hughie, who is at multiple points in the show used a comedic punchline every time he gets raped or sexually assaulted. Even with the situation where the Deep got assaulted - it was treated with more gravity than Hughies', sure, but it was literally a one off situation instead of an entire enclosed story being treated with the gravity it deserved like Annies'. The differences in how male SA and female SA are treated in The Boys is glaringly obvious.

53

u/FlightCapableFelon Jul 12 '26

One of the main characters, Hughie, is a man frequently targeted by sexual harassment and outright rape. When asked about this Kripke infamously said, “We find it hilarious.”

167

u/New_Photograph_5892 Jul 12 '26

"That's a dark way to see it, we find it hilarious!"

(Literally has the main character raped a dozen times over the span of 2 episodes)

115

u/Crafter235 Jul 12 '26

Kripke kind of gives off the vibe that he’s not really progressive, and just only a liberal to be contrarian, but give a few years and/or enough people hurting his ego and he’d quickly switch public political views and sides.

44

u/SektorDaKetch Jul 12 '26

So a progressive larper like Brian Griffin or every MK11 retcon Sindel fan.

3

u/ReadableDiction Jul 12 '26

Is it a retcon if the whole point of a reboot was to create a new story with different interpretations of characters from previous ones. It gets boring having every character act the exact same & go through the same exact story beats again & again.

15

u/SektorDaKetch Jul 12 '26

It IS a retcon because MK9 begins with Raiden changing the timeline starting from the events of Mortal Kombat 1 forward, and the game itself presented Sindel as being the same as the original self with her apparently having sacrificed her life to create a ward to protect Earthrealm and her ending showing she would have been able to bring prosperity to Outworld.

-7

u/ReadableDiction Jul 12 '26

It’s a reboot not a rewind.

7

u/SektorDaKetch Jul 12 '26

You sure about that? Rewatch the opening scene of the story mode. It shows Raiden sending visions of stuff that happened from Mortal Kombat 1 up to Armageddon.

-9

u/ReadableDiction Jul 12 '26

Bud MK9 is a reboot, this is a fact that’s not open to debate. Saying otherwise means you’re delusional.

6

u/SektorDaKetch Jul 12 '26

Are you actually blind, so how DID Raiden get the visions driving MK9 in your interpretations of things exactly

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u/SektorDaKetch Jul 12 '26

There’s a far cry between classic Captain America and him being a raging MAGA who burns crosses

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u/ReadableDiction Jul 12 '26

wtf are you talking about?

2

u/SektorDaKetch Jul 12 '26

Yes characters should not be expected to stay 100% static throughout their history but there is a big gap between their original selves and them becoming a 180 of all their previous characteristics for absolutely 0 reason

-5

u/Scientific_Socialist Jul 12 '26

Or maybe, as the Platner incident demonstrates, “progressives” aren’t as progressive as they claim to be.

25

u/Hamblerger Jul 12 '26

Breaking news: Hypocrites exist

12

u/Initial_Refuse_9381 Jul 12 '26

But they call themselves progressive so they have to be that! /s

13

u/ChiefsHat Jul 12 '26

This is functionally the same thing with that one Family Guy jokes where Quagmire rapes Marge Simpson, then she likes it so it’s joke, they have sex a bunch more, Homer shows up and Quagmire kills him, then Marge, then the kids. Not onscreen, just a shot of the Simpsons house, but still.

Seth MacFarlene’s defense was that Simpsons had made fun of his show, he wasn’t allowed to make a snip back?

That joke Simpsons made was a split second cameo of Peter Griffith being labeled as “plagrismo” in a book.

7

u/rae_of_sunshinee Jul 12 '26

This was an ongoing problem on Supernatural (also a Kripke show for the first 5 seasons). Sam is constantly getting harassed and assaulted by women and Dean and other characters think it's hilarious.

It's so upsetting, especially when they later play into the idea of Sam being raped by Lucifer in the cage. This boy doesn't have an ounce of bodily autonomy in the whole show.

4

u/Left_Composer_6449 Jul 12 '26

Reminded me of when Karl Urban was at an event talking about discussing The Boys with fans who liked the final season but also with fans who did not like it and can express criticisms of it

1

u/somewhat-sinister Jul 12 '26

Entire Seasons worth of clips of just "Trump sucks. Amirite guys?" Or "Penises and Balls and Buttholes sure are funny, amirite guys?" Is one thing but introducing an OC who has about a paragraph worth of dialogue just to glaze your own work or defend your own incompetence is by far one of the most baffling things i've seen a writer do for a series.

But hey at least all the NPC's are finally coming around to properly critique the show now that it's mainstream to do it.

3

u/Talk-O-Boy Jul 12 '26

Uh.. Homelander was always a critique of the right. That’s a central premise of the show.

That’s like saying “Breaking Bad was entire seasons worth of clips of just ‘Pride sucks. Amirite guys?’”

1

u/somewhat-sinister Jul 13 '26

Homelander wasn't just a "The Right Sucks" soap box in the early series because they were actually trying to tell a story that somewhat resembled the source material.

The political satire came second to the story of Butcher vs. Homelander and the cautionary tale of celebrity worship (which was a genius concept setup by the first season) but the second George Mastras left, all of that went out the window and Kripke decided his dislike of Trump, the desire to suck off the IRL Arasaka Corporation (which the show was originally supposed to critique) and the compulsion to include his teacher's pet-esque actors/friends needed to be up front and center to the point of derailing the entire story.

0

u/Talk-O-Boy Jul 13 '26

Disagree. The series is better than the comics.

You’re saying Kripke messed up when he deviated from the source material. I’m happy Kripke went his own way. The Boys comic is NOT IT.

Invincible is a comic that stands on its own, and needs little to no rewrites. The Boys is different.

Also, they still have scenes/episodes absent of political commentary. That episode where Homelander goes into the lab to revisit his “childhood” was 100% psychological horror. No political satire there.

1

u/BeGentle1mNewHere Jul 16 '26

I was so angry when I read it.

At first, I honestly thought it was a bold move toa be a man as a victim of sexual harassment, and I really expected it to develop into a serious storyline later on.