Review: The Boys, "Life Among The Septics" | Season 4, Episode 2
"People need a symbol. Someone they can rally behind."
I can’t find it at the moment,1 but there was an article a number of years back in which Republican and Democratic strategists and commentators were interviewed. The Republicans all talked about how they (and their candidates) would receive the daily messaging and soundbite-approved talking points from the RNC, and promptly either parrot them publicly themselves or direct their candidates to do so. The Democratic strategists and commentators, almost to a one, talked about how they’d ignore those daily memos, because, as they said, “I have better ideas and better ways to say them.” (I am seriously paraphrasing, here.) Any time people ask why Dems are so bad at getting their message out, I’m reminded of it. Honestly, I think about it a lot.
You see where I’m going with this.
Thematically, this is one of the more cohesive and artfully assembled episodes the show has done. It wasn’t perfect, but in terms of connecting the many disparate storylines with an overarching concept, it blows a lot of other installments out of the water. (Or, to quote Sage, “It blows harder than Nancy Reagan on the MGM backlot.”) Vought, Sage, Firecracker—they understand the power of symbolism, of circular messaging, providing a clear and easily digestible narrative that speaks to their target audience. “I bring ‘em together, tell ‘em a story, give ‘em a purpose,” as Firecracker succinctly explains to Sage, when pushed about whether she’s dumb enough to actually believe the bullshit she’s peddling. “I mean, which would you rather believe: That you belong with a community of warriors battling a secret evil, or that you’re a lonely inconsequential nobody that no one will ever remember?” (For an even more succinct take, there’s always Bruce Springsteen: “At the end of every hard-earned day, people find some reason to believe.”)
She doesn’t have the resources or the intelligence to take it beyond the low-level pandering that puts her in front of drooling men at events like TruthCon, but Firecracker is sharp enough to execute the same rough fundamentals of propaganda and cult-of-personality tactics that Sage is just beginning to practice on a nationwide/global level. It’s not even that smart: It’s one of those things that more or less everybody understands at this point (hell, 10-year-olds can explain why Bruce Wayne became a bat when he decided to fight crime). It’s a staple of not just superhero narratives, but narratives, period. Plato’s cave gets at this, among many other intellectually fecund examples. Symbols are more powerful than words.