Why Is ‘The Boys’ Trying to Kill Its Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Character?
Throughout its run, The Boys has constantly made headlines as the show whose own fanbase can barely understand it. It’s a left-wing series filled with loud, unsubtle critiques of the police, Christianity, Republicans, Fox News, rape culture, and capitalism, yet there are countless right-wing fans who insist the show’s either politically neutral or on their side. How dumb could these right-wing fans be, the rest of the fanbase wondered, to think that such an obviously left-wing show agrees with them on any of these issues?
This sort of misunderstanding is nothing new. When a leftist show critiques liberals, as The Wire did with city Democrats or Succession did with white corporate feminism, it’ll always read as right-wing with audiences who aren’t that familiar with politics that go any further left than Joe Biden. For The Boys, these fans will see the mockery of corporations’ shallow pandering to the LGBTQ+ community and they’ll think it’s a dig on queer people. They’ll see The Boys’ critique of empty PR platitudes regarding #MeToo and think it’s straightforwardly bashing the #MeToo movement.
Perhaps the biggest example of this misunderstanding is with the show’s handling of congresswomen Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit). She’s introduced as a young, up-and-coming woman of color from New York, and the parallels to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are undeniable. The show throws in references to AOC’s famous dance video that Republicans tried to embarrass her over, to the scandal where a Republican colleague called her a “fucking bitch,” to even just the aesthetics and messaging of AOC’s real-life campaign.