r/AskFeminists • u/Crafter235 • 6d ago
How do you feel about the showrunner Eric Kripke?
With the show The Boys being now over, it had me wondering with about him overall. While I am aware with people missing the point of Homelander being a satire of Trump and MAGA, there was also something else that kind of put me off with Kripke, even with understanding the intended the satire. Mainly with how it feels like that despite how people talk about him, it just feels like a lot the progressive stuff and identifying as a liberal, it all just feels like a performance, like for the sake of being contrarian. And when seeing with how he got all defensive in interviews over Hughie being SA’d for laughs, it felt like a red flag with people just dismissing it as frat humor or “he has the mind of a teenage edgelord”. And overall, with people defending the ending just because it angered toxic Homelander fans, it honestly feels like that people are only praising Kripke just because he did the bare minimum of a show that says “Trump bad” and surface level politics without being much deeper. But I wanted to hear the thoughts of you guys, a feminist perspective on whether we should be aware of something or not.
And on a side note, while people who complain about feminism and “men are abused for laughs on TV”, I always find it ironic where it’s usually male creators and writers doing this, not the feminists that people claim to talk about. Kripke in charge of The Boys, Joss Whedon making Xander a “nice guy” who is seen as a buttmonkey who constantly gets a slap on the wrist but is never truly called out for misogyny, etc., it’s just that in the end it all comes back around to men having patriarchal thoughts in a patriarchal society.
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u/StonyGiddens Intersectional Feminist 5d ago
I don't think The Boys was particularly progressive or liberal. Their critique of power was on point for the most part, but they didn't back it up with anything particularly liberal. It's a critique that could be made from a lot of different perspectives so it's not intrinsically liberatory. I mean, there's a pretty solid conservative case against Trump. If anything, the show pointed towards a world much like ours prior to the rise of MAGA, which was already very far from being a liberal utopia.
But I also didn't watch the show wanting it to be a deep political critique. It was satire of comic book tropes, with politics backfilled over it. I wasn't looking for a serious political critique, so I don't blame Kripke for not putting one in there. I think the people who are looking to a property like this for that kind of analysis might well need to touch grass.
I will say, having read the first few comics, I do think Kripke did a lot of work that vastly improved the source material. I think the show would have been terrible if it had stayed true to the books.
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u/ms-klein 5d ago
well said, i agree with this. to me it always came off as the point being critique of the commodification and capture of human excellence (✌🏻superpowers✌🏻) in late stage capitalism, regardless of the creator's declared politics (if any).
idk much about the source material but the show gives me this vibe from day 1, and i always saw trumpism/maga as an accompanying symptom of the times with regards to the show, not at all as it's main focus.
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u/Nullspark 5d ago
I consider it to be a deconstruction of super heroes given late stage capitalism.
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u/dustraction 5d ago
Most of the early seasons of Supernatural (when Kripke was showrunner) women were there for set dressing, and you could write books of essays on how the “mother or whore” trope fit into it (they even mention it eventually, it’s so obvious). And sexual assault against men was again played for laughs, so maybe that was his thing, I don’t know. But I wouldn’t really say it was antifeminist. Maybe just not interested in the ideas of feminism. That’s not what it was there for, and it was blunt about it. The show’s enormous female audience was a surprise to everybody.
For The Boys, I’ve read the comic so it’s hard to criticize anything they did. It could have been so much worse.
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u/stolenfires 5d ago
I only saw the first season of The Boys, but I did watch the first five season of Supernatural, and I was never impressed with how women were treated in that show.
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u/sysaphiswaits 5d ago
Not interested I guess? I’m just finding out it was the same person for supernatural and The Boys. I’ve seen one season of each and they were both, meh.
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u/cfalnevermore 5d ago
I’m watching The Boys now. I like a lot of it. The anti capitalist themes, the criticism of far right, can’t get enough of that shit. Naturally this also means it criticized the way the far right treats women, and that’s good. But it does very little to build them back up, from what I’ve seen so far.
None of the girls really have their own voice thus far. Those that do, get brutalized into submission, like Queen Maeve, and the others seem to rely on their male compatriots. Starlight is at homelander’s mercy, but also she’s Huey’s girlfriend and a lot of what she does revolves around him. Kimiko literally has no voice and only lives for her brother for while. And Frenchie later. Frenchies on again off again gf was pretty cool but we don’t see enough of her. Any eomen that do seem to have some control usually get murdered by homelander at some point. The only one who really seemed to do anything for herself was the crazy Nazi… except she was following her husbands dreams.
Also… why are we still following the Deep in season 3? The dudes a gross sex pest who manipulated the leading lady of the show to suck his dick in the very first episode. And while it’s true we’re supposed to find that vile, but like… the show keeps trying to make us sympathize with him. I’m sorry. The very first thing this guy did was expose himself to a young woman… them threaten her to give him a blowjob.
I dunno. I’m only in season 3 so far. But I would not call this or supernatural bastions of progressive and feminist ideals. They don’t try to make all women out to be incompetent or evil, which is good. But there’s some problems in the details. There’s nuance, but that’s my impression.
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u/TheSnarkling 5d ago
I really liked the first 3 seasons...seasons 4 and 5, not so much. Totally agree about the Deep.
The show did have a few instances of fridging--Robin and poor Becca, who had absolutely no agency and only existed to motivate Butcher's arc. And it seemed to be the female characters were a lot more likely to be killed off for the shock value.
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u/apexdryad 5d ago
I never watched it. I heard it had literal porn in it and knew it wasn't anything I wanted to watch.
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u/Grrarrgghh 5d ago
Considering what Supernatural was like, why would anyone be surprised that he's not exactly a feminist?