The Boys, Season 4 Episodes 2-3
How to do better than The Blind Side
the boys is good at creating characters we can relate to, and then coaxing their goodness out of them if you lost your girlfriend to a corrupt corporation thats doing millions of horrible things to the world, you too would feel an urge to overthrow them, in fact if you do feel that you should <3
What I like about The Boys is that for every thing a person might experience in our day and age, there is a character who we can connect to and see how they do or don't fulfill their divine urge to do the right thing. Many characters are examples of how people suppress and neglect this urge to do real good, like The Deep, Firecracker, and often Billy Butcher.
In Season 4 Episode 3, MM consults one of these people, A-Train, who has been cracking under the pressure to do the right thing since Blue Hawk killed a couple people, and paralyzed his brother... but the episode before this shows us in the opening sequence exactly how to NOT relate to a character, using a trope black people are very familiar with. The Blind-Side.
How it's been done.
This is what white people imagine when they try to pull the good out of someone who is not white. Speaking from my own experience, if it wasn't for the internet I might've ended up enjoying this type of trope instead of understanding how a white savior encouraging a black person to serve a corporation or industry is ultimately fucking cringe and annoying. First, our blind-side scene.
The keywords here are generic. Immediately the color grading is unusual. So orangey... is this Breaking Bad??? We start with literally the most famous rap song out of New York from the most famous rapper from New York. We see an actor shaking like they're in desperate need of an addiction fix, yet we can tell this isn't the standard of acting we expect from this show.
The dealer shouts "Reggie", which some of us might recognize immediately as A-Trains first name, then we see and hear him dashing in to supply. The camera cuts to a car driving in, and Reggie looking at it and groaning. The funny thing is, this almost tells us exactly how he feels about the character about to come out of the car. He doesn't wanna hear that shit.
Then the camera pans up to Will Ferrel. The Boys tends to use already established actors in a way that shocks us, yet gets us familiar with them almost immediately, see Seth Rogen's multiple appearances. The music here also immediately switches from how white people hear rap, to an almost angelic tone. This is his white savior theme.
Will Ferrel makes the comment "When's the last time you had a decent meal?", which... okay. Then theres an invitation that his white wife Mary is going to make him a "decent meal" which he doesn't have right now? I guess? Jessie T Usher delivers this line so well, it's from a place genuine dissatisfaction with who he's talking to, and a layer of "I gotta do this to get paid" Season 1 A-Train would've put his everything into that line, but S4 Reggie... doesn't have the fucking bandwidth Most Talented Superhero I've ever seen - > Places Reggie on a pedastal of strength and masculinity, since thats what black men are I guess
Throwing it all away slinging yayo for gangbangers? - > ok.
You don't know me coach, you don't know nothing. -> true! A major reason the white savior trope fails so horribly from a narrative standpoint is that most people of color know that white people don't understand the challenges and differences in perspective they have with the person they're trying to "save" This will be relevant for the next episode
"Come back with me... to the suburbs." - > nice. "What I want doens't matter. I'll never be free of these streets." A train spells it all out. The scene fucking blows, there is an imbalance of power here. the black character in a white savior story is a minstrel. This is an overblown expression of how white people see black struggle, in a way that's palletable to other white people. that's it.
How it's done.
Immediately there are threats from both parties... Reggie is forced to respect MM for the moment
"Why the fuck would I listen to you?" "What the fuck is keeping you up at night" is such a masculine and genuine way to express care about what someone really wants to do. Their urge to do good, grow, or help. "Is it that bullshit white savior movie they got you in? Or that they put your brother in a wheelchair? Or guilt from beaitng 3 men to death..."
Immediately calls to attention the other scene, this quickly puts the comparison between the two scenes into perspective, that the truth is that these two scenes... serve the same narrative purpose, yet one is done well. The writers are showing off how to do shit right. Then MM uses the dirt that he has on Reggie in a way that validates his struggles
"You have a second chance to actually give a shit. So what you gon do with it man?" This isn't Reggie being told what he should do, calling it out and saying "dude what the fuck! come to the suburbs instead!" But it is putting the ball in his court. Trusting Reggie to make the decision himself, rather than pushing him further and further. Putting all the information together, the emotional intensity of it all, and putting the choices in front of him. Reggie responds "Fuck you." then pauses... then expresses his fear. Giving a shit just gets you killed.
MM again, never denies anything that Reggie says. "True. But you're still standing here." A recall to the moments in the past where Reggie made the choice to do good, and it ended up working out for him.
the big differences are these:
Will Ferrel doesn't know the pain, guilt, shame, or embarassment that Reggie actually goes through. He doesn't understand the fight to survive that he's had to live. He micro aggresses and speaks through his own twisted view of Reggie, and almost further shames him into stopping what he's doing.
MM knows to some degree some of the shit he's been through, and pushes no further than what he knows. He knows what a white savior film means and how it makes a black man feel. He validates everything from the black power suit to the white man's heart that is keeping him alive. And tells him to make his own choice. What you gon do with it man?