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Film

19th Oct 2020

The Boys’ showrunner says the Marvel films are ‘dangerous’ to society

Wil Jones

“That’s I think how you end up with people like Trump”

The Boys has become one of the most talked-about TV shows of the year. The second season of the superhero satire has been a ratings smash for Amazon, and a hit with both viewers and critics.

The skewering of superheroes seems to have struck a chord with viewers now that the Marvel and DC movies are so dominant in popular culture.

Now The Boys showrunner Eric Kripke has commented on the success on the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Kripke says he’s a fan of the Marvel movies, but is worried about their effect on the world.

“People might be surprised to know this, but I’m actually a fan of the Marvel stuff,” Kripke told The Hollywood Reporter. “The filmmaking is often impeccable. I actually really enjoy the humorous tone that a lot of them are written in. They’re snarky and fast and glib and I like that style.”

But he does find their success concerning.

“My issue with them are not the movies themselves, but that there’s too many of them overall. I sort of believe it’s dangerous, not to overstate it or be overdramatic, but it’s a little dangerous to train an entire generation to wait for someone strong to come in and save you.”

“That’s I think how you end up with people like Trump and populists who say, ‘I’m the only one who can come in, it’s going to be me,'” Kripke continued. “And I think in the way that pop culture conditions people subtly, I think it’s conditioning them the wrong way — because there’s just too much of it. So I think it’s nice to have a corrective, at least a small one in us, to say, ‘They’re not coming to save you. Hold your family together and save yourselves.'”