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The most recent season of The Boys featured some of its most graphic sex and violence to date, which is really saying something. But according to YouTuber and licensed family therapist Georgia Dow, the real villain of the piece is toxic masculinity—specifically, how it manifests in Jensen Ackles’ character, Soldier Boy.
“When we talk about toxic masculinity, we’re often talking about its effect on everyone around that person. But I think that it misses the one point: that this is so insanely destructive to the person that is having to deal with it.”
The way Dow sees it, toxic masculinity is its own kind of real-life supervillain origin story, where men have the ability to healthily express their emotions or show vulnerability “cut out” of them. While this might make for a great show of strength, she is quick to point out that it isn’t real.
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One of the biggest red flags in the show is Soldier Boy’s refusal to team up with others, even if it might help him attain his own goals, and his constant need to belittle or mock the other characters around him. “It’s so hard to form bonded relationships because you’re not allowing other people in… You end up pushing everyone away. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that everyone is going to hurt you,” Dow explains. “Pushing someone away and making fun of people is the first sign of an actual ego weakness.”
Another prime example of this textbook toxic behavior, Dow observes, is Soldier Boy’s use of drugs and alcohol, which is portrayed as being addictive in nature. “They’re stopping him from being able to feel because he doesn’t have the coping mechanisms in order to deal with it,” she says.
The point that Dow keeps coming back to is that rejecting intimacy, vulnerability or connection in the name of being supposedly tough or manly is actually achieving the opposite result, doing far more harm and ultimately making you weaker as a person.
“Really, what’s being tough is being able to face your emotions, and not running from them with alcohol or benzodiazepines or work or avoidance,” she says. “It’s really scary to be able to face who you are, and that takes a lot of emotional intelligence.”
Philip Ellis is a freelance writer and journalist from the United Kingdom covering pop culture, relationships and LGBTQ+ issues. His work has appeared in GQ, Teen Vogue, Man Repeller and MTV.
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