Hate Speech, Donald Trump and The Boys

Authors

Abstract

In 2024, The Boys is Prime Video's most watched series and one of the most popular on streaming platforms. The series offers a critical view of American politics and society, and specifically, according to its creator, of Donald Trump. This article conducts a qualitative analysis of characters, plots and dialogues of the series from a critical discourse perspective. It identifies narrative strategies that reflect characteristics attributed to Trump by academic sources. Homelander, the villain, shares his traits, rhetoric and type of speeches. These foster fear of terrorism, suspicion of Muslims and immigrants, as well as promote social polarization, strategies also resorted to by Trump in his first term. Like him he employs dogwhistles that appeal to a mythical period before the feminist and civil movements and promote the fears of his electorate, and softens his xenophobia and misogyny through figleaves. The series warns of the social danger of hate-based rhetoric. The transformation of the protagonists, inspired by The Wizard of Oz, suggests breaking with patriarchy and reconfiguring society in a democratic and inclusive way, aligning with Spinoza's theories of social change.

Author Biographies

Laura Fernández-Ramírez, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos

International PhD in Audiovisual Communication from the Complutense University (2014), Extraordinary Doctorate Award. Master's Degree in Television Programme Production (IORTV) and Diploma in Film Editing (ECAM). Assistant Professor at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos de Madrid. She teaches subjects related to audiovisual production and editing. She has 14 years of teaching experience in universities such as the International University of La Rioja (UNIR), where she directed the Master's Degree in Audiovisual Script Creation for eight years and was responsible -among others- for the subject of Character Creation. She was also a lecturer at the Complutense University and the University of Burgos. She has a recognised six-year research record and has published in high-impact journals, specialising in script analysis, character analysis, editing and television programming.

Ignacio Nevado, Universidad Complutense de Madrid

International PhD in Audiovisual Communication from the Complutense University (2023). Master's Degree in Audiovisual Heritage: History, Recovery and Management (UCM) and Diploma in Actor Performance (William Layton School). Assistant Lecturer at the Complutense University of Madrid. He teaches subjects related to the History of Communication and documentary film. He has 5 years of teaching experience at the Complutense University of Madrid. He was an FPU pre-doctoral contract holder. He has publications in high impact journals related to script analysis, characters and television programming.

Downloads

Published

2025-12-09

Issue

Vol. 1 No. 41 (2025): Estudos em Comunicação

Section

Artigos

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 Unported License.

Estudos em Comunicação/Communication Studies is an Open Access journal. All its content is freely available without charge to the user or his institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. Estudos em Comunicação, by Labcom, is licensed under a Creative Commons Atribuição-NãoComercial-SemDerivações 3.0 Unported License. By submitting your work to Estudos em Comunicação/Communication studies you confirm you are the author and own the copyright, that the content is original and previously unpublished, and that you agree to the licensing terms.