A Collective Post Helping Defend and Define Stormfront:
There is a harmful narrative that has formed around a (feminist) character that appeared in the newest season of “The Boys” -- her name is Stormfront. Said narrative is the falsified idea that she is a Nazi. This was started mainly by Anti-Feminists in retaliation to the fact that the character is rather vocal about social injustice. Below are definitive rebuttals to the toxic propaganda spread by these people and the others who blindly took in it.
Defining Stormfront’s Past:
The reason why the slander on Stormfront is as active and believed as it is is because it’s based on the comic (in which Stormfront was a male, and yes, was indeed a Nazi), which then influenced the past of the TV-rendition of the character. In the show, Stormfront use to be apart of Nazi Germany before (assumedly) migrating to America and donning the alias of “Liberty” in the 50s, in which she carried out violently racist attacks behind the scenes.
Something worth noting is that Stormfront is the first ever Superhero created by Vought (the man who created the company was her husband; whether she was injected with V -- the serum to give people these super abilities -- when she was a child or well within her maturity is currently unknown). Because she’s the first ever superhero, she has a unique ability that other superheroes (from our current knowledge) lack; immortality.
Due to her immortality, Stormfront outlived her peers. She watched as the culture around her changed. She eventually had a daughter, which she then lived past, and she too lived past her husband. This means that she lived past the time where Nazi’s were to some degree a social norm, and lived through the period(s) where people actively fight back against Nazi’ism, racism, and other forms of prejudice. She was thrust into new cultures, and in turn, molded her beliefs into something new over the years she had lived through. She no longer had the leader, she no longer had the support, she no longer had the option to use her voice. And because of that, she learned that her beliefs were outdated.
It could be argued that the point to Stormfront’s character is to reflect the social evolution of America -- from how racism was mainstream to now progressivism being rewarded.
The Accusation That Stormfront Said a Slur Towards Kenji and she Killed an Apartment Complex of Black People Simply Because They’re Black:
In episode three, for those who don’t know, there was a super-terrorist (the title given to super-humans who use their abilities to aid in their terrorism), and The Seven were sent out to capture and put the terrorist down. Basically: they were doing their jobs as heroes. During the attempted capture of the terrorist, Stormfront was ultimately the one to get him.
While she was chasing him, they entered an apartment complex; while on the chase, she most likely would have noted that the terrorist isn’t actually doing any active action of terrorism -- he was just running. While she knew, and The Seven knew, that he was a terrorist, the public would probably see it as a superhero harming an innocent. Of course since he was an active threat, she was fast thinking. While chasing him, she stroke down some casualties and destroyed a portion of the apartment complex building that way there would be visible evidence that the terrorist would’ve been a threat to the lives of the public. And it worked. While what she did was arguably corrupt, that’s not the point here; the show makes a point to say all the heroes are corrupt.
In her fight with the terrorist, she does say something that features unfavorable language -- she called the terrorist a “yellow bastard” -- and while it’s displeasant, it is not a slur. Yellow is a color, and he was rather pigmented. It’s a distasteful descriptor. And she was right in calling him a bastard. He was a terrorist.
The Accusation that Stormfront Didn’t Like A-Train Because he’s Black:
We can assume that Stormfront has a strong sense of morality due to her past connections to Nazi Germany -- while she no longer holds those beliefs, it would suggest that she places importance on morals due to strong “moral” senses of the Nazi party. With her now being in the modern world, her sense of morality probably evolved into applying to more current issues.
In the show, Stormfront is shown to believe in the superiority of Supes (will touch on that even more later). Due to this, is is likely that she would look down on those who have super-abilities but does stuff that would harm them or otherwise negatively impact the performance of their heroics. In season two, it was shown that A-Train -- whose whole shtick was his extreme speed -- could no longer run to such extremes before triggering a possible heart failure. This would clearly motivate Stormfront to look down on A-Train and see him as a waste -- because he is effectively wasting away his own life.
Her saying “some people have quality, other’s don’t” is a clear reference to the fact that his quality of self-control and self-worth is low. He’s an addict, and has let his addiction ruin his life and multiple lives of the people around him.
The Accusation that Stormfront Thinks Black People are Trying to get rid of White People; An In-Depth Dissection on the Conversation Between Stormfront and Homelander in Which she Explains her Past:
The scene opens with her, Stormfront, finding Homelander alone and solemn overlooking the city. He’s being callous and dismissive towards her, and even says a sly comment in which could be taken as a potential murder threat, which obviously effects her and her future plans (since it’s rather clear that she’s merely using him for her own personal agenda). Because of his cold behavior towards her, she decides to bare her all to him.
“I will never lie to you again. I will tell you everything . . . Starting with this,” She begins. Stormfront hesitantly walks to a large brown box, the stoic look on Homelander’s face never leaving as he pointedly watches her every move. She opens the crate, and in it are numerous aged items belonging to her, including her Liberty attire and a collection of black and white photos.
Out of her collection of items, she picks up the photos due to them being an outline of her history and an easy open door to the unique ability she has (since she’s either immortal or has an extended life quantity).
She shows the first image to Homelander, an image that shows her next to a much older woman (who has previously been assumed by the viewer to be her mother or grandmother). “My daughter,” she begins, “Chloe. She died of Alzheimer's a few years ago.”
Before this scene, her unique relation to aging was unknown to Homelander; the only people who knew were Starlight and The Boys. Understandably shocked, Homelander asks Stormfront just how old is she.
“I was born in 1919, in Berlin.”
There’s beats of silence between them. The information that she just revealed settles, to both Homelander and the viewer, and then she flips to the second photo.
It’s of her, dressed in a beautiful, white blazer dress, standing next to three extremely influential figures from history (further highlighting her extreme age). As she flips to the next photo, she says, “And . . . The most important man in the room . . . “ Homelander looks down, and finishes the unsaid sentence: “Frederick Vought.”
The next portion of the conversation is one of the most important, both in-context of the actual conversation but also in terms of the audience finally understanding Stormfront as a person; it gives us an insight to her mentality, it further explores her history with Vought and the relationship she has with the company, while also showing us what seems to be her intentions with Homelander. “He gave me the first successful V injection. He taught me everything. And then we fell in love, and he gave me a daughter. He made me, and his genius made you.”
This one excerpt shows us an important aspect on Stormfront and her mentality: she glorifies and idealizes Vought. The glorification she has of Frederick Vought consumes her, evident through the passion she has while she speaks on how V made her into who she is. The glorification she has for Frederick then streamlines into the next aspect of what she talks about, which is the superiority that comes from being chosen to be a superhero (which she isn’t exactly unjust in; a separate post to discuss, maybe? Although I feel as if it’s pretty obvious how people with super-human abilities that routinely save the world are clearly above just normal civilians).
Emotions are clear on Homelander’s face as he hears all the new information released by Stormfront: he’s shocked, and really just at a loss for words. He turns away from her, almost in a way dismissing the rest of the photos she has as he tries to process everything. She holds the photos to her side, now untouched for the rest of the conversation, and continues to speak: “Frederick didn’t care about all the fans or stardom or any of that shallow bullshit. We are in a war for the culture. The other races are grinding us down and taking what is rightfully ours, but we can fight back. With an army of supermen, millions strong.”
This four-sentence paragraph is the strongest example we currently have from the show that showcases the sense of superiority Stormfront has due to her super-human abilities. This specific excerpt is commonly used as a dog whistle by Stormfront anti’s to push the narrative that she is a Nazi or at the very least a white supremacist, however with the context of her relation to Vought and the fact that she highlights it being an army of supermen, it’s made explicitly clear that the “war for the culture” is a culture where supes are naturally seen as higher than non-supes and don’t have to fear the possibility of public backlash due to “othering” that’s caused by a public that may be scared of people who are different than them -- which may be why Stormfront finds it so important to build an online following who truly knows her as a person, while still being aware that she ultimately has a platform and is in a position of power.
It could be argued that her current arc and characterization of glorification and superiority is meant to be an allegory for Nazi’ism, however, I will say in my own personal opinion that it’s incredibly weak to claim. Nazi allegories need to have someone explicitly shown to be wrong in their beliefs and ideals; Stormfront though, is justified -- or at the very least has solid ground to stand on. I mean, God, it’s shown that mothers and fathers were offering up their newborns to be injected with compound V. That should speak for itself.
Lastly, after Stormfront bore her history and ideals to Homelander, she says one last thing to Homelander, one last confession full of passion and desperation: “So I love you with all of my heart. How could I not? Everyone I have ever loved is in the ground. And then I found you. We found each other. And now neither of us has to be alone ever again.”
I believe this to imply that her sense of superiority is a front that she puts up and her desire to create a culture of supe’s is to create a new race of people that are similar to her in sense of life-span, that way she no longer has to keep losing those she loves and live a life where pain is a constant. I truly do think all of this is an act of longing for a life of less pain 💔
So in conclusion: her idea of a “war on our culture” is the idea of non-supes against those who are. It’s an entirely separate thing from Nazi beliefs and / or ideals.
Discussing Stormfront’s Feminism and Why it Should be Both Admired and Wide-Spread Within our Culture:
Stormfront is a traditional feminist; she doesn’t believe that women are superior to men, but rather that we’re all on equal footing and it’s our own personality and accomplishments that make us. Quoted from episode two, “Why does it matter whether heroes have a dick or vag? I mean, shouldn’t we all just be competent at our jobs? I don’t think girls do anything better, I think chicks and dicks are in it together.” She’s able to point out the systematic advantages men have and the unfair treatment of women by the media, but she’s still able to recognize that it’s an issue of the system that forms our culture rather than an issue of men themselves. She never takes out her issues on random men, but rather at the men in positions of power who fuel this sexist attitude (and the women who stand next to these men, allowing it).
She knows her worth, both as a person and as a woman. Throughout the six she has shown up in so far, Stormfront has been outspoken whenever she has seen someone reducing women to nothing but vapid sex appeal for the male gaze – such as her call-out in episode two towards the man in charge of story-boarding the commercial. She recognizes her worth and is able to voice the issues she has with the sexist disregard for the female characters.
Unlike a lot of people, she knows when to restrict herself. This is a problem with our culture at large – we reward loud, rude behavior (primarily within men) despite the fact that they’re being unnecessarily cruel towards what is a rather harmless individual (ex: Gordon Ramsay). During the scene where Stormfront is with Starlight doing press for the announcement of her being apart of The Seven, she points out the double standard and false idea of “girl power” being pushed. Despite it being a topic she would be passionate about, Stormfront is able to keep her points restricted purely to the topic at hand that she wants to discuss. Other people would be vicious and violently insult the interviewer, and they would be rewarded for it by getting clout on Twitter with strangers gushing about how she “dragged” someone, but Stormfront addressed the interviewer appropriately – she knew he was just a man doing his job.
Another example is the end of episode three. While it is “terrible” that she called the Asian a “yellow bastard” (although it’s not like she called him a Chink or BTS or whatever), she only did so because she believed that she was alone with him. If there was another individual with them, she would have restricted herself from offensive language. In a culture full of fake feminists that spew offensive language openly, I believe she is setting a standard of what the difference between personal behavior and outwards behavior that would have an impact on the world around her is. No one is effected by her saying “yellow bastard” the way she did, since she was alone. She is aware of her platform (since the introduction of her is with her on Instagram live) and knows what she can and cannot feature on her platform.
In conclusion: Stormfront is a good, self-aware, admirable feminist. Be like Stormfront.
The Accusation That People Involved on the Show Have Called her A Nazi:
It’s true. In interviews, multiple people have referred to Stormfront as a Nazi -- however, an important piece of context that these people who are spreading these quotes always seem to miss out, is the fact that every time they have discussed Stormfront being a Nazi, it’s in relation to her past. They never say that her Nazi beliefs are something carried on from Liberty to Stormfront (they refer to her as Stormfront since it’s simply easier to, though).
Even with that though, sometimes the intent of an author (or producer, or actor, etc.) does not translate to the actual finished product. What we see has more weight than what we’re told; we’ve been told that she’s a “Nazi white supremacist” but what we’ve seen is a deeply flawed character with a troubling past who’s actively working on making herself a better person. The producers, writers -- whatever -- have not translated their intent properly, so, therefore, it is invalid. Their interpretation of the character is wrong.This is something that happens a lot -- where the author means one thing but the product says another. A good example is JK Rowling; she intended to have Snape die with his sins absolved and being a martyr, but all he ended up being was an abusive creep with a vendetta against some child. Do you get it?
The Accusation That Stormfront Caused A Shooting:
So let’s just be clear: Stormfront clearly condemned the actions by the terrorist who shot the convenience clerk; she clearly doesn’t stand by that behavior nor support it. Using it as fuel for your little Stormfront hate-boner is weird and unfounded.
The Accusation That Nothing Shows Stormfront Had Changed as A Person From When she was Liberty:
A lot of people claim that Stormfront has showed no change from in comparison to her present-self to how she acted in the flashbacks, “proving” that she is still a Nazi. However, there are multiple examples that show she has actively became a better person; there are some major elemental changes to her as a person throughout time -- we know this by comparing what we know of her currently to what she used to be.
Firstly: She explicitly says that she “changed with the times,” which is a clear indication that she’s taken purposeful strides to change her values (since racism is no longer something we deem acceptable).
Secondly: While she had the mantle of liberty, she purposefully went out looking for minorities to brutalize them. While we don’t know if she ever said explicit slurs (such as the N-word or the C-word), she did make it apparent that her attack was on the basis of their ethnicity. However, in modern times, her attacks are purely motivated to fuel the reputation of Vought / because she was told to (and with one exception, which was to manipulate Homelander); this is: when she killed Kimiko’s brother, which was because he was deemed a super terrorist, and when she killed the apartment complex, which was to add to the narrative that he was a terrorist, and the exception is when she pushed Homelander into killing the white man (which was to make Homelander believe that the justice system is unjust . . . Which she is right in, to be fair).
Thirdly: Her study in creating a race of literal super-humans was diverse; it included people of all ethnicities and skin tones.
Fourthly: Stormfront herself shows, although not in a direct way, that she has actively changed. In episode five, Starlight confronts her on her past. Stormfront says, “going against your own people,” and clarifies it even further once Starlight assumes she means ‘white people’ with, “Starlight, superheroes. Don’t be racist.” While she was being condescending in what she said, the weight behind it still remains.
The Accusation That Stormfront Admitted to Being A Nazi by Saying People Love What She Says but Hates the Word Nazi:
In the finale, Stormfront’s past was exposed to the public. Because of how sensitive that information is, she got rightfully mad at whoever it was that leaked it. With the fact that Starlight had already tried to antagonize her before, Stormfront knew it was her. She found Starlight, and the two proceeded to fight.
However, before the fight, Stormfront said that before her past was revealed, people liked what she was saying. They listened to her. They just simply don’t like the word Nazi. She said it in the sense that “Nazi” is a word used to discredit someone, regardless if their views would make them a Nazi or not. You see it a lot now, politically, the opposing side (on both ends) call each other Nazis simply because they don’t have aligning political views. And because Nazi is such a strong word, calling someone one of them would have an impact on their public reception regardless. Stormfront isn’t a Nazi anymore, but people were still calling her one regardless, so the public reception to her changed. Nazi is a strong word. Stormfront was right -- people did like what she was saying, they were listening to her every word, up until she was slandered as a Nazi.
The Accusation that Stormfront Said A Racist Remark About Edgar:
In the finale, Stormfront and Homelander are privately discussing who they believe could be behind a recent terrorist attack that quite clearly was perpetuated by a Supe. Homelander suggested that it was planned by a man called Edgar, and Stormfront said “it’s possible, he is smart. For his kind.” A lot of people have slandered Stormfront further by saying “for his kind” was in reference to his ethnicity. However, with the audience already knowing her superiority complex around Supes, we can understand the remark was in terms of him not having any abilities (that we know of).
The Accusation That Stormfront Believes in The “Great Replacement” Theory:
In the finale, it’s found that Homelander’s son -- Ryan -- is having issues connecting with his powers and triggering them. Homelander says that he found it easy to use his powers by imagining an enemy, a person he hates. However, Ryan tries to do that too but finds that he really just doesn’t hate anyone.
Stormfront, being quick-thinking, delicately says that people are against them because of their skin color, “it’s called white genocide.” While it was tasteless and questionable for her to tell a child, she believed that Ryan needed a clear enemy in his mind and she was simply suppling him with a vague idea that would trigger his abilities for at least one time. No where does she actually say she believes in the outlandish theory; she was simply saying it because she believed it would help Ryan overcome an obstacle he was facing.
The Accusation That Stormfront is Named After A White-Nationalist Site:
There’s a lot of discourse over her name; a lot of people think a name is a valid reason to call someone a Nazi. I don’t believe I need to point out why that is insane, but I will explain the reasoning behind Stormfront’s name:
Stormfronts powers are based in electricity. They are bolts of electricity that come from the palm of her hand, and can light things of fire, burn people, throw them around, etc. They resemble lightening from a storm, hence her being called Stormfront.
