You know, it's funny how the events in this show tie back to what Zemo was talking about in FatWS. Yelena's own little rant about why everyone will excuse any action if they hear the word "Avenger".
Much of the world has a pretty unhealthy response to celebrities, from athletes to actors to musicians to...guys who sell pillows on the Internet, for some reason...to folks who post a lot of TikToks. They are often elevated to a social status that most of them don't deserve. Not because they're generally bad people (well, the MyPillow guy is, but...), but because they have no special wisdom or knowledge due to being famous. Yet we privilege actors and rich people in a thousand different ways, including letting them get away with shit that would guarantee jail time for other people.
So Hawkeye, despite his own preferences, is one of the most famous people alive. He's known for saving the world (at least twice, although maybe people don't count the Chitauri invasion) and then bringing back half of the universe and then stopping Thanos from destroying everything afterward. His past as an assassin was already either whitewashed or successfully buried in the early days of the Avengers. Then even though he violated the Accords and was arrested again, he was out on house arrest just a few years later--almost certainly because of being an Avenger (and also maybe due to the skeletons in closets he knows about from his 20 years as a spy and assassin. Or maneuvering in the same arena by his wife, who was also a spy).
Now he's free and clear and having 100-dollar meals with his family comped. He's not as popular as the other Avengers, but that might be like being the least-popular member of BTS. He obviously wasn't under arrest or even being detained for questioning after all the damage and fighting, which means the cops didn't even bother checking to see what they should do there. And maybe we're supposed to assume that Kate and Clint weren't trying to kill any Tracksuits (Kate was definitely avoiding it), but at least a few of those guys had to die when he's blowing shit up or arrows fly into upper torsos. Yet there's nary a detective or law enforcement official standing near them wanting answers.
That these people can get away almost anything just by virtue of having powers or being seen as heroes despite their backgrounds. That privilege given to people who are capable of causing more harm individually than many could cause as a group. Hawkeye, without powers but with super-tech arrows, seems to support Zemo's theory.
Really, this is what "The Boys" was trying to say but it actually does it better because these guys are REAL Heroes and not wannabes.
