The controversy around the new Superman, written and directed by James Gunn, is revealing.
The film has come under concerted right-wing attack for its sympathetic attitude toward immigration and related matters, and its creator has been denounced for suggesting that “basic human kindness is a value and … something we have lost.” The movie has been successful with audiences no doubt in part precisely because of these sentiments.
The hostile response in certain quarters to Superman, a relatively innocuous movie based on a popular comic book, is not directly related to the artistic or dramatic character and quality of Gunn’s work. It emerges instead out of the high level of social and political tensions in the US, and in particular, the extreme sensitivity of reactionary political forces to any criticism or questioning of the Gestapo-like ICE raids against the immigrant population and Trump’s policies as a whole.
These issues arise in regard to Superman, in the first place, because, of course, the “Man of Steel” is an “alien,” literally, sent by his parents to Earth when their own planet, Krypton, faces destruction.
This latest version follows along certain familiar lines. Superman (David Corenswet) conceals his “metahuman” identity as mild-mannered Daily Planet reporter Clark Kent (complete with “hypno glasses” to throw off observers), working alongside fellow journalist and girl-friend Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) and “boy reporter” Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo), under no-nonsense editor Perry White (Wendell Pierce).
Superman’s arch-enemy, Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult), the fabulously wealthy CEO of LuthorCorp, is the driving force behind an invasion by fictional Boravia of its neighbor Jarhanpur, which Superman is determined to prevent. Luthor has supplied billions in arms to the corrupt Boravian government and been secretly promised half of Jarhanpur’s territory in the event of a successful war and conquest.
The superhero confronts serious challenges and dangers, and spends a good portion of the film on the defensive, or worse. Luthor, a “scientific genius,” has many weapons and technologies at his disposal. He manages to convince the US government and the population at one point that “the Kryptonian” is a menace and needs to be detained in a “pocket universe” and interrogated. Luthor’s mad schemes ultimately threaten the destruction of Metropolis and its citizens.
Superman is assisted by other metahumans, including the Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion), Hawkgirl (Isabel Merced) and Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi), as well as Metamorpho (Anthony Carrigan), who can change his body into various forms. Among the humans, Lois and Jimmy do their bit. So too does unruly and amusing super-dog Krypto.
Gunn made a name for himself with the three Guardians of the Galaxy films in particular (2014, 2017, 2023), appreciated by audiences for their offbeat, irreverent and anti-establishment outlook and approach. He was fired by Disney from the series in 2018 after he criticized Donald Trump and a right-wing commentator dug up offensive tweets Gunn had written a decade earlier. An online petition calling on Disney to rehire Gunn collected some 400,000 signatures. He was eventually reinstated as director of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 in 2021.
Gunn brings some of his relatively light touch, unpretentiousness and visual elegance to this Superman. Fillion as the Green Lantern and the Kenyan-born Gathegi as the deadpan, often exasperated “Mr. Terrific” are delightful. Still, when all is said and done, its endearing qualities are not enough to save Superman from being a formulaic and largely cartoonish affair.
Why is the Trump-fascist right then up in arms?
First of all, Gunn, whose father comes from an Irish immigrant family, had the audacity to mock and indict Trump for his whipping up of xenophobia and chauvinism in 2018.
Gunn offered comments after Trump met with the so-called “Angel Families,” part of his effort to focus public attention on crimes allegedly committed by immigrants. The writer-director noted that Trump had signed photos of the victims, commenting, according to Deadline:
“This tone deaf oaf actually autographed photographs of murdered children,” Gunn wrote on Twitter. “I don’t know why I’m so surprised he autographed those photos. You KNOW Trump wakes up every morning hoping more kids are murdered by immigrants so it will help him in the polls.”
Gunn has never been forgiven by the Führer-president’s sycophantic followers for this and other observations.
The incident in relation to Superman that aroused immediate right-wing furor was a comment Gunn made to the Sunday Times in an interview.
“I mean, Superman is the story of America,” Gunn says. “An immigrant that came from other places and populated the country, but for me it is mostly a story that says basic human kindness is a value and is something we have lost.”
Elsewhere, Gunn commented,
“We can expect a Superman who is about the compassion of the human spirit, a Superman who is about kindness, love and compassion, while also being a very strong character. He is the best of humanity, even though he is an alien from outer space.”
In the face of such outrageous remarks, Fox News, of course, went to town. Over titles that read “James Gunn: Superman is an immigrant” and “Iconic movie hero to embrace pro-immigrant themes,” former Trump senior counselor and Fox co-host Kellyanne Conway asserted, “We don’t go to the movie theater to be lectured to and to have somebody throw their ideology onto us.” She mused, “I wonder if it will be successful.” Fox’s Jesse Watters joked that Superman’s cape had “MS13” printed on it, referring to the crime gang.
Another Fox co-host, Greg Gutfeld, attacked Gunn personally, asserting, “He’s creating a moat of woke, enlightened opinion around him. He’s got a woke shield.”
Far-right pundit Clay Travis responded to a Variety headline, “James Gunn Says ‘Superman’ Is About an ‘Immigrant That Came From Other Places’ and How We’ve ‘Lost’ the Value of 'Basic Human Kindness’: ‘Yes, it’s About Politics,’’” with the remarkable comment, “I’m going to skip seeing Superman now. Director is an absolute moron to say this publicly the week before release. America is desperate for apolitical entertainment and Hollywood is unable to deliver it.”
Another right-winger commented online,
Gunn is obviously upset that President Donald Trump is deporting illegal immigrants by the millions. He views Trump’s conviction to protect America as unkind…. If a hard stance on illegal immigration is going to break the feeble brain of a Hollywood leftist, so be it. Gunn’s dedication to wokeness is probably going to break his bottom line even more.
Political life has swung so far to the right in the US that sections of the establishment associated with the current administration find references to immigrants and “human kindness” impossibly galling, “leftist” and dangerous.
None of these individuals had apparently seen the film. They were simply and stupidly thrashing about, flailing at what they imagined or expected might be there.
In fact, there are scenes or moments in Superman that rise above the formulaic and prove disturbing. One of the most troubling sequences is set in Luthor’s own private prison, a towering, frightening high-tech series of impenetrable glass cells or cages, where the tech CEO locks up anyone who stands in his way or rents units out “to governments who want to keep their incarcerations of political agitators private.” The imagery is ominous and effective.
Rex Mason, or Metamorpho, is being held there as part of Luthor’s scheme to weaken Superman. Significantly, Luthor blackmails Mason/Metamorpho by separating him from his son, a clear reference to the Trump policy of breaking up immigrant families.
Malik Ali, a falafel vendor on the streets of Metropolis, who helped Superman in his battles, is threatened and finally murdered by Luthor as part of his effort to force Superman to provide information on his associates on Earth. Earlier, Malik reminded him, “Once I gave you free falafel. When you saved a woman from being hit by a taxi.” The film’s sympathies are evident.
When Superman is arrested by Luthor and his thugs, the former complains, “I’m coming in on my own accord. No one read me my rights.” Luthor replies, “Those rights don’t apply to extraterrestrial organisms. Therefore, at this point, Superman, you don’t have any rights to read.”
In their final encounter, Luthor bursts out:
-You piece of shit alien!
And Superman replies:
-That is where you’ve always been wrong about me, Lex. I’m as human as anyone. I love, I get scared. I wake up every morning and despite not knowing what to do, I put one foot in front of the other and I try to make the best choices I can. I screw up all the time. But that is being human. And that’s my greatest strength.
The film also takes aim at social media rumor-mongering and backwardness. In one brief scene, we see a virtual army of computer-controlled monkeys spreading negative propaganda and misinformation about Superman online. Lois says to him at one point, “People on social media are suspicious because you are an alien, yes?”
Although there is a good deal of murkiness surrounding the Boravian invasion of its neighbor, with perhaps some reference to Russia and Ukraine going on here, the sight of heavily armed soldiers and tanks confronting virtually defenseless civilians in the desert inevitably brings to mind the horrors of Gaza.
It has almost become a commonplace at this point to portray billionaires in the darkest possible colors (Succession, Mountainhead, etc.) and to identify them with malignant inequality, political repression and violence. Luthor assumes his rightful place in this category, described in the film as someone who “wants to make himself king.”
Again, all of these individually admirable elements in Superman do not produce the type of more comprehensive and worked out social critique to be found, for example, even in another work of popular entertainment like Tony Gilroy’s Andor, but the right-wing hysteria is not merely paranoia. These forces sense, quite rightly, that their fascistic measures are widely despised and increasingly coming under artistic and political attack.
Gunn, raised a Catholic, has said that he is, “in some ways, anti-religion.” One does feel, however, at times that his Superman, who is more often than not in this film beaten and punished, even “scourged,” takes on a slightly Christ-like coloring. Basic and naïve human kindness, along the lines of the Sermon of the Mount, is our hero’s credo. The film hints that “trusting everyone” and “thinking everyone you’ve ever met is beautiful” comprise the genuinely cutting-edge and radical standpoint in our cynical contemporary world.
They don’t. But the appalled, infuriated reaction of the Trump followers to this conception—in effect, treating the suggestion that one should act with elementary decency toward others, including “foreigners,” as something akin to a Bolshevik “lecture”—points toward the yawning social and moral chasm in the US and the inevitable ferocious political confrontations to come.