The team behind “Superman” is responding to the backlash after director James Gunn said the DC tentpole is the story of “an immigrant that came from other places.”
When asked about the reaction to his comments, James Gunn explained that the movie is for “everyone” and that he doesn’t have “anything to say to anybody” spreading negativity around “Superman.”
“I’m not here to judge people,” he told Variety at Monday night’s “Superman” premiere at Hollywood’s TCL Chinese Theatre. “I think this is a movie about kindness and I think that’s something everyone can relate to.”
From a 1949 book cover distributed to schools by DC.
MAGA is basically opposed to truth, justice, and the American way, aren’t they?
America has two souls battling and it always has. It’s Paine and Franklin vs the southern founders. It’s Jefferson vs himself. One soul says we’re a nation built on the idea that all people are created equal, with fundamental rights, and that government should be more controlled than the citizens. The other soul looks at a nation founded by genocide and slavery, with early settlers being the puritans after they lost power in the UK and think that’s what they think America should be.
Each side considers the other un-American because we want different Americas
I love this. Thanks for sharing it.
I wanted to print a copy, and I went looking for the highest-res copy I could find. I couldn’t access the larger image in the dc.com article you linked, but in case anyone else is interested, I found two at 2750 x 3778:
- This copy has a visible crease from scanned original
- And this copy has the crease shooped out
I mean he was literally created by Jews during the time of Hitler as an inversion of the Nazi ideal of a “super man” who would go around beating up Nazis. His origin story is basically just space Moses, and his Kryptonian name “Kal-El” is formatted like the name of an angel, containing the name “El” meaning “God” (compare MichaEL, GabriEL etc.) Superman has been anti-fascist and pro-minority since his inception.
Nobody cares about objective reality anymore. Once we started letting people live in their own worlds of “feel facts” without consequence, lest someone throw stones at our own escapism cognitive biases, we ceded control of the world to the loudest and most hateful people.
There is no convincing people of anything anymore because they can just close their ears and go somewhere more comfortable. If they face no repercussions and can not only get praise for being hateful but even raise money and become celebrities, what do we really think is going to result from explaining things anymore?
But if we force schools to change their curriculum to align with MY version of reality, that makes it true! Right?
Or it’s just a really really long con for a ton of content creators to make content about “the shocking truth they won’t teach you in school!!!”. Because I guess that’s the only way to get idiots to actually understand something is by packaging it in some hidden conspiracy wrapper.
The next layer of destruction of our species’ potential was when we monetized attention spans.
Conservatives unable to grasp basic plot points of a story thats been around nearly 100 years. Color me unsurprised.
they don’t get Jesus message, even though they say Jesus is the most important thing in their lives.
“When did Star Wars become woke?!”
How could someone take umbrage there? Like… read his origin story. He was born on Krypton. He got dropped on Earth. He was adopted by folks in Kansas. If I told people I found a child who drifted across the Rio Grande and adopted him as my own, we’d all agree he was probably from Mexico and not a native born citizen. But apparently him drifting in from SPACE changes the narrative?
Hmm, an endangered child’s parents send him in a craft to be found and adopted by others, assuring his safety. You’d think that would resonate with MAGA Evangelicals, who should recognize the story of Moses.
Bold of you to think they read any part of the bible except the ones they can twist for the sake of hatred.
The story of Moses is of God’s Chosen People being insulated from bad events while the Pagans are made to suffer.
The moral of Exodus (and Kings and Judges) is that if you’re following God’s Will, nothing bad will ever happen to you.
But he’s a white space alien
* coughskincolorcough *
I want to go back about 20 years and find every idealist moron online who tried to debate with me that we can’t keep calling people racist and that oppression is a deeper issue than superficial appearances and I want to smack them clean into 2025 so they can see what they permitted.
“We don’t go to the movie theater to be lectured to and to have somebody throw their ideology onto us.” Jesse Watters added
People like him is why AI slop movies are going to be successful. They just want to watch pretty pictures and see the American flag waving at the end, not be intellectually challenged and entertained.
But they’re explaining only half of the plot an illegal alien is assimilating and it’s making a specific billionaire very upset he can’t continue to exploit his people
All I am gonna say is xenophobic Lex Luthor is always the best written Lex Luthor
Largely because it’s a bit valid to be concerned that the indestructible alien could decide he’s bored serving the world and just take it over.
Xenophobic Lex is just a compelling villain, a bit like doom. Someone who has a sound reason for their actions, but usually takes really questionable routes.
I like Lex Luthor as a villain a lot more than I like Superman as a hero for exactly this reason. He’s a villain, sure, but his villainy is all centered around this one highly logical and concerning idea of never giving Superman total power because they’d then never be able to take it away from him.
Dr Doom I straight up don’t even consider a villain tbh. He’s antihero at worst (though he’d be pissed to hear me say so). His subjects love him. A bit megalomaniacal, maybe, but he genuinely wants to rule the world to do what’s best for everyone.
If Fantastic wants to fight you because he thinks it’s the right thing to do, and Doom wants to fight you because he thinks you’re destroying his property, I know which one I’m putting my bet on because I know which one is going to show up to that fight more pissed off. His reasons are weird but Doom does still frequently show up to fight the bad guys, if for no other reason than “this is my fucking planet and I won’t have you breaking the place”. I love that.
I think the Jeff Bezos character is based on Lex Luthor.
Is he Xenophobic specifically, or is the Xenophobia simply an expansion on his Deophobia?
I always understood Lex to be more than just “I dislike you because you R alien” and more “You are an alien with supreme power, and humanity cannot stand against you as is, therefore I dislike you”
Yeah, I think it’s actually envy with a side of pragmatism (he envies that everyone likes superman and wants that power, but also legitimately fears what a bad superman could do). But Xenophobic is just a funny way to phrase it.
Dude is from another planet but magat get upset he is called an immigrant.
How can you not know Superman’s origin story? Apart from the comics its been retold in every major movie version too. He literally is and always was (weird retcons aside) an immigrant.
Excuse me
JesusSuperman is white, therefore American!A literal alien.
I’m pretty sure I knew through popcultural osmosis before I ever saw any of the films
Some people weirdly don’t connect fictional scenarios to real life analogues though. Like in the Oz books, a princess is kidnapped and forced to grow up as a boy. Some people don’t see that as a transgender character because it’s a fantasy scenario. Some people don’t see Superman as an immigrant because their brains just don’t connect a science fiction situation with an alien to immigration
I’ve found that people who don’t understand or enjoy media literacy or criticism also don’t tend to understand the concept of an analogy/allegory, and don’t want to either. Superman represents the “American Way” and can’t be an immigrant and the idea that America is a nation of immigrants is not relevant in any way. Only the old statements from Bridget from Guilty Gear count and not any of the new ones that confirm she’s trans. Naoto from Persona 4 and some similar stories like hers in other games can’t be a commentary on social pressures around restrictive gender roles, dysphoria, and performativity simply because she ultimately still identifies as a cis woman. You can explain the nuances until you’re out of breath, they will never accept the nuances.
There was a post a while ago where someone was explaining that Star Wars was an allegory for the Vietnam war, and the next guy was all “well that’s not true, unless the Empire is supposed to be America!”
Like they’re so close to getting it, but their brain swats it away before it can become a fully formed thought.
These are the people who think that Hermione being non-white in the upcoming tv series is a problem because of how it will come across when Draco calls her a mudblood. Yeah, we can’t have people reading it as a racist slur when Draco uses a racist slur. I’m genuinely confused as to how they read that scene before.
There are people who write about Hermione feeling uncomfortable as her physical gender after taking the polyjuice potion to become Harry and wanting to transition back to her perceived gender — and who somehow can’t extend that to trans people in real life.
[:Looks vaguely in the direction of Jo Rowling:]
An excellent point. I’d like to ask Rowling, is Hermione still a woman when polyjuiced as Harry? If no, then she’s saying gender is changeable. If yes, then she should be able to understand how internal sense of gender isn’t dependent on the physical body.
Superman represents the “American Way”
Right? I haven’t seen any of the movies. The only Super…person stuff I’ve seen is CW’s Supergirl and I knew his origin story when I was a child in the 90s.
Those people really need someone to explain the concept of subtext to them.
Many of them are focusing very very hard on selectively ignoring the text of the religion they claim to follow. Subtext might as well not exist.
It’s not even subtext. It’s just the text.
Hence the entire point of the original Star Trek. Morality plays disguised by alien makeup, so the mouth breathing rednecks didn’t realize.
One of DC’s many reboots in the comics had his spaceship be a birthing pod so that he could be ‘born’ in America to get around him being an illegal alien.
Definitely one of the wierder retcons.
In one of the movies he’s a toddler when he comes out of the pod
Well, Superman is an illegal immigrant. I don’t think they have a US consulate in Kypton.
I don’t think they have much on Krypton anymore.
Does that make him a refugee?
Only if he actually applies for refugee status.
Yesz a refugee application is a legal path to entry. Just coming and ignoring border co trolls makes him an illegal alien.
Too soon…smh
The state of Krypton! Yeah, say you’re in Sacramento, just get on the 5 real quick… escape velocity quick. Look at the big dipper on your starboard facing shield and keep it on your reticle for 35 parsecs. Then it’s just past the big 2354Kolonila poster planet. You won’t miss it, it a really flat planet. Ask for Yorel, tell him you’re friends with Kal. But you’ll need one of several time machine types because krypton is gone these days.
All these things haven’t suddenly become woke, YOU JUST BECAME A RACIST BIGOTED XENOPHOBIC ASSHOLE!!! AKA MAGA.
MAGA Outrage Over Director Saying Superman Is an Immigrant
(We’re about a decade too late, and our engorged trolls are now our leaders, but still…)
They really do live in their own little bubble huh? Like dude is a literal alien, and they think he is a home grown hero.
zack Snyder has made people forget that superman is supposed to be likeable and do good things for the sake of it
If Gunn has balls he’ll do the Injustice plotline at some point.
How dare we suggest that Superman doesn’t reflect the full Aryan image? Sorry, I misspelled MAGA
If he was Aryan he’d have the common decency of having blond hair like a real Übermensch. The dark hair makes him look like someone from the middle east!
Thank goodness for the real nationalist icon
Captain AmericaThe Punisher.
DCU heads in their best J. Jonah Jameson voice:
FIND ME A SINGLE TWEET THAT MAKES A CONTROVERSY OF THIS MOVIE!! WE NEED FREE PUBLICITY DAMMIT!!! IT WORKED FOR DISNEY, IT WILL WORK FOR US!! GET ME
THOSE PICTURESTHAT TWEET!!!
