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“WOKE” SUPERMAN VERSUS MAGA WHINERS—GUESS WHO WON?  
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David Corn
July 25, 2025
Mother Jones
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_ Guess who won? It wasn’t Fox News. _

Director James Gunn at the Los Angeles premiere of Superman on July 7
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There’s nothing like a $125 million opening weekend
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overcome MAGA whining, and Superman just walloped the bad-faith
culture warriors of the right.

The conservative movement has long relished ginning up moral panics to
distract from more important matters, such as its never-ending assault
on low- and middle-income Americans and its obeisance to plutocrats.
The right resorts to culture warfare over abortion, guns, gay rights,
immigration, and religion to win over voters who might otherwise
recoil at GOP efforts to increase the power and wealth of corporate
America and 1-percenters. And Trump and Co. have followed this
playbook, with their crusades against wokeness, transgender rights,
and demographic diversity. So when James Gunn, the director of the
new _Superman_, told
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London that “Superman is the story of America, an immigrant that
came from other places and populated the country,” cranky voices on
the right leaped at the chance to accuse Hollywood of making Superman
“woke” to advance a left-wing agenda.

Before the film hit theaters, Fox News informed its viewers that the
new Superman embraced “pro-immigrant themes.” And MAGA pundit
Kellyanne Conway, appearing on the network, huffed
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“We don’t go to the movie theater to be lectured to and to have
somebody throw their ideology on to us.” Fox host Jesse Watters
half-joked, “You know what it says on his cape? MS-13.” For Fox,
immigrant equals gang member.

No surprise, the MAGA pundits had no idea what they were talking
about. The only pro-immigrant theme in the movie is rather basic and
hardly objectionable. Superman (David Corenswet), an alien who
fervently wants to help humans, is propelled by an elementary
motivation: kindness. He is so empathetic that when his nemesis Lex
Luthor (Nicholas Hoult)—in this telling, an Erik Prince-like
character who’s an arms dealer and tech genius who has invented the
“pocket universe” (don’t ask me to explain)—unleashes a
30-story-tall dinosaur-like beast (think Godzilla) in the middle of
Metropolis, Superman insists on neutralizing, not killing, the monster
so it can be taken to a sanctuary to be studied. Other superheroes
helping him just want to blast it to smithereens.

There are certainly reflections of present-day crises in the movie.
The film’s main tale is Luthor’s unrelenting attempt to destroy
Superman, who stands in the way of Luthor’s diabolical schemes. One
piece of Luthor’s plan is to delegitimize Superman, and he does this
with the accusation that Superman is an untrustworthy alien who has a
secret agenda to take over the Earth and claim as many wives as is
needed to restore the Kryptonian race that perished on his home
planet. In other words, this immigrant is an existential
threat _and _a sex fiend. Luthor’s effort to demonize Superman
does initially turn public opinion against the Man of Steel, showing
how easy it is to other-ize and vilify a migrant.

The other callback to the real world is a burgeoning war between two
fictitious nations, Boravia, an ally of the United States, and
Jarhanpur, its neighbor. At the start of the film, Superman intervenes
to prevent Boravia, which is being armed by Luthor’s transnational
corporation, from invading Jarhanpur. But this leads to a superhuman
created by Luthor defeating Superman in battle. Through the rest of
the movie, the prospect of war looms, with Boravia’s high-tech army
poised to slaughter the civilians of Jarhanpur at the border. It’s
laser-guided weaponry versus pitchforks. And it’s nearly impossible
not to think of the ongoing war in Gaza. Reporter Lois Lane (Rachel
Brosnahan), Superman’s gal pal, tells him that his unilateral
interference in the Boravia-Jarhanpur conflict raises questions of
politics and morality. But Superman sees it more simply: What could be
more important than preventing the bloodshed of war?

Gunn has pointed out that he wrote the script before the Gaza war
broke out. He said
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have anything to do with the Middle East. It’s an invasion by a much
more powerful country run by a despot into a country that’s
problematic in terms of its political history, but has totally no
defense against the other country. It really is fictional.” Yet the
imbalance of power between these make-believe countries and the
suggestion that one is poised to wipe out civilians in the other
offers a strong example of art imitating life. No wonder Palestinian
activists have hailed
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work.

 
Put all the political chatter and sniping aside, _Superman _is a fun
and smart take on an all-too-familiar story. It’s not a great film.
The character of Superman—a tremendously _non_-dark
superhero—does not lend itself to profound drama. This is no _The
Dark Knight_ with a brooding and conflicted hero (Batman) facing a
nihilistic villain who seeks to illuminate and exploit the hypocrisies
of modern society (Joker). 
 

But Gunn does tease out for dramatic purpose the dilemmas and inner
conflicts Superman/Clark Kent faces in dealing with both geopolitics
and interpersonal relationships. The script is packed with creatively
choreographed intense action scenes. Superman is confronted with
challenges he _might_ not be able to overcome—though you know he
will. The side characters—particular superhero Mr. Terrific (Edi
Gathegi)—are well drawn. The movie is infused with the same
delightful sass that animated the _Guardians of the Galaxy _films
Gunn previously directed. And, as you might have heard, the dog
Krypto
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scene after scene.

_Superman_ is a fine summer distraction for the tough times of the
moment. You can munch popcorn and watch the ultimate good guy triumph
over a villain who bears a resemblance to today’s tech billionaires.
But if you want to look past the titanic fight scenes and gee-wiz CGI
and be prompted to think about more, Gunn provides that opportunity,
for Superman is a reminder of the pressing need to recognize and serve
the basic commonality of our species—as sappy as that sounds.

It’s an antidote to the perverted political culture Donald Trump has
forged. Since he entered politics, Trump has presented
mean-spiritedness as an asset. In the White House, he and his henchmen
have implemented and celebrated policies of cruelty. And Elon Musk,
the champion of Big Tech libertarianism, recently belittled
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empathy, dismissing it as weakness. _Superman _is a retort to all
this.

 

In the _Times _interview, Gunn said the movie “is mostly a story
that says basic human kindness is a value and is something we have
lost…bviously there will be jerks out there who are just not kind
and will take it as offensive just because it is about kindness. But
screw them.” It’s a sad comment on our present circumstances that
such talk can spur controversy—which makes
Gunn’s _Superman_ more important and necessary than the average
summer blockbuster.  

By the way, Superman, who was created by Jerry Siegel and Jospeh
Shuster, each the son of Jewish immigrants, has always been woke:

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David Corn is _Mother Jones_' Washington bureau chief and an on-air
analyst for MSNBC. He is the co-author (with Michael Isikoff) of
_Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and
the Election of Donald Trump_. He is the author of three New York
Times bestsellers, _Showdown, Hubris_ (with Isikoff), and _The Lies of
George W. Bush_, as well as the e-book, 47 Percent: Uncovering the
Romney Video that Rocked the 2012 Election. For more of his stories,
click here [[link removed]]. He's also
on Twitter [[link removed]] and Facebook
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