American conservatives criticize what they consider the “woke” version of the iconic superhero. Trump criticizer, director James Gunn states that the film focuses on human kindness.
No new movie awaited
Superman
, which arrives in Brazilian cinemas this Thursday (07/10) and is starred by David Corenswet in the title role, the “Man of Steel” appears bloodied and injured right from the beginning, in an Arctic desert.
“We have a Superman being attacked at the beginning. This is our country,” said American director James Gunn at a press event after the release of the first trailer for the movie. He explained that this Superman symbolizes that the United States, even in a deplorable state, still supports the good.
Superman is often considered the archetype of the American superhero, embodying ideals of truth and justice as well as the American dream. However, in the new movie, Gunn decided to focus on ‘universal morality’ instead of American exceptionalism. Rather than being a national hero, Superman aims to protect and save the weak around the world ‘even if it gets him into trouble,’ noted the director.
“Yes, it’s about politics,” said Gunn to the British newspaper.
The Times
Before adding that it is also ‘about human kindness.’ ‘Obviously, there will be idiots around who are simply not kind and will find it offensive just because it’s about kindness,’ he said. ‘But they can go to hell.’
Your statements have worried right-wing political commentators about the possibility of Gunn, who also directed
Guardians of the Galaxy
, transforming the iconic superhero into a “woke” figure, that is, someone with heightened awareness of racist and sexist discrimination, social inequality, and similar issues. They even called for a boycott of the movie.
In the same way, Kellyanne Conway, the host of the conservative network Fox News, complained about the movie on the talk show The Five. “We don’t go to the cinema to hear sermons or to have someone impose their ideology on us. I wonder if [the movie] will be successful.”
Marvel vs. DC and the cultural wars
Popular superhero movies generally avoid openly displaying anything that labels them as conservative or liberal. However, a popular theory among superhero fans is that the cinematic universes of the two largest American comic book publishers, DC and Marvel Comics, are polarized along ideological lines that define an era of cultural wars.
The DC Universe—which includes Superman and Batman—is considered more conservative and authoritarian, with its superheroes portrayed as the supreme protectors of order. As extensions of the law, they act above ordinary people without being held accountable.
“there is no sense of democratic participation in the world of Batman,” observed film critic A.O. Scott on the 2025 podcast.
X Man: The Elon Musk Origin Story
(“X-Man: The Story of the Origin of Elon Musk”, freely translated).
At the same time, the same podcast exposes Scott’s theory that the heroes from the Marvel Universe movies – Iron Man, Captain America, Ant-Man and others
Avengers
– “they are a group of benefactors: the films represent the worldview of [Barack] Obama and [Joe] Biden”.
Gunn, a fierce critic of Trump
As a screenwriter and director of the franchise movies
Guardians of the Galaxy
, James Gunn used to belong to the Marvel team. He also made enemies in the “Make America Great Again” (Maga) movement as a fierce critic of President Donald Trump.
In 2017, he shared his opinions in several posts on the social media platform X. “In my years of social media, I have never taken a political stance,” wrote Gunn. “But we are in a national crisis with an incompetent president forging a total attack on facts and journalism in the style of [Adolf] Hitler and [Vladimir] Putin.”
The far-right news portal Daily Caller unearthed offensive posts by Gunn from nearly a decade ago. Social media users urged Disney, the owner of Marvel, to fire the filmmaker.
Gunn was removed from the third movie of the
Guardians of the Galaxy
, but he was eventually reinstated after a public apology and discussions with Disney studio executives.
He, however, ended up moving to the rival team in the world of comics, becoming co-president of DC Studios in 2022. Gunn is the chief creator of the DC Universe, which was rebooted in 2024 with a series of new movies, including
Superman
.
An “undocumented alien”
O Superman first appeared in the first issue of the magazine
Action Comics
, published in 1938. The original story of the man of steel was not created by Gunn to provoke the “anti-woke” public, but rather by second-generation Jewish immigrants, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who created a superhero that
Defend the weak in response to the rise of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler
and anti-Semitism in Europe.
Born as Kal-El on the planet Krypton, the baby Superman’s biological parents manage to send him to Earth before they die in the destruction of their planet. The family that takes in the orphan registers him fraudulently as their biological son, Clark Kent, to conceal the fact that the child is literally an undocumented alien.
This aspect of the superhero’s biography was reiterated in 2018, when the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) published the book
Superman was also a refugee.
.
A year earlier, Superman protected a group of undocumented immigrants from a white supremacist armed in issue #987 of
Action Comics
, which was launched after Trump announced the end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy. The program allowed hundreds of thousands of immigrants who were brought to the US as children to live and work in the country without fear of deportation.
The current Trump administration is intensifying its repression of immigration, increasing concerns about the state of democracy in the United States and deepening divisions in the country.
Author: Elizabeth Grenier
About The Author
