The complaints almost kept me from taking my kids to see the film. Why? Well, over the past decade, I’ve sat through more than my share of self-serving dreck that seemed to regard advocacy and identity-fueled “representation” as an adequate substitute for plot, story, or heart. Any criticism that would’ve spared me sitting through The Eternals, Lightyear, or Thor: Love and Thunder is worth taking to heart.
But panning a movie that ditches art for ideology is worlds apart from trolls politicizing an anodyne film in the service of online outrage. I resisted the frothing online hordes and went ahead and saw it with my kids. Guess what?
Superman is a sweet, modestly amusing movie from the director who shot the far-superior Guardians of the Galaxy. It’s not a great movie, but it’s a reasonably good one. More importantly, it’s a big-budget film that celebrates fundamental values we should all cherish—especially those insisting we need to make America great again.
When Clark Kent is at a low point, after having learned a bitter truth about his birth parents, he has a heart-to-heart with his cornpone adoptive father. Pa Kent tells him, “Your choices, your actions, that’s what makes you who you are.” What matters aren’t Clark’s powers, intentions, or origins. It’s what he does every day. That’s the message at the heart of the film, and it’s tough to think of one that’s healthier or more quintessentially American. In a youth culture rife with talk of trauma, celebrity, and identity, this is the kind of grounded message kids need to hear.
Confronting a Lex Luthor warped by jealousy of Superman’s otherworldly gifts, Kent insists, “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.” You know what? That’s all any of us can do. And in a world overrun by self-impressed activists and Very Online shitposters, that’s plenty.
Where’s the supposed wokeness? Nowhere. It’s just not there. The villains are an insecure tech bro and a two-faced dictator. Superman tries to protect people from harm and wants to protect innocents from war. Can this be read as a commentary on the politics of 2025? Sure. But Lois Lane also upbraids Superman for his naïve, arrogant interventionism. Maxwell Lord, another tech titan, delivers what may be the most succinct summary of the movie: “The one thing that liberals and conservatives can finally agree on is that Lex Luthor sucks.” Superman isn’t obviously political or anti-tech bro. Mostly, it’s pro-kindness, pro-grit, and pro-decency.
I mean, it’s bizarre to attack as “woke” a movie that preaches personal responsibility and doing your best. What’s going on? Well, in the run-up to the release, director James Gunn noted that Superman is “an immigrant” and that Superman stories have always reflected the larger world of their time. This is, after all, a character invented by two Jews fleeing Nazi Germany, with his tale intended as a metaphor for both the burdens of that journey and the blessings of America. In truth, Gunn’s remarks were banal. But these snippets were milked by The Times for controversy (photo caption: “Superman’s back and the Man of Steel is taking on Trump”) and repackaged by Variety into a clickbait piece seemingly fashioned to brand Superman a work of progressive propaganda—cheerfully sucking it into the culture war vortex. Predictably, this then triggered the right-wing trolls.
