After I finish watching a movie, the first thing I do is check TikTok to see what other people are saying about it. “Superman” was no exception. Having really enjoyed the film, I was shocked to see the controversy surrounding it online, which had been created out of seemingly nothing.
The latest iteration of the Superman character arrived in July in James Gunn’s “Superman” and this new depiction of a beloved character has caused an uproar online among right-wing conservatives, who are calling the character too “woke” and criticizing the film’s parallels to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Members of the conservative party were upset by Gunn describing Superman as “[a]n immigrant that came from other places and populated the country…” Clay Travis, radio host and founder of sports media company OutKick, wrote on X that he would skip seeing the movie, and that Gunn was an “absolute moron” for calling Superman an immigrant.
“America is desperate for apolitical entertainment and Hollywood is unable to deliver it,” he added.
Kellyanne Conway, former counselor to President Donald Trump, complained on Fox News that: “We don’t go to the movie theater to be lectured to and to have somebody throw their ideology on us.” Dean Cain, who famously played Superman in the TV show “Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman” also voiced his complaints about Gunn portraying Ma and Pa Kent – Clark’s parents – as “stupid rednecks.” Cain has been friends with Trump since 2009 and recently announced he joined the U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Gunn’s description of Superman as an immigrant is accurate since he is from the fictional planet Krypton. Plus, the original writer and artist, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, were both sons of Jewish immigrants, and they used some of their personal experiences as inspiration for the character.
In the new movie, the fictional country of Boravia is plotting to invade the, also fictional, Jarhanpur with weapons supplied to them by antagonist Lex Luthor. Superman (David Corenswet) stops Boravia, along with the help of his allies and DC comic book characters Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion), Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi) and Hawkgirl (Isabella Merced). Warner Brothers and DC Studios are using this movie to set up a new film era in the DC Universe which could include more of those characters in the future).
Gunn summarized the conflict in the movie as “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 defence against the other country.”
Because of this description, many people online have speculated that Boravia and Jarhanpur are meant to represent Israel and Palestine, respectively. It’s also mentioned in the film that Boravia is a close ally of the U. S., as is Israel. In the movie, Lois Lane questions Superman for potentially jeopardizing that relationship, but he shoots back that all that matters is that “‘People were going to die!’”
Mitchell Plitnik, author for Mondoweiss, an independent news site that advocates for justice for Palestinians amidst the conflict with Israel, said that “A movie [like Superman] painting Israel in a villainous light reflects a generational shift in how Israel is viewed.”
Indeed, in March 2025 a Gallup survey showed that 46% of Americans supported Israel (the lowest in 25 years) and 33% now sympathized with Palestine, the highest ever.
However, Gunn insists that the countries in the movie are fictional and do not represent any specific conflict, stating that he wrote the script prior to the Middle Eastern conflict, referring to the Oct. 7 attack in which Hamas fighters attacked Israel, causing the latter to retaliate militarily and furthering a decades-long dispute between the two countries over territory.
What Gunn is not denying is that the film is meant as a commentary on the political state of the world, admitting to it in an interview. He then added that it is mainly about morality, and how people can productively disagree as Clark Kent and Lois Lane do when it comes to the Jarhanpur/Boravia conflict and Superman’s involvement without government supervision or regulation.
“For me it is mostly a story that says basic human kindness is a value and is something we have lost,” Gunn said in an interview with Jonathon Dean for The Sunday Times.
Television shows and movies should represent the culture at the time they were made to help cement history. While it’s understandable that many people want to watch movies, particularly of this genre, as a distraction from everyday life, this film aimed to teach a broader lesson that kindness should transcend political divides. A lesson that feels especially necessary right now.
