Why MAGA hates Superman

Spoilers ahead

“I mean, Superman is the story of America. An immigrant that came from other places and populated the country, but for me it is mostly a story that says basic human kindness is a value and is something we have lost.” —James Gunn,

“Super woke!”—Fox commentator

The Right can eat Krypto biscuits for all I care.

I enjoyed James Gunn’s “Superman” so much I saw it twice and I will see it again. And most probably, again. And then I’ll rent it and stream it over and over. Because Gunn is right. “Superman” is entirely about a world of values we lost on the way to our national suicide. And I desperately want to remember life before the madness. Even if it’s a comic book.

If you didn’t cheer its pro-democracy, anti-oligarchy and anti-fascist message something is very wrong with you. At its local premiere here in Tucson when the film ended the audience broke into salutory applause.

Applause.

Remember the last time a movie theater audience applauded anything? Me either.

Audiences were cheering the shameless cornball celebration of truth, justice, diversity, human rights, a free press and the triumph of virtue over lawlessness. Values we lost when MAGA gave their arch-villain the most powerful office in the world. In the dark ages of Trumpism “Superman” is a salve for weary and disheartened souls.

As for MAGA, those poor dim fools were doomed to stew in unhappy disappointment from the very beginning of the film because—spoiler alert— the Superman myth centers around an icon for democratic values.

And they worship a destructive mentally ill fascist.

Note to Hollywood: I’m guessing they’d much rather watch their orange strong man own libs on by taking out lizard people, pedophiles and the “Biden crime family”.

I imagined their crestfallen babble after the credits rolled:

The worst! God, I hated that gay loser snowflake Superman. He’s so woke.

Yeah give me the old Superman. The racist, macho super hero who gave it to Lois Lane, know what I mean?

What are you talking about? Did you ever read the comic?

Naw. I don’t read.

I didn’t think so. Can you believe this garbage Hollywood’s spewing!

It’s against everything we believe.

This woke lib-tard with a cape only takes on billionaires! Disgusting!

How about all those illegal rapist murderer migrants out there? When’s a real American Superman going to kick some real ass!

Yeah! What about all of California’s homeless transgender mixed race welfare vermin with their Jewish space lasers!

Good point.

Superman is a fable for our time.

James Gunn was wise to go silent on the political commentary question when he was asked about the furor from the Party of the fat Fuhrer. Art should always speak for itself.

Go and enjoy the fabulous cast, the great action, the pacing, the thrills, the witty writing and the enjoyable political commentary from beginning to glorious end. Gunn has revived and expanded a classic American myth to address our perilous moment in American history, artfully tackling the current tensions between truth and lies, ethical and unethical journalism, justice and injustice, and fascism versus democracy.

The Plot

In short, Superman intervenes in a global conflict on the side of a defenseless country with clear parallels to Ukraine that’s being intimidated Putin-style by an evil dictator who is a stinging caricature of Hungary’s Victor Orban who is a pawn of a villainous Trumpian tech-bro billionaire aching to rule over us.

At one point in the film a besieged child on the other side of the globe raises a handmade flag of distress as an invading army advances his way. Holding aloft a rag with an “S” scrawled on it, he is a stand-in for every hapless third-world citizen begging the first world for help. For a savior. For a benevolent superpower.

(Note to MAGA voters. Thanks to you nimrods, no one in this world will ever raise an American flag in hopes of being rescued by us ever again. Ever. Those days are over. We’re busy hitting Botswana with tariffs, attacking Greenland or building concentration camps.)

Lex Luthor batters Superman with with tech assisted mercenaries in melodramatic fight sequences that are beautifully choreographed. Luthor then leaps into modern America’s headlines by smearing Superman with a media misinformation campaign produced by a vast online troll farm featuring rows and rows of thousands of online-monkey-trolls typing out thousands of scurrilous anti-Superman posts on their keyboards.

As soon as the clone of every Fox commentator you’ve ever heard repeats Luthor’s anti-Superman “talking points” the allusion could not be more clear and the entire allegory more on target.

Gunn’s “Superman” honors diversity, truth and justice at a time in our darkening world when there is a very real war on diversity, truth and what remains of justice. By writing “Superman” as an interstellar immigrant persecuted for his immigrant status, Gunn innocently created a lightning rod for America’s xenophobic haters. It’s a clever plot turn that resonates with our reality, dominated by feckless political leaders willing to cruelly marginalize their “foes” by attacking their ethnicity and their immigrant status.

When “Superman” turns himself in to masked agents who resemble Trump’s ICE agents, because he believes it’s the right thing to do he is roughed up and shouts, “Don’t touch me. I have rights.”

Don’t touch Superman. Superman, the immigrant from Krypton, has rights. He knows his Constitution. All Smallville School kids learned their Constitution.

Unlike the endless parade of dark, dreary and ponderous super hero movies of the past decades this movie broke the dismal predictable pattern. I felt like I was immersed in a visually stunning comic book from my childhood that left me refreshed. And reassured that the dream of heroes rising up to vanquish bad guys still persists in 2025.

All mythology is political. Allegorical. In that vein, James Gunn’s “Superman”, is a delightful throwback masterpiece that addresses our future by touching on many contemporary issues.

Nano-bot technology in the wrong hands.

Reckless applications of scientific technology.

The death of journalism.

Dissolution of respect for national sovereignty.

Online troll farms run amuck.

Masked storm-troopers snatching people off the street.

Off-site private gulags.

The plot winds its way through these issues with class, humor, charm, and wit delivered with fantastic action sequences that zoom along on a thrill-ride story arc.

Still I have to wonder about MAGA. Why does the Right hate this film with such vigor? I’ll let these two fictional clowns sort that answer out:

Why was everybody in the theater yelling at me to sit down?

You were cheering Lex Luthor.

Some woke libs threw popcorn at me.

That’s because you were loud and you booed at all the wrong parts.

Not all! I booed the Engineer!

Only because she was a Latina!

I saw that! A DEI hire! And the Attorney general was an Asian-American. And Superman’s street pal was a Muslim-American! Where’s the white man in this story? Where’s the white man?

Superman’s white.

No, he isn’t! He’s a dirty no good immigrant from Craptown!

Krypton!

Whatever! Superman’s going to poison our blood!

He’s poisoning our blood!

That means only one thing. We have to shoot down any rockets we see out there coming at us from Krypton! Keep earth white!

Luthor’s white and he’s the bad guy? Talk about persecution!

That’s when they threw you out of the theater?

Uh huh. Tell me something. Why is every insane power-crazed lawless billionaire who wants to use tech to rule over us shown as some kind of a super bad guy?

Let’s review the woke sins of Superman.

1. Woke sin number one. Lois Lane is a heroic, critical thinking independent woman. Uh oh. Perhaps the Right would prefer a more trad gal for Superman, like Butter Churn Woman or The Handmaid.

2. Woke sin number two: Superman likes dogs and animals and he even saves a squirrel’s life. Perhaps the Right would prefer a Kristi Noem character in a cape, like The Heartless Snatcher or Puppy Killer. Why not? Noem’s already great at cosplay.

3. Woke sin number three. Superman is depicted engaging in introspection. This is a yuge super woke sin. Real men don’t ponder. In the film Superman learns one’s fate is not determined by your parents or your biology. Perhaps the Right ( And particularly Stephen Miller) would prefer a different moral lesson, one that preaches that your color, birthplace and caste, in Trump’s growing caste system, determines everything about your fate.

On their mid-western farm Mr. and Mrs. Kent teach our mythic hero, Clark, the Golden Rule, a rural work ethic and the welcoming American values that have defined the Superman comic book ethos since it was born in the thirties, when Superman came into being as an answer to the ascendancy of global fascism and Nazism.

Today the unhinged right is unhappy that Clark Kent’s dad is a tender father figure rather than a trad dad with a Bible, a rod and a belt. Decent guys like him perplex the Right. Real men perplex the Right.

Give me this fictional universe where for two glorious hours the American way triumphs over the bad guys. With the help of an awesome dog.

Superman is among the finest cinematic political cartoons this veteran political cartoonist has ever seen. This family-friendly pro-America version of Superman will leave audiences positively over the moon. And saddened to leave the theater to return to our present moment where there are no supermen. Only dreamers, mythmakers and those few of us who still belive in truth, justice and the American way.

Reference

Can ‘Superman’ Fly Above Today’s Polarized Politics?

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/11/movies/superman-politics-backlash.html