It is unsurprising to anyone with even an iota of experience with Superman—whether they’ve picked up a comic, watched a TV show, or seen a movie at any point over the last nearly 90 years—that the character has had an immigration parallel at the heart of his story. A child of two worlds, created by immigrants, Kal-El’s escape from Krypton to find a home where he is raised to embrace the values of the American ideal is a touchstone that has been woven through almost a century of storytelling. And yet, every time a Superman story is ready to enter the mainstream, the culture war’s blindest of soldiers have to find a way to act surprised at the sheer lack of understanding they have with one of the most enduring characters of American popular culture.
With James Gunn’s Superman on the horizon, Fox News only just remembered the week before release to find an opportunity to lambast Gunn for comments he made in a profile for The Times recently, where he noted that 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,” Gunn continued. This was, of course, enough for Fox’s Kellyanne Conway to declare the movie “Superwoke” in a brief screed in which she also complained about people not standing for the national anthem at baseball games.
Kellyanne on Superman: We don’t go to the movie theater to be lectured to—
Watters: You know what it says on his cape? MS13 pic.twitter.com/F1PBPeE9nf
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 7, 2025
“We don’t go to the movie theater to be lectured to and to have somebody throw their ideology onto us,” Conway complained. “I wonder if it will be successful.” As of last month, Superman was tracking to open between $90 and $135 million, giving it the potential to be one of the highest openings for a DC Comics adaptation.
Of course, Gunn’s comments are far from the first time he’s discussed Superman’s immigrant roots—it’s a beat he’s touched on throughout the film’s production—nor is this a particularly obscure fact about the character. Almost every adaptation of Superman grapples with the character’s place as an alien on earth, but there’s little point in educating Fox News talking heads about the fundamentals of a character they supposedly care about enough to critique in this manner.
This is precisely the point of the right-wing culture war: to pretend and act shocked when they’ll just as readily move on to the next thing to be outraged at soon enough. Superman himself is no stranger to this kind of controversy, especially as the character has grappled with his relationship to American symbolism in the 21st century, from his renouncing of his U.S. citizenship in 2011 to DC’s move to rebrand Superman’s values as “Truth, Justice, and a better tomorrow” rather than the “American way.”
In an era where some studios seem eager to capitulate to the Trump administration’s war on diversity, however, sometimes it’s just refreshing to watch people clown on losers.
“I’m not here to judge people,” Gunn told Variety of the supposed “backlash” to his immigration comments at Superman‘s Hollywood premiere last night. “I think this is a movie about kindness and I think that’s something everyone can relate to.”
“We support our people, you know? We love our immigrants. Yes, Superman is an immigrant, and yes, the people that we support in this country are immigrants and if you don’t like that, you’re not American,” Gunn’s brother Sean, who plays Maxwell Lord in the film, added. “People who say no to immigrants are against the American way.”
But perhaps Nathan Fillion put it best, though. “Aw, somebody needs a hug. It’s just a movie, guys.”
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