It’s not a bird nor a plane, nor even Superman. It’s the idea of Superman, and all we project upon it.
We are in the midst of Superman Summer. The new 2025 movie, directed by DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn and starring David Corenswet as the title character, grossed $122 million domestically in its opening weekend. It’s been a hit worldwide, earning a 83% Rotten Tomatoes critic’s score and 91% audience score. But it’s also faced backlash–particularly on the internet, for supposedly taking a political stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
So, what makes Superman so political, if it is at all?
The exposition leading into the events of the film reveals that Superman, acting without government approval, has prevented the fictional country of Boravia from invading the fictional country Jarhanpur. The leader of Boravia, a well-developed country allied with the United States and tied to US weapons companies, justifies their invasion as protecting the people of Jarhanpur, a poor and disproportionately young country, from their tyrannical government. Many viewers interpreted this storyline as an allusion to Israel’s ongoing war with Hamas–though this has been rebuffed by Gunn.
Notable too in this view of the movie is antagonist Lex Luthor’s plan to develop half of Jarhanpur into real estate, pulled almost word by word from Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner’s proposal that Israel should “clean up” Gaza of its residents and develop it into waterfront property.
Though the film provides an alternate motive for Luthor’s plotting, his arms sales to Boravia also echo criticism of American weapons manufacturers like Lockheed Martin for providing weapons to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
Accordingly, Senior Camper Lili S. said that she “didn’t think of it so much as a superhero movie but more like a political drama,” and she viewed the movie as commentary on Israel-Palestine. Along similar lines, Senior Camper Tessa S. remarked, “It showed what was actually happening [in the Middle East] without directly saying it” — and that was a big part of why she enjoyed the movie.
“We’ve seen the Lex Luthor story before,” Senior Camper Tallulah C-S. pointed out. There’s more at stake here than simply Luthor’s hatred for Superman. It’s a movie that’s relevant–in fact, it may be more about our world than that of the DC Cinematic Universe.
Still, Tessa doesn’t consider Superman’s actions political. “[He] wasn’t being political in the movie, and that’s a whole plotline. He was just doing what he thought was right. When he stopped the war, he wasn’t being political–he just didn’t want anyone to die.”
This begs another question: should Superman be political? As a hero, whose main objective is to save? Superman is widely considered the first superhero, paving the way for thousands, so in asking this question, we are also asking if superheroes are inherently political. And there is an argument for that – isn’t all art political? It’s always going to have the opinions of the artist baked into it; objective art is an oxymoron.
This is also a cape-wearing, card-carrying superhero we’re talking about, here. Superman, champion of the oppressed (as dubbed in the first ever issue), has been fighting corrupt senators since 1938. Is that a political stance, even if it’s the “right” thing to do? As Lili S. reminded us, “Superman was part of a wave of heroes who were invented and designed by Jewish people [at a time of] rising antisemitism in Europe, and Superman–maybe not in his origination but when he rose to fame–he was fighting Nazis.” That may seem like an obviously good thing, but a stance against Nazis was still a political stance, especially at a time when American entrepreneurs like Henry Ford were advocating nonalignment or full alliance with them. “It’s important to have the symbolism of Superman be active in politics but have his way of doing things focused on compassion and kindness,” Senior Camper Kate S. says. That is the core of Superman: kindness. Perhaps kindness cannot be separated from politics, but that doesn’t mean Superman was designed as a political figure.
And, who knows? Maybe it’s his status as a lightning rod for all our political anxieties that powers the lasers from his eyes*. ✎
*“Actually, it’s Earth’s yellow sun, but whatever.”
