This new Superman movie has triggered the same hysterical over-reaction that Barbie did: accuse it of being “woke”, be outraged that Superman was portrayed as an immigrant (like he’s always been portrayed), centering the story on kindness and opposition to war (ditto). The spectacle here isn’t the movie — it’s just a movie — but the way right-wing pundits have exploded with over-the-top hatred of the themes of the movie. It’s bizarre and stupid. Amanda Marcotte has an explanation for why they’re doing this.
The reasons right-wing pundits engage in this are transparent. The biggest is simple attention economics. Glomming onto popular topics is a good way to attract new audiences, especially those who may not be that political, and lure them into engaging with reactionary content. It also helps feed the paranoia that fuels the right, by propping up the narrative that all of pop culture is out to destroy them and their way of life. The ultimate goal is to persuade people to reject movies, music, TV and other cultural artifacts as “woke” or “Satanic,” and turn exclusively to MAGA influencers for their entertainment needs. Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire even has a movie studio where they turn out subpar content that only has an audience because they’ve convinced right-wingers to eschew quality films as too “liberal.”
My initial reaction when I saw right-wing media conduct its all-too-predictable tantrum over the new “Superman” movie was that it’s just more of the same: Claim it’s “woke” propaganda, work the audience into a tizzy of boycott threats and reap the reward of alienating their base further from the rest of society so that the MAGA cult is all they have left. Which, to be fair, is bad enough. But the actual content of the complaints made this whole exercise even more sinister. The attacks on “Superman” are part of a larger effort by the right to completely rewrite history, so they can pretend that being a patriotic American means embracing authoritarian values.
A positive story about an immigrant treating people with kindness defies the current Republican program. They need to demonize “wokeness” before people realize that mass deportations and concentration camps and giving a con artist a free run over the resources of the country is a bad idea.
This is part of a larger and far more serious effort by Trump and the MAGA movement to rewrite history, and therefore, to rewrite what the story of America even is. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been hyperfocused on erasing all acknowledgement that women, people of color and queer people have long served in the military, all to prop up his childish fantasy that the only real heroes are white men. Under the guise of stopping “DEI,” shorthand for “diversity, equity and inclusion,” Republicans are waging war on libraries and museums, censoring books and displays that reflect the basic truth that the U.S. has always been a multi-ethnic society. Republicans are getting increasingly aggressive about spreading Christian nationalist lies that the U.S. was founded as a functional theocracy, when it was intended to be a secular nation.
The Superman gambit is the pop culture version of this. In one sense, it’s not as big of a deal as the Trump administration systematically removing Black historical figures from the public record. But it’s still deeply troubling, precisely because it’s an attack on a story that’s so fundamental to American culture. The right understands how crucial storytelling is to the way a society views itself. Superman’s origin story is as much a part of the American identity as Betsy Ross and Abraham Lincoln. Before most of us grow up and learn the more complex story of how the United States was built by waves of immigrants who often endured plenty of racist resistance, we were warmed up to the idea by learning that the Man of Steel is an immigrant who hid his true nature until he realized he needed to unveil it to be a force for good.
It is just a movie, but it’s also a story to instill values that still, despite all attempts to erase them, are part of the American myth, and myths matter.
I tried to be fair and compare this “woke” movie to a right-wing counterpart, and there have been several examples in recent years. I’ve actually seen Run Hide Fight, an example of conservative myth-building. This one reinforces those tales of “rugged individualism” with the story of a school taken over by a group of psychopathic students who are ultimately by a girl who has had gun training and isn’t afraid to gun down the bad guys. It’s…fine? Professionally made, but ultimately boring and about as realistic as Superman, and I don’t feel like shrieking that it’s heralding the downfall of America. It’s just a predictable power-fantasy, which to the right-wing means using that power to kill the bad people.
Another movie that I haven’t seen, but have seen enough clips and reviews that I think I can judge it, was Lady Ballers, a movie about male athletes triumphing by pretending to be trans so they compete against women’s teams. It’s another power fantasy, where they pretend that all men are physically superior to women so they can humiliate those women who play basketball.
Neither of those movies had the appeal of Superman. Maybe the right-wingers need to stop and assess and focus on whatever positive values they want to promote, rather than imagining their enemies, fellow Americans, caricatured and crushed. It’s going to be hard since they’ve already crossed out truth, justice, equality, fairness, and empathy from their list of goals, which makes any story they come up with un-compelling.
Remember someone chiding me over defending a kids’ movie (Super Mario) and ridiculing the anti-woke crybabies, implying that made me immature. My response: “The stories we tell are children are important.”
That is OK.
We get Superman.
They get Donald Trump, Melania, and JD Vance.
I can’t imagine what Trump the Movie will be like but I’m sure some right wingnuts will give it a try.
It’s been done before.
I saw it opening weekend and enjoyed it. Not flawless though. Not a fan of Gunn’s trope of having happy music being played during a fight scene where a hero is putting a brutal beat down on baddies. It was a little heavy handed at times too, but subtly died a long time ago. Loved how they had Minecraft Hell. Luthor was the kind of guy you love to hate. Loved showing the monkeys trolling people on the internet. It was so fitting for Luthor because having Russian bots wouldn’t be cruel enough. Green Lantern knocking over tanks using giant green fists flipping the bird was a great touch. Mr.Teriffic was Mr.Awesome. I wouldn’t mind seeing it again.
My favorite thing about the new Superman movie is the portrayal of Lex Luthor.
He’s not a visionary. He doesn’t have some lofty goal in mind. He’s not presenting some idea that makes you think he might have a point that he’s just going about the wrong way.
He’s just a petty asshole who’s mad that people like someone else more than they like him and is willing to destroy the whole world for the sake of a grudge that the other party doesn’t even know about.
Can’t think of a more accurate portrayal of a billionaire tech bro.
Although my interest in CGI-filled superhero movies is almost zero, based upon those I have seen in the past, isn’t that pretty much every supervillain ever? Starting back at the dawn of time, all the 007 movie baddies were that way through to recent Marvel movies. Even Mr. Burns of Simpsons fame wanted to destroy the Sun.
Thankfully, because of their anti-woke hysteria, they don’t have to think about Taco’s long friendship with you-know-who or revelations about you-know-what. Sssh. It Never Happened!
Larry @5: No, most superhero movies feature villains with actual goals: conquering the world, making lots of money, just something that they would do if they superhero wasn’t around. In Superman, Lex’s only motivation is destroying Superman because he can’t stand the fact that Superman exists.
“Superman was portrayed as an immigrant (like he’s always been betrayed)”
Presumably, portrayed.
Larry @5 “I have seen in the past, isn’t that pretty much every supervillain ever?”
Not really. In the MCU Hulk, Captain America, Thor 1-4, Avengers 1-4, Spiderman 1 & 2, Antman 1-3, Quan Chi, Eternals, Dr.Strange 1-2, Guardians of the Galaxy 1-3, Marvels, Fantastic Four First Steps. There’s a few more but they all had villains that didn’t have secret vendettas against the heroes. Sometimes it was an open vendetta. Sometimes the heroes were in the way of what the villain wanted.
@5: It depends. Taking a look at Transformers back in the 1980s, Megatron kinda had that motivation. But more recent incarnations of Megatron are actually downright tragic: He was trying to act as a revolutionary, a liberator. Instead, he ended up becoming what he hated the most.
Marcotte also writes:
Dang. I didn’t realize that he’d joined Kevin Sorbo and Adam Baldwin in the genre actors right-wing asshole club.
Ugh.
https://www.salon.com/2025/07/10/dean-cain-worries-about-woke-superman/
@10 IMHO the first Megatron in IDW was sort of based on Stalin. Born in a low class (or caste), rose up against a corrupt ruling council, spoke about equality and peace (maybe even believing it for a while) before going full “I must rule all” monster. The one in their reboot, Megatron struck me as being based on Hitler. Cybertron was devastated by a previous war, aliens walking freely, with Megs pushing the “cybertronians uber alles” and “Make Cybertron Great Again” rhetoric which he knows is just propaganda to cover his lust for power.