James Gunn’s superman saw the reaction of immigrants coming – and the film has the perfect answer

This article contains Major spoilers the size of a krypton For “Superman”.

If the steel man is intended to reflect the world in which we live today, it is quite normal that the most typical thing of 2025 has ever ended up happening with the new restart: “Superman” has been canceled. More specifically, the DC blockbuster has become the subject of the most tired, predictable and worst “controversy” than political scratches could possibly put themselves from the air. The writer / director James Gunn, certainly not familiar with the drama himself, recently made waves for saying that Superman was, in fact, an immigrant. As a character very clearly defined by his Kryptonian origins against his eternal struggle to integrate into humans on earth, the parallels of the superman diaspora are as fundamental and well established as the stories of comics. Unfortunately, by coming directly and indicating this fact aloud, Gunn has underestimated the unique capacity of the right-wing industrial complex of the industrial complex to transform even the most banal grain observation for the online content mill.

Or is it? Not only “Superman” lives up to his invoicing as a charming crowd pleasure, because Chris Evangelista of the film was examined here, but his most effective gambit also ends up being the most premonitory. Long before he entered this supposed quagmire – and we cannot emphasize enough – indicating the evidence, Gunn built the whole scenario around a key pivotal moment. After having spent a large part of the first hour to portray Kal-El (David Corenswet) as an unstoppable force for good, largely motivated by the message of the hope that his Kryptonian parents gave him, the film drops his greatest and daring twisted torsion: his parents have in fact saved it from the destruction of his world of origin and to feel him to reign by chance in humanity, not to save him. Of course, this is only a matter of time before Lax Luthor of Nicholas Hoult discovers it and triggers such an incriminating knowledge of the world to ruin the image of Sups. In the simplest terms, it’s a film about Superman is canceled.

More than that, however, it is a film specifically filtered through the objective of Superman as a child of two worlds. Although imperfect for a variety of reasons in which we are going to enter, the metaphor of immigrants mainly holds the most interesting aspect of this new version of the superhero. It is as if “Superman” had seen the upcoming backlash – and had delivered the ideal answer.

When the world of Superman crashes around him thanks to Luthor’s media blitz, the main objective of the film is in sight. So far, the Big Blue Boy Scout has been described as exactly that: beloved, reliable and accepted by the inhabitants of the Earth for its rigid belief by doing good. Revealing, the opening scene starts with its first real failure in more than three years of operation of the most powerful hero of humanity, defeated decisively by the so-called hammer of Boravia (in reality, the ultraman metahuman created by Lex Luthor). But here is the friction: once the general public is given just A A semi-plausible reason to suspect the true motivations of Superman, well, the love story ends suddenly. Protective parents snatch their children away from their scope, angry crowds have been formulated on violence and rage, and a pernicious rumor about his “secret harem” seems to be the main piece of fear that settles among world leaders and political speaking leaders.

Does that seem familiar? It is not really a scope to establish links between the way Superman is treated by the inhabitants of Metropolis and the way in which the big sides of Americans have been whipped in a xenophobic frenzy against the Boogeyman migrant in recent years. Unpaid immigrants harm your children, start riots and attack your women … or at least say that the insidious story, at least. On the other hand, this film assumes that naturalized citizens are intrinsically worthy of confidence. Lex Luthor is perhaps the one who pulls the strings, but as a certain chain of information by cable with which he shares a lot in common, he simply takes advantage of a rot already by the heart and the spirit of far too much: a deep, rooted and irrational fear of the foreigner.

Now, of course, Superman’s metaphor as immigration is far from flawless. There is no bypass of the optics that Krypton’s last son is a superpowing stranger, with a square jaw, with white skin and blue eyes perfectly capable of hiding at sight each time he wishes – the privileges that most real immigrants do not have. And with “Superman” in particular, the idea that the fear of mass inspires that our title character inspires is in fact rooted in certain elements of truth cannot help blur the message a little. But even these inconsistencies are not sufficient to overcome the real hidden force in the heart of this hatch.

“Superman” saves his most convincing thematic point for the end. After having thwarted the intrigue of Luthor to encourage Jarhanpur’s invasion by Boravia by the gang of justice and safely containing the multidimensional rift tearing the metropolis, Superman pays a little visit to Lex Luthor in his control room. The building object and the unstoppable strength finally came out, confronted directly with their very different perspectives on what Superman really represents. For Lex, the deep cause of his burning hatred comes from his conviction that the all-powerful hero is too foreign and too foreign for mere mortals to understand or relate in any way. This also feeds his hypocritical desire, always comparing his own ambition and her inheritance to someone that the world initially adopted. For Superman, all of this is back. His real power is his humanity: Its defective innate nature, its tendency to make mistakes and its ability to exceed such gaps.

This is where “Superman” throws the glove and suggests a radical antidote to anti-immigrant feelings so widespread in the world today. Essentially, it is the rare mainstream blockbuster to really get the truth of what so many people of color face daily: the dual standard unfathomable to be perfect at any time. This is why so many immigrant parents (mine include) instill tireless work ethics and discipline to their children from an early age – because they came to a country where they had trouble being considered worthy of half of the advantages with so many others, without asking questions. This is why the tragic fate of Malik Ali (Dinesh Thyagarajan) leaves such a bad taste in the mouth, a life has unnecessarily smothered to fuel a program based on suspicion and fear. And this is why the film does everything possible for Clark to say to laws that, yes, Jarhanpur could have a political history … but insist that this does not mean that its population deserves to die by the genocide.

Although the best known slogan of Superman on “the truth, justice and the American way” is never pronounced here in dialogue, few adaptations better understand the role that normal, imperfect and deeply human immigrants play in the realization of this ideal that has become reality – no matter what any return.

“Superman” now plays in theaters.