They're Literally Angry at Superman for Being Nice
How James Gunn's comments about "basic human kindness" triggered a predictable right-wing media meltdown.
So apparently Superman believing in “basic human kindness” is now controversial. Who knew?
James Gunn, director of the new Superman film hitting theaters this Friday, recently sat down with The Times of London for an interview about his take on the Man of Steel. His crime? Describing Superman as “the story of America” — specifically, as an immigrant story centered on the apparently radical notion that being kind to people is good, actually.
“I mean, Superman is the story of America. An immigrant that came from other places and populated the country,” Gunn told the newspaper. “But for me it is mostly a story that says basic human kindness is a value and is something we have lost."
Pretty anodyne stuff, right? The most famously wholesome superhero represents wholesome values. An alien refugee who becomes Earth's greatest champion might have something to do with immigration. Real “water is wet” territory here.
But in the right-wing media ecosystem, Gunn's comments were treated like he'd just announced Superman would be spending the entire movie reading The Communist Manifesto while wearing a pussy hat. Fox News immediately branded the film "Superwoke." Jesse Watters suggested Superman's cape should read "MS13." Breitbart called it “terrible,” “superficial,” and “overstuffed” — which is impressive considering they hadn't seen it yet. One OutKick writer declared that Gunn was “obviously upset that President Donald Trump is deporting illegal immigrants by the millions.”
All because a director pointed out that Superman — a character literally created by the children of Jewish immigrants — is an immigrant story about being nice to people.
The manufactured outrage machine kicked into overdrive so fast, you'd think Gunn had suggested replacing the S on Superman's chest with a hammer and sickle. But this isn't really about Superman. It's about how conservative media takes the most innocuous statements and transforms them into culture war ammunition. It's about how the right-wing ecosystem has become so reflexively oppositional that even "basic human kindness" reads as a partisan attack.
And perhaps most tellingly, it's about what happens when you've built an entire media apparatus that needs a constant supply of things to be mad about — even if that means getting upset that Superman, of all characters, stands for truth, justice, and helping people.
Let's trace how this nonsense actually unfolded, because watching the outrage assembly line in action is genuinely instructive.
The Times interview dropped on July 6. Within hours, the right-wing media apparatus had stripped Gunn's comments of context and repackaged them as an assault on American values.
Fox News didn't just report on Gunn's comments; they created an entire narrative. “Superwoke” became their branded shorthand, repeated across segments like a mantra. Kellyanne Conway appeared on the network to declare, “We don't go to the movie theater to be lectured to and to have somebody throw their ideology onto us.” Because apparently, suggesting people should be kind is now “ideology.”
But it was Jesse Watters who really went for it, quipping, “You know what it says on his cape? MS13.” Yes, the Fox News host actually tried to connect Superman — SUPERMAN — to a Salvadoran gang. Because he's an immigrant, get it? Real subtle stuff.
The escalation was predictable. Ben Shapiro released a YouTube video through The Daily Wire, focusing his ire on lead actor David Corenswet's refusal to say “the American way” in interviews. Instead, Corenswet had said “truth, justice, and all that good stuff,” which apparently constitutes treason in Shapiro's America. “The reality that Hollywood is so far to the left that they cannot take a core piece of Americana and just say it's about America,” Shapiro complained, seemingly unaware that “the American way” wasn't even added to Superman's motto until the 1950s.
The coordination across outlets was almost impressive. All the right-wing news organizations hit the same talking points within 48 hours. “Go woke, go broke” appeared in nearly every piece, because if there's one thing conservative media loves, it's a catchphrase that rhymes.
What's particularly rich about all this pearl-clutching is that these same outlets constantly complain about “cancel culture” and “mob mentality.” Yet here they are, organizing a pre-emptive boycott of a movie because its director said... checks notes... immigrants can be good people and we should be nice to each other.
At the film's July 7 premiere, Gunn tried to soften his stance, telling Variety, “I'm not here to judge people. I think this is a movie about kindness and I think that's something everyone can relate to.” But his brother Sean Gunn apparently didn't get the memo about playing nice, declaring: “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.”
Cue more outrage.
The people having meltdowns about Superman being an immigrant story are telling on themselves in ways they don't even realize.
It’s wild to think about what they're actually mad about. Gunn said Superman represents “basic human kindness” and that this is “something we have lost.” The response from conservative media was immediate, visceral rejection. They heard "kindness" and interpreted it as an attack. They heard “immigrant” and reached for gang references. What does it say about your worldview when someone suggesting we should be nice to each other feels like a personal assault?
The OutKick piece really gave the game away, with its writer declaring that Gunn “decided to sabotage the meaning of the story of the most iconic superhero of all time to voice his complaint” about Trump's deportation policies. Sabotage? The “meaning of the story”?
Let me help them out with a quick history lesson.
Superman was created in 1938 by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, both children of Jewish immigrants. Siegel's family fled Lithuania in 1900, escaping the pogroms. Shuster's father arrived from Rotterdam, his mother from Kiev. These were kids who faced antisemitic bullying in Cleveland, who used their creation to, as Siegel's daughter later put it, “fight back” against oppression.
They created the ultimate immigrant success story: a refugee from a destroyed world who becomes Earth's greatest protector. It's not subtle. It never was.
And Superman's politics? In 1946, The Adventures of Superman radio show aired “Clan of the Fiery Cross,” a 16-episode series where Superman battled a thinly-veiled Ku Klux Klan. The show used actual KKK codewords and rituals provided by activist Stetson Kennedy, who had infiltrated the organization.
Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, Superman appeared in anti-prejudice campaigns. A famous 1949 poster featured Superman declaring “Americans ALL” while condemning racial and religious hatred as “Un-American.” Early comics showed him fighting slumlords, corrupt politicians, and war profiteers. He was literally branded the "champion of the oppressed.”
But sure, tell me more about how James Gunn is “sabotaging” Superman by... describing him accurately.
This manufactured Superman controversy is just the latest in a pattern I've watched unfold over and over: identify something innocuous, declare it “woke,” mobilize the outrage machine, profit. Rinse, repeat.
Remember the Barbie movie panic? Ben Shapiro literally burned Barbie dolls on camera. Matt Walsh called it “the most aggressively anti-man, feminist propaganda fest ever put to film.” Ted Cruz accused it of pushing “Chinese propaganda.” The result? Barbie grossed $1.4 billion worldwide. Turns out most people don't take their movie recommendations from guys having public meltdowns over children's toys.
But the Daily Wire has turned this cycle into a business model by feeding their audience a steady diet of things to be mad about. The formula is predictable: find a movie/show/product, declare it “woke,” create viral content (doll-burning videos, angry podcasts), get it picked up by Fox News, then watch Republican politicians jump on board to legitimize the outrage.
Sometimes it works. Bud Light saw a massive sales drop after Dylan Mulvaney posted a single Instagram video. But that's the exception, not the rule. When the target has a broader audience — like, say, a Superman movie — the boycotts tend to flop harder than... well, harder than the anti-woke movies The Daily Wire keeps making that nobody watches (Sorry, Ladyballers!).
Disney has become their favorite punching bag. When The Marvels flopped, conservative media celebrated it as proof that “go woke, go broke” was real, ignoring that plenty of non-“woke” movies also bomb. Meanwhile, they conveniently forget that Black Panther, which faced similar accusations of being “woke propaganda,” grossed $1.35 billion.
Worth It or Woke, a site that literally exists to rate entertainment based on its perceived political content, pleaded for “a Man of Steel who honors his Kansas roots and skips the woke garbage.” Because apparently, being from Kansas means you can't also care about immigrants or kindness?
The timing of this particular freakout is telling. With Trump's administration actively conducting mass deportations, Gunn's framing of Superman as an immigrant story reads as direct political commentary to conservative critics. They're not really mad about a superhero movie. They're mad that someone is using America's most iconic hero to suggest that maybe — just maybe — immigrants aren't the enemy.
What's truly revealing isn't just that conservative media mobilized against a Superman movie — it's what triggered them. We're watching a political movement that has become so reflexively oppositional that “basic human kindness” registers as a threat. When your ideology interprets compassion as partisan and empathy as propaganda, maybe it's time to ask what exactly you're conserving.
This isn't just about movies. It's about a broader project to redefine “American” in increasingly narrow terms. The same people wrapping themselves in the flag while denouncing Superman — literally the most American superhero ever created — don't see the irony. They've decided that the immigrant who saves everyone, who stands for hope and justice, who protects the weak and fights bullies, is somehow anti-American. They're claiming ownership of symbols whose actual meaning they reject.
The exhausting predictability of it all might be the worst part. We know the script: Something exists. Someone notes it has progressive themes (or just basic human decency). The outrage machine spins up. Talking points spread. Boycotts are declared. Politicians grandstand. And then... life goes on. The movie comes out. Some people see it, some don't. The machine moves on to the next target.
But here's what they don't seem to realize: every time they do this, they're proving Gunn's point. He said we've “lost” the value of basic human kindness, and their response was to attack him for suggesting we should be kind. They're so busy fighting the culture war that they've become living examples of exactly what he was talking about.
Maybe the real revelation here is that we've reached a point where Superman's core values — helping others, welcoming strangers, standing up to bullies, believing in hope — are considered controversial. The character created by kids of refugees as a love letter to their new country now sets off people who claim to be defending America.
There's something almost poetic about it. Conservative media has spent so much energy trying to convince people that Superman, of all characters, is anti-American that they've accidentally revealed their own vision of America: one where kindness is weakness, where immigrants are threats, where helping others is “woke ideology.”
Meanwhile, Superman will fly into theaters on Friday carrying the same message he's delivered for 85 years: that everyone deserves protection, that hope matters, that a stranger from a strange land can become a hero. The fact that this message now generates political backlash doesn't say anything about Superman.
But it says everything about what we've become.
Another wonderful post, Parker! You are a Super example of kindness, empathy, and intelligence.
I think there's a certain subset of the electorate that equates kindness with weakness, esp. as concerns kindness towards those associated with the "other." As I think most readers here understand, however, showing kindness to others, including people who aren't like you, is a sign of strength. Try telling that to the Trump supporters who believe that "Alligator Alcatraz" is a model that should be replicated across the country, though.