‘Superman’ isn’t superwoke. Why immigration backlash is overblown

This story contains some spoilers for “Superman.”

In James Gunn’s “Superman,” the titular superhero is devastated when he learns that his birth parents sent him to Earth to subjugate humanity.

In theaters now, the film is set a few years into Superman’s caped career. The Kryptonian — who grew up as Clark Kent on a farm in Smallville, Kan. — always believed a message left to him by these birth parents was an encouragement to use his powers to be a protector and hero. He is more than shaken to learn that was never the case.

It’s Clark’s human father, Jonathan, who points out that the message’s intent doesn’t really matter.

“Your choices [and] your actions, that’s what makes you who you are,” he says to his son.

Being an alien refugee might be why Superman has his superpowers, but it’s who he is as a person that makes him a superhero. And although it is mostly left unsaid, Clark’s kindness and values come from how he was raised — by loving parents in America’s heartland.

Despite “Superman” being as all-American as ever, the movie has become the most recent front in America’s never-ending culture war because of comments made by Gunn acknowledging the character is an immigrant.

But Superman is more a story about the triumph of assimilation and opportunity. As the new movie also shows, Superman would not be Superman if he was not raised by Martha and Jonathan Kent on a farm in Kansas. And as much as Superman is undeniably an immigrant, it’s hard to deny in the current political climate that he also resembles the type of immigrants who have traditionally been more embraced in this country.

Since early last month, the Trump administration has aggressively targeted Latino communities across California. Immigration raids have seemingly indiscriminately taken people from their workplace, on their way to court and even in parking lots. Federal officials have pushed back on claims that these operations have targeted people “because of their skin color.” According to federal authorities, more than 2,700 undocumented immigrants have been arrested in L.A. since early June.

This is not the first time the U.S. government has targeted specific communities of color because of their ancestry. During World War II, 120,000 people of Japanese descent were incarcerated in wartime camps regardless of their citizenship.

Gunn, however, has long maintained that his “Superman” is “a movie about kindness [and] being good.”

The filmmaker, who has been outspoken in his criticism of President Trump, told the London Times that “Superman is the story of America. … An immigrant that came from other places and populated the country.” He reiterated that the movie is about “human kindness.”

The backlash was swift, with familiar right-wing commentators and personalities criticizing the film for allegedly being “superwoke” before it was released. Even former Superman actor Dean Cain has spoken out against Gunn’s comments and the perceived politicization of the character’s story.

In response, comic book fans, including Democratic politicians, have pointed out that Superman — an alien born on the planet Krypton, sent to Earth to escape his planet’s destruction — has always been an immigrant.

“The Superman story is an immigration story of an outsider who tries to always do the most good,” Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach) posted Wednesday on X. “His arch nemesis is a billionaire. You don’t get to change who he is because you don’t like his story. Comics are political.”

“Superman was an undocumented immigrant,” Gov. Gavin Newsom’s press office wrote Thursday on X in response to an image of Trump as Superman posted by the White House.

Others on social media have circulated clips from past Superman media, including from Cain’s show “Lois & Clark,” where the character’s immigration status is addressed.

Despite the accusation and backlash, Superman has never been as “woke” as the current debate makes him seem.

Created by Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel, both children of Jewish immigrants, Superman’s first official appearance was in the first issue of “Action Comics” in the 1930s. With his iconic red and blue caped costume, the character is known as much for his godlike superpowers as he is for being the ultimate good guy with all-American looks and charm.

His adventures have spanned comics, radio, television and film. Besides evil billionaires, Superman has taken on superpowered supervillains, alien invaders and even his clones, as well as human threats like Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. Yes, some Superman stories are more political than others.

But Superman has never been radical in his politics. As a Kryptonian raised on Earth by human parents, the character has been shown in stories where he struggles with his own sense of otherness and belonging because he straddles two worlds. But other than rare outliers, his story has never delved deeply into how immigrants or those perceived as other are treated in the U.S. (For that, consider checking out some “X-Men.”)

That’s because Clark Kent’s immigration status or Americanness will never be questioned because of his appearance. That itself could be subversive, but that’s a debate for a different “Superman” movie.