Today, the newest Superman movie is opening nationwide. The reviews are mixed. From what I can gather, the plot is even more silly than is usual in these movies, while Superman is kind of wussy, but people really love his dog. (Leading to this great “if you know you know” meme.)
What has irked conservatives isn’t the movie itself, but two news stories, the first reporting that writer and director James Gunn has politicized the movie by dragging immigration into it, and the second that David Corenswet, who plays Superman, could not choke out the words “the American way.” Both these positions are antithetical to those of Superman’s Jewish creators, who clearly saw their WWII and Cold War era superhero as the perfect amalgamation of the Bible and the Constitution.
Colorized image created based on a 1950s public domain publicity still of George Reeves.
In an interview with The Times, James Gunn implied strongly that his superhero is an open borders activist:
“I mean, Superman is the story of America,” Gunn says. “An immigrant that came from other places and populated the country, but for me it is mostly a story that says basic human kindness is a value and is something we have lost.”
On its face, that could be a politically neutral statement. But as we all know, Gunn is making it at a time when the Democrats are shrieking to high heaven that Trump is returning illegal aliens to their home countries. In that context, there’s no other way to view Gunn’s statement than as support for illegal immigration.
Dean Cain, who played Superman in the silly and enjoyable Lois & Clark series from the 1990s, got the message loud and clear:
Cain slammed Gunn’s remarks, telling TMZ: “I think bringing Superman into it … I think that was a mistake by James Gunn to say it’s an immigrant thing, and I think it’s going to hurt the numbers on the movie. I was excited for the film. I am excited to see what it is … I’m rooting for it to be a success, but I don’t like that last political comment.”
The former “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not!” host added that Superman’s motto used to be, “truth, justice and the American way,” which is, “immigrant friendly,” but “there are rules.”
“You can’t come in saying, ‘I want to get rid of all the rules in America, because I want it to be more like Somalia.’ Well that doesn’t work, because you had to leave Somalia to come here,” he continued. “There have to be limits, because we cant have everybody in the United States. We can’t have everybody, society will fail. So there have to be limits.”
And then there’s Corenswet (net worth: $4 million), who’s benefited hugely from the good luck of having been born in America, but who can’t make himself celebrate “the American way”:
When he doesn't have to be Superman, when he doesn't have to be this calm reassuring presence to the public, when he doesn't have to symbolize safety and security and truth and justice and, and, and all those good things...
So, from the two major voices promoting the movie, we get strong whiffs of open borders and a sort of passive anti-Americanism. They’re the polite versions of today’s Democrat party, which hates America, wants open borders, and especially supports immigrants who hate Jews (e.g., Zohran Mamdani). Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Superman’s creators, would have been horrified.
Siegel and Shuster were two young Jewish men whose parents had come legally to America, through Ellis Island, after fleeing antisemitic persecution in the Russian Empire. Siegel and Shuster created Superman in the lead-up to WWII as the ultimate American Jew fighting against the genocidally antisemitic Hitler. And if you doubt me about Superman being Jewish, keep in mind that Superman’s Krypton name, Kal-El, is Hebrew for “Voice of God” or “Light of God.”
During WWII and the Cold War, and, indeed, right up until 2021, the motto associated with Superman was that he fought for “truth, justice, and the American way.” Think about that. That is a motto tied to the Bible and the Constitution.
Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life...” (John 14:6.)
God, speaking through Moses, was obsessed with justice:
You shall appoint judges and officials throughout your tribes, in all your towns that the Lord your God is giving you, and they shall render just decisions for the people. You must not distort justice; you must not show partiality; and you must not accept bribes, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of those who are in the right. Justice, and only justice, you shall pursue, so that you may live and occupy the land that the Lord your God is giving you. (Deuteronomy 16:18-20.)
At Proverbs 21:3, we hear this again: “To do what is right and just is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice.”
Truth and justice are inextricably intertwined with the Judeo-Christian faith.
And the “American way” is the Constitution. That contract between the government and the people is the foundational cornerstone on which America is built: limited government and individual liberty.
Moreover, as John Adams made clear, the Bible and the Constitution are a matched set:
Because We have no Government armed with Power capable of contending with human Passions unbridled by... morality and Religion. Avarice, Ambition...Revenge or Galantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
Superman was about protecting the Jewish people, the Bible, and the Constitution, and the delicate leftist pronouncements from Gunn and Corenswet, which align perfectly with current Democrat thinking, stand in opposition to all those ideas.