When James Gunn, director of the vacuous Guardians of the Galaxy movies, says his glum Superman reboot is about immigration, believe him. But don’t be like those gullible commentators who are distraught over Gunn’s statement. It’s unusual when a Hollywood filmmaker confesses to propaganda without pretending objectivity. Maybe now conservative pundits will face the truth and finally realize how their entertainment appetites are fed by their enemies.

Gunn got it all twisted when he told the Times of London, “Superman is the story of America.” An immigrant that came from other places and populated the country.” Gunn was as blatant as those open-borders Democrats Klobuchar, Schiff, Raskin, Durbin, Clyburn, etc. who don’t care about offending the patriotism of half the country. It’s as if he’s bucking to raise the film’s ESG score. That’s why his film briefly fakes humanist beneficence in a scene where Superman (David Corenswet) is told, “You think everyone is beautiful,” and he responds, “Maybe that’s the real punk rock.” Making Superman a slangy punk rocker proves that Gunn is a warped, out-of-touch mogul.

Anyone who complains that the reboot drops Superman’s old “Truth, Justice, and the American Way” motto doesn’t understand Gunn’s true threat. It’s an extension of the diabolism of his 2019 sci-fi film, Brightburn, which Gunn produced, and which previously subverted the Superman myth. This is not anti-American so much as it is unSuperman, like trading his red cape for a keffiyeh.

Since Warner Bros. appointed Gunn as co-CEO of its DC Studios brand, he was tasked with improving the commercial appeal of Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Snyder’s emphasis on moral mythology in those artistic blockbusters confused cultural gatekeepers, displeasing fanboys of Marvel and The Dark Knight. Gunn’s reboot keeps pace with current social “change.” He told the Times, “Yes, It’s about politics, but on another level, it’s about morality.”This goes beyond comic-book-based mythology to corroborate the liberal nihilism of contemporary Hollywood. “Yes, it plays differently,” he acknowledged. “But it’s about human kindness and obviously there will be jerks out there who are just not kind and will take it as offensive just because it is about kindness. But screw them.” Internet wags have wondered whether Gunn’s kindliness extends to malevolent immigrants like General Zod.

Conservatives should realize how Gunn veers into supporting open borders. He remakes Superman into a figure of the invasion that Biden accomplished via executive order: To Gunn, Superman represents the tragically misunderstood and noble immigrant — “it is mostly a story, “he adds, “that says basic human kindness is a value and is something we have lost.” He defies real-life experience of immigration. That’s why Gunn’s narrative skips the legacy of Superman (Kal-El) sent by his father Jor-El from the planet Krypton. Snyder had evoked Judeo-Christian biblical legend, but Gunn invokes the namby-pamby sedition of the NGOs that facilitated the border invasion.

Gunn made his deviousness explicit: “This Superman does seem to come at a particular time when people are feeling a loss of hope in other people’s goodness.” That “loss of hope” Gunn refers to matches the loss of trust due to media mendacity and betrayal by elected officials. Consider how the antagonism between Superman and archenemy Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) becomes a proxy war — itself an allegory for the Ukrainian-Russia conflict that Gunn’s script perverts into a vague, nut-brained Middle East war between the fictional American ally Boravia and a nearby country called Jarhanpur. It streamlines the Ukraine-Russia war for dimwits who can’t think through the implications of obvious weapons trade and money-laundering.

Culturally obtuse political pundits complain that Superman is merely “anti-American.” But Gunn’s deeper insult includes trendy race and gender games. Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) becomes a feminist harpy, and Superman’s manliness is undermined by a comic-relief troupe, the Justice Gang, further trivializing Warners’ recut of Snyder’s Justice League — this time including diversity token Mr. Terrific played by Edi Gethegi, the Kenyan-born actor who, prior to Obama, played the heinous black urban thug in Gone Baby Gone.

Despite his humane pose, Gunn has found a way to revive America’s social ills. “How are we supposed to get anywhere as a culture?” Gunn asked. “We don’t know what’s real, and that is a really difficult place for the human brain to be.” Yet his Superman twists what’s real in our pop culture heritage. His metahumans — Metamorpho (Anthony Carrigan) and Krypto the dog — are quasi-political inventions but silly. Like Gunn’s spiel, it’s all just unsuper.