The team behind “Superman” is responding to the backlash after director James Gunn said the DC tentpole is the story of “an immigrant that came from other places.”

When asked about the reaction to his comments, James Gunn explained that the movie is for “everyone” and that he doesn’t have “anything to say to anybody” spreading negativity around “Superman.”

“I’m not here to judge people,” he told Variety at Monday night’s “Superman” premiere at Hollywood’s TCL Chinese Theatre. “I think this is a movie about kindness and I think that’s something everyone can relate to.”

  • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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    2 hours ago

    They were hoping to see a movie about the Ubermensch, not this woke comic book fake news!

    Nah jk they don’t read.

  • Penny7@lemmy.ca
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    2 hours ago

    To the limbo ‘how low can you go’

    How dumb can you get? How dumb can you get?

  • YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today
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    7 hours ago

    They really do live in their own little bubble huh? Like dude is a literal alien, and they think he is a home grown hero.

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    7 hours ago

    DCU heads in their best J. Jonah Jameson voice:

    FIND ME A SINGLE TWEET THAT MAKES A CONTROVERSY OF THIS MOVIE!! WE NEED FREE PUBLICITY DAMMIT!!! IT WORKED FOR DISNEY, IT WILL WORK FOR US!! GET ME THOSE PICTURES THAT TWEET!!!

  • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    MAGA Outrage Over Director Saying Superman Is an Immigrant

    (We’re about a decade too late, and our engorged trolls are now our leaders, but still…)

  • Leraje@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    10 hours ago

    How can you not know Superman’s origin story? Apart from the comics its been retold in every major movie version too. He literally is and always was (weird retcons aside) an immigrant.

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      8 hours ago

      I’m pretty sure I knew through popcultural osmosis before I ever saw any of the films

      Some people weirdly don’t connect fictional scenarios to real life analogues though. Like in the Oz books, a princess is kidnapped and forced to grow up as a boy. Some people don’t see that as a transgender character because it’s a fantasy scenario. Some people don’t see Superman as an immigrant because their brains just don’t connect a science fiction situation with an alien to immigration

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        2 hours ago

        Right? I haven’t seen any of the movies. The only Super…person stuff I’ve seen is CW’s Supergirl and I knew his origin story when I was a child in the 90s.

      • RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world
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        Hence the entire point of the original Star Trek. Morality plays disguised by alien makeup, so the mouth breathing rednecks didn’t realize.

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        I’ve found that people who don’t understand or enjoy media literacy or criticism also don’t tend to understand the concept of an analogy/allegory, and don’t want to either. Superman represents the “American Way” and can’t be an immigrant and the idea that America is a nation of immigrants is not relevant in any way. Only the old statements from Bridget from Guilty Gear count and not any of the new ones that confirm she’s trans. Naoto from Persona 4 and some similar stories like hers in other games can’t be a commentary on social pressures around restrictive gender roles, dysphoria, and performativity simply because she ultimately still identifies as a cis woman. You can explain the nuances until you’re out of breath, they will never accept the nuances.

        • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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          6 hours ago

          There was a post a while ago where someone was explaining that Star Wars was an allegory for the Vietnam war, and the next guy was all “well that’s not true, unless the Empire is supposed to be America!”

          Like they’re so close to getting it, but their brain swats it away before it can become a fully formed thought.

          • FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca
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            These are the people who think that Hermione being non-white in the upcoming tv series is a problem because of how it will come across when Draco calls her a mudblood. Yeah, we can’t have people reading it as a racist slur when Draco uses a racist slur. I’m genuinely confused as to how they read that scene before.

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          Many of them are focusing very very hard on selectively ignoring the text of the religion they claim to follow. Subtext might as well not exist.

    • JcbAzPx@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      One of DC’s many reboots in the comics had his spaceship be a birthing pod so that he could be ‘born’ in America to get around him being an illegal alien.

      Definitely one of the wierder retcons.

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    I mean… He’s literally an alien that came here illegally.

    Is MAGA stupid? Don’t answer that, it was rhetorical.

    • Devolution@lemmy.world
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      13 hours ago

      Asmongold. Enough said. Also, most conservative men are opposed to bathing. Something something washing assholes is gay.

      They are stupid, useless, and gross.

      • rustyfish@lemmy.world
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        12 hours ago

        You mean the guy who lives like a pig and has cockroaches climbing on his shirt while live streaming his newest rage fit should not be listened to?

        Seriously, what is wrong with his viewers? The content is shit brought to them by someone living in his own literal shit.

      • VitoRobles@lemmy.today
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        12 hours ago

        I don’t understand why anybody watches a dude who lives in filth and go, “Ah yeah this guy has good opinions on things!”

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      Technically he was “born” in the US in most versions going back a few decades. His pod was retconned from one they put a whole living baby into in earlier stories, to an artificial womb “birthing matrix” that combined DNA. Was even a storyline that dealt with if he was eligible to be President based on that (may have even been the reason for the retcon, can’t remember). So he’d be an “anchor baby” to use their racist term, and someone Donald wants to invalidate an amendment with an executive order for

    • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      Well he’s an Alien who is an American citizen more than likely.

      Foundlings aren’t directly mentioned in the laws but a child found in the U.S. and you can’t find the parents is assumed to have been born here. And thereby a citizen by the 14th Amendment.

      Unless someone could prove who his parents were and where they were born, until that time I don’t think they would have grounds to revoke the citizenship

        • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          So you believe some people who found a baby in the middle of no where and decided to raise/adopt him picked up a hologram made of alien tech unlike anything seen on earth before and were going to bring that to the government to say we know who his parents are? Kid would go to a gov facility for infinite tests and the Kent’s would be institutionalized or disappeared because everyone would have thought they were nuts in the psych ward. No way they’d know the kid was going to fly, shoot laser beams and be impervious to weapons.

          • FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca
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            11 hours ago

            I’m saying that when he’s an adult, his origin is provable. In some of the films, Lex Luthor finds the proof

  • ieatpwns@lemmy.world
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    But they’re explaining only half of the plot an illegal alien is assimilating and it’s making a specific billionaire very upset he can’t continue to exploit his people

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      All I am gonna say is xenophobic Lex Luthor is always the best written Lex Luthor

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        Largely because it’s a bit valid to be concerned that the indestructible alien could decide he’s bored serving the world and just take it over.

        Xenophobic Lex is just a compelling villain, a bit like doom. Someone who has a sound reason for their actions, but usually takes really questionable routes.

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          I like Lex Luthor as a villain a lot more than I like Superman as a hero for exactly this reason. He’s a villain, sure, but his villainy is all centered around this one highly logical and concerning idea of never giving Superman total power because they’d then never be able to take it away from him.

          Dr Doom I straight up don’t even consider a villain tbh. He’s antihero at worst (though he’d be pissed to hear me say so). His subjects love him. A bit megalomaniacal, maybe, but he genuinely wants to rule the world to do what’s best for everyone.

          If Fantastic wants to fight you because he thinks it’s the right thing to do, and Doom wants to fight you because he thinks you’re destroying his property, I know which one I’m putting my bet on because I know which one is going to show up to that fight more pissed off. His reasons are weird but Doom does still frequently show up to fight the bad guys, if for no other reason than “this is my fucking planet and I won’t have you breaking the place”. I love that.

      • Th3D3k0y@lemmy.world
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        Is he Xenophobic specifically, or is the Xenophobia simply an expansion on his Deophobia?

        I always understood Lex to be more than just “I dislike you because you R alien” and more “You are an alien with supreme power, and humanity cannot stand against you as is, therefore I dislike you”

        • jacksilver@lemmy.world
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          Yeah, I think it’s actually envy with a side of pragmatism (he envies that everyone likes superman and wants that power, but also legitimately fears what a bad superman could do). But Xenophobic is just a funny way to phrase it.

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    7 hours ago

    Did they forget they were mad at James Gunn for comments he made about Trump in 2018? It’s not like they were going to see this movie anyway since they don’t like any form of entertainment that’s not explicitly pandering to them.

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      Lol, they can’t remember all the things they are outraged about. If you’re expecting consistency and logic, you’re talking about the wrong group.

  • oni ᓚᘏᗢ@lemmy.world
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    “SuperMan is an immigrant” I thought that was an alien. In which world we do live where is worst being an immigrant than an alien.

    • Drusas@fedia.io
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      When I was a kid, immigrants were called aliens. Illegal immigrants were illegal aliens.

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    8 hours ago

    I’m looking forward to when “MAGA” becomes derogatory like they somehow did with “woke.”

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      49 minutes ago

      by using their terms/names you give them legitimacy. Do not fall for it. Less platform they have, less damage they can inflict. Remember their task is to “flood the zone” and adding MAGA to your vocabulary is helping them. “Misinformed Americans” or “Malicious Americans” or “Mindless Americans” are more appropriate terms

    • frog_brawler@lemmy.world
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      You can be the change you want to see. Start using it as a pejorative.

      “What, are you MAGA?”

      “I got a MAGA type explanation in response to my question.”

      “It’s clear that MAGA is in charge over there.”

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        6 hours ago

        Your usage doesn’t seem derogatory without context. I could see a MAGA person saying those things without negativity. It might help to look how woke got transformed. Perhaps it was paired with negative terms like “get this woke shit out of my face.”