James Gunn, Nathan Fillion and more on MAGA outrage over director saying Superman is an immigrant: ‘I don’t have anything to say to anybody’ spreading hate
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.”
https://variety.com/2025/film/news/james-gunn-superman-immigrant-backlash-response-1236449068/Open linkView original on sopuli.xyz645
Comments167
I mean... He's literally an alien that came here illegally.
Is MAGA stupid? Don't answer that, it was rhetorical.
Asmongold. Enough said. Also, most conservative men are opposed to bathing. Something something washing assholes is gay.
They are stupid, useless, and gross.
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.
I thought you were exaggerating so I googled it and what the fuck man.
Did you read about where the dried blood on the wall by his bed came from?
Jesus Christ, who the fuck gets bleeding gums as recurring thing.
Somebody who doesn't take
properany care of their teeth.People with severe gingivitis. Like if this guy wasn't doing something with moderate effort on a regular basis I'd assume severe depression because cleaning and oral hygiene are things that can fall to the wayside while struggling with depression. But also Jesus man, have some shame.
They identify with an unhygenic hateful asshole.
I don't understand why anybody watches a dude who lives in filth and go, "Ah yeah this guy has good opinions on things!"
Those people usually see him and think "He's just like me!"
I had to block all the channels related to this guy a few years back because he is nothing but a garbage take factory.
Hey, assholes are important!
This can’t be true. Please say this isn’t true. Blech
Bible: "Jesus says to love your neighbor."
MAGA: "Why do you have to make it political?!"
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
Nah, that was true from 1986 through 2009, but it went back to him being born on Krypton in "Secret Origin." The standard born-on-dying-Krypton story has persisted through New 52 and Rebirth.
Is thst still canon? I know it was officially changed at least by New 52 to be baby Kal-El in the ship from Krypton again. And then Post-Crisis canon was merged with New 52 Canon with Rebirth and Doomsday Clock, but I haven't read a comic in years now. No idea what they settled on as his new origin. Either way though, non-lawful entry or born here with non-citizen birth parents, he would be considered an illegal or stateless immigrant under the current government. There is no getting around that Republicans.
Poor Supes has been retconned since he first appeared. For a while he could shapeshift and turn invisible.
He can't fly, but he can leap over tall buildings in a single bound.
https://youtu.be/9UJphNPwDfk?list=PLhGipfv0juZWw5lM_NyhY1n32UXVSn37Q
1940 animated version using rotoscopes. One of my favorite versions of the Man Of Steel.
Man got in a fistfight with electricity
And won!
I watched Young Justice when I was a kid, I remember the one in the black t-shirt only being able to do that. I think he was Superman's nephew? Idk lol
The superboy in YJ was a government created half human half kryptonian. He was grown to teenager in a vat essentially.
In some versions he's almost literally Supes and Lex's son as Lex was the human half of the mix.
No, not since 2009.
Wow, I have literally never heard that version of the story.
Source?
https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Kryptonian_Birthing_Matrix https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Armageddon_2001 Though I suppose it's possible it could have been retconned back at some point, and there could be continuities that just don't show the relevant bits so could be either origin as canon for that continuity. So may be more accurate to say for most just it's inconclusive
Well he's an Alien who is an American citizen more than likely.
Foundlings aren't directly mentioned in the laws but if a child is found in the U.S. and you can't find the parents, it 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
Pfft, you think the Trump administration would give him the benefit of the doubt.
When Superman came to earth Trump wasn't born yet right? He had FDR
AFAIK, current Supes is perpetually 28ish. So, he was born/arrived under Bill Clinton's administration. But Trump is trying to denaturalize people who have birthright citizenship without citizen parentage, so i dont think it matters.
In a few years he'll have been born under Bush!
Of course, supes is white!
There is proof of his origin, that hologram of his father that explained it to him
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.
I'm saying that when he's an adult, his origin is provable. In some of the films, Lex Luthor finds the proof
Yeah....but...MURCA!
America has two souls battling and it always has. It's Paine and Franklin vs the southern founders. It's Jefferson vs himself. One soul says we're a nation built on the idea that all people are created equal, with fundamental rights, and that government should be more controlled than the citizens. The other soul looks at a nation founded by genocide and slavery, with early settlers being the puritans after they lost power in the UK and think that's what they think America should be.
Each side considers the other un-American because we want different Americas
I love this. Thanks for sharing it.
I wanted to print a copy, and I went looking for the highest-res copy I could find. I couldn't access the larger image in the dc.com article you linked, but in case anyone else is interested, I found two at 2750 x 3778:
Everything upsets MAGA. They’re petulant children in desperate need of a nap. Sadly, they are using that energy to ruin lives, and destroy a country.
MAGA are mentally ill from propaganda... mainly with narcissism, but your critical thought needs to be corrupted to listen to Trump speak and think "that's my guy".
Snow flakes
A dirt nap
Conservatives unable to grasp basic plot points of a story thats been around nearly 100 years. Color me unsurprised.
"When did Star Wars become woke?!"
they don't get Jesus message, even though they say Jesus is the most important thing in their lives.
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
All I am gonna say is xenophobic Lex Luthor is always the best written Lex Luthor
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.
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.
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"
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.
Has there been any movie where fictional characters aren't associated with societal issues? I ask because I'm pretty sure every single movie does this.
Edit: OP Deleted their comment.
Superman got into the action 85 years ago.
https://screenrant.com/superman-first-hero-to-beat-up-hitler-not-captain-america/
Superman is woke and also "antifa".
{shudders, and clutches pearls harder}
Show me a piece of fiction which has nothing to say about societal issues and I'll show you a fucking boring piece of fiction.
Show me a piece of fiction which has nothing to say about societal issues and I’ll show you an author or reader who doesn’t understand literature.
I don’t think it’s even possible for a participant in society to write something that has nothing to do with society. We are all affected by our environments. Fish might not notice the ocean, but it doesn’t mean that they could write something that doesn’t involve the ocean, to really stretch a metaphor.
I agree, but wasn't sure I could adequately defend that assertion if challenged. 🙂
That’s fair, and also why I hedged about participants in society, because maybe ChatGPT could? But I don’t think ChatGPT can really write fiction, for the same reason my cat sitting on a keyboard can’t write fiction- the end product has nothing to do with intention or communication
Again we agree! :)
its like people that get angry at rage against the machine for singing about politics.
... that is the whole point.
They claim that they don't want movies talking about politics, but I bet they'd have no issue if the movie was anti-immigration
That's wild. Superman fought the KKK and Nazis. He fought for equal rights. My man threw nuclear missiles into the sun in the 80s for demilitarization. Superman is a political figure fighting for a better society. He just also happens to fight big space monsters from time to time as well.
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.
Excuse me
JesusSuperman is white, therefore American!A literal alien.
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
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.
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.
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.
There are people who write about Hermione feeling uncomfortable as her physical gender after taking the polyjuice potion to become Harry and wanting to transition back to her perceived gender — and who somehow can’t extend that to trans people in real life.
[:Looks vaguely in the direction of Jo Rowling:]
An excellent point. I'd like to ask Rowling, is Hermione still a woman when polyjuiced as Harry? If no, then she's saying gender is changeable. If yes, then she should be able to understand how internal sense of gender isn't dependent on the physical body.
https://youtu.be/xGVYK9GOVzI
Those people really need someone to explain the concept of subtext to them.
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.
It's not even subtext. It's just the text.
Hence the entire point of the original Star Trek. Morality plays disguised by alien makeup, so the mouth breathing rednecks didn't realize.
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.
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.
In one of the movies he's a toddler when he comes out of the pod
Well, Superman is an illegal immigrant. I don't think they have a US consulate in Kypton.
Only if he actually applies for refugee status.
Yesz a refugee application is a legal path to entry. Just coming and ignoring border co trolls makes him an illegal alien.
Too soon...smh
The state of Krypton! Yeah, say you're in Sacramento, just get on the 5 real quick... escape velocity quick. Look at the big dipper on your starboard facing shield and keep it on your reticle for 35 parsecs. Then it's just past the big 2354Kolonila poster planet. You won't miss it, it a really flat planet. Ask for Yorel, tell him you're friends with Kal. But you'll need one of several time machine types because krypton is gone these days.
Party of "fuck your feelings" huh? MAGA biggest cry babies out there. Guess it makes sense.
Apparently it's "fuck your feelings (only mine matter because I'm special.)"
MAGA is so fucked up it's impossible to tell if they're serious or not.
Then don’t fucking go and see it, Kellyanne. Problem solved.
I bet you didn’t mind being preached to for ‘God’s Not Dead’ 1-4 or whatever. Or ‘Sound of Freedom’. Or whatever Ben Shapiro’s dumb school shooting movie was called.
Fuck off with your hypocritical bullshit.
It's only a matter of time before someone photoshops MS13 on his suit. Then Trump will sue the movie company for hiring illegals.
(We're about a decade too late, and our engorged trolls are now our leaders, but still...)
I mean he was literally created by Jews during the time of Hitler as an inversion of the Nazi ideal of a "super man" who would go around beating up Nazis. His origin story is basically just space Moses, and his Kryptonian name "Kal-El" is formatted like the name of an angel, containing the name "El" meaning "God" (compare MichaEL, GabriEL etc.) Superman has been anti-fascist and pro-minority since his inception.
But if we force schools to change their curriculum to align with MY version of reality, that makes it true! Right?
Or it's just a really really long con for a ton of content creators to make content about "the shocking truth they won't teach you in school!!!". Because I guess that's the only way to get idiots to actually understand something is by packaging it in some hidden conspiracy wrapper.
I can't help but feel like when Hollywood switched to ME villains instead of nazis, it really had a large sociological effect.
Not that it was intentional propaganda, just that 20 years of "anything to stop poor brown people in the desert" had an effect different than "anything to stop the genocidal fascists".
It's because the scary Boogeyman has to be relevant. USA needed people to get onboard with current wars, not old wars.
There were also plenty of movies about the scary Russians too in that specific political time.
So you're saying it's time for a new war against Nazis.
Also they're a fairly small market. Which is also why there are few Chinese bad guys.
One of the recent Marvel movies had the 'Japanese' government as a minor antagonist that was very obviously a stand-in for the Chinese.
I confess to having given up on marvel a while ago.
How could someone take umbrage there? Like... read his origin story. He was born on Krypton. He got dropped on Earth. He was adopted by folks in Kansas. If I told people I found a child who drifted across the Rio Grande and adopted him as my own, we'd all agree he was probably from Mexico and not a native born citizen. But apparently him drifting in from SPACE changes the narrative?
But he's a white space alien
Hmm, an endangered child's parents send him in a craft to be found and adopted by others, assuring his safety. You'd think that would resonate with MAGA Evangelicals, who should recognize the story of Moses.
Bold of you to think they read any part of the bible except the ones they can twist for the sake of hatred.
The story of Moses is of God's Chosen People being insulated from bad events while the Pagans are made to suffer.
The moral of Exodus (and Kings and Judges) is that if you're following God's Will, nothing bad will ever happen to you.
All these things haven't suddenly become woke, YOU JUST BECAME A RACIST BIGOTED XENOPHOBIC ASSHOLE!!! AKA MAGA.
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.
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 PICTURESTHAT TWEET!!!!Lex Luthor: Make America Great Again! Krypton has not sent us their best or finest. Kryptonians are all rapists and drug dealers. Also, I am looking at stripping Bruce Wayne and Diana Prince of their citizenship because they say mean things about me.
I think Diana is an illegal immigrant too
The Amazonians are from Earth, so Wonder Woman likely never had one
Dude is from another planet but magat get upset he is called an immigrant.
People like him is why AI slop movies are going to be successful. They just want to watch pretty pictures and see the American flag waving at the end, not be intellectually challenged and entertained.
How dare we suggest that Superman doesn't reflect the full Aryan image? Sorry, I misspelled MAGA
If he was Aryan he'd have the common decency of having blond hair like a real Übermensch. The dark hair makes him look like someone from the middle east!
Thank goodness for the real nationalist icon
Captain AmericaThe Punisher.Science bless you James Gunn. Keep fighting the good fight.
Fillion’s response is gold.
He's one of the good ones.
I think this can be read two ways and one of them is rather tone-deaf. It's not just about the movie, that's the whole point of the original interview.
They were hoping to see a movie about the Ubermensch, not this woke comic book fake news!
Nah jk they don't read.
They don't want Superman; they want Homelander.
But they love zoolander.
...But why male models?
Some guys really like guys. Most guys I know love to listen to guys sing! These guys even try to dance like the guys dance! Its pretty acceptable these days. I like both the guys and the gals.
But why male models?
It could be Supergirl! How come there's no superwoman?
Or do you mean how come Superman is not played by a black trans woman who is also half Chinese, Native American Navajo, Peruvian and Australian who also really likes anime and is deeply convinced to be Japanese or have Pacific Islander descendency? Oh I bet there's only three of them and they're all very busy women. One of them is also lesbian and a polyglot.
Know the difference:
Hand model
Not hand model
or at least Snyderman.
same thing
If Gunn has balls he'll do the Injustice plotline at some point.
But he's white! How can he be an immigrant!
Shame they did stick with a white actor. Imagine the chuds losing their minds over a Superman played by Pedro Pascal or Michael B. Jordan.
Do the people complaining about it know anything about Superman? If you didn't think Man of Steel had commentary about immigration, you either didn't watch it or you're an idiot. I wish there was some way we could enforce a rule that you have to know something about the franchise you're commenting on.
I'm looking forward to when "MAGA" becomes derogatory like they somehow did with "woke."
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."
It already is for half of the country.
2015 That’s when.
Just taking far too long for it to propagate.
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
well, they have someone in the oval office, so they already have legitimacy. I think we're well past one-nazi-walks-into-a-bar by now.
They were able to take away the legitimacy of "woke" instead of avoiding using it to deny its legitimacy. Worked for them, might work for us.
Stupid people get upset over the stupidest things.
He wasn't even an anchor baby! He was sent here w/o his parents.
Wasn't there a comic where Superman renounces his US citizenship ?
Action Comics #900
To the limbo 'how low can you go'
How dumb can you get? How dumb can you get?
I only know the Ludacris version. Somehow it's still fitting.
I have more than a few things to say to the face of those people.
Just make him an illegal alien then, try to deport him, make him a Russian/Chinese asset.
(Actually at least one multiverse story comes close to that - but has Superman initially land in Russia iirc.)
Yeah and he's the villain in his own story because you can't have a Soviet farmer teach his adoptive son worthwhile values.
No propaganda or politics in fiction though!
Lmao, yes, exactly!
Remember, propaganda is only evil if it hurts my views (and by "my" I mean whoever is in charge, not me).
But Superimmigrantman was always (especially at the even-more-super-op beginning) just a comic about the model poster boy American with superhuman USA patriotism.
(And or with that, very one-dimensional, it took like 30 years for him to get a personality bigger than those of characters from short commercials.)
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.
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.
"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.
When I was a kid, immigrants were called aliens. Illegal immigrants were illegal aliens.
Goddamn it, now I feel like I have to see it even if it’s not a good movie.
It’s James Gunn, so it will be good.
I'm not a DC movie guy (I used to like the comics when I was young) and I'm pretty burned out on superheroes in general, but I'll watch it both for this and because I tend to like James Gunn.
I'm with you. I own hundreds of comic books and yet even I grew tired of the superhero movie thing years ago.
Except for Deadpool and Wolverine because fuck yeah.
that's what happens when you cultivate a following with snyder making fascist superman movies
everything is political
The director didn't do shit. People have been saying this meme about Superman being an immigrant for forever. It's supposed to be a positive about America and the American dream.
The people who suddenly did something different are MAGA. They're the ones who suddenly went against 250 years of American history to hate immigrants.
If the director actually wanted to make it political, why didn't he call Superman a refugee? Or an illegal immigrant? Those are both also true.
I don't think James Gunn decided that MAGA should make their new policy rage against immigrants. Superman was always an immigrant story.
...and...
The Superman origin story looks to be pretty clearly influenced by Siegel's own family history.