How James Gunn sees Superman fitting into our politically charged world

apple pie. baseball. These are the things you think of when you think of America. Another thing that can be added to the list is the superhero. Since 1938, when he was Superman Honored to be covered Action Comics #1superheroes have become a major American export. And because he was the first, Superman will always be A little more American than anything else.

Of course, Superman is not American at all. He is an immigrant. A foreign immigrant in those days, and these words had a much different connotation than they did in the past. At a recent event attended by io9, writer-director James Gunn talked about how he felt His copy of Superman Fits In today’s politically charged America.

“When I watch the trailer and the movie, we have kind of a disturbed vision of Superman at the beginning. I think this is our country,” Gunn said. “I believe in the goodness of human beings. And I think most people in this country, despite their ideological beliefs (or) politics, are doing their best to live and trying to be good people, despite what that may seem to the other side and what that other side may look like. He is. I think this movie is about that. It’s about the basic kindness of human beings. And that it can be seen as not being cool, it can be seen as being under siege when some of the darker voices are some of the louder voices. This is what happens when you make the Internet seem like the world, when it’s not the world. “The world is us.”

Gunn likened it to his own experiences. “I live in a very rural area of ​​Georgia,” he said. “I see the kindness and beauty of people every day who don’t share the same political beliefs as me. But I think that’s what the movie is about, which is the basic morality of human beings. All over the world, by the way.”

Meaning, yes, Superman can be seen as a beacon of hope and goodness in America, the character’s country of origin, but also in the entire world the hero oversees.

Do you think Gunn is on to something here with his reading of humanity? will Superman Is it a movie that everyone embraces? We’ll find out in a few months when Superman Opens in theaters July 11.

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