July 12 2025 - 6:15pm
When James Gunn, the director of the new Superman film, said this month that the franchise is an immigrant story, it provoked predictable ire from Right-wing commentators. According to their narrative, this is yet another instance of a cherished American cultural symbol being turned “woke” by liberal Hollywood executives whose sole purpose is to impose their political views on viewers.
Gunn was alluding to Donald Trump’s crackdown on “illegal aliens”, and Superman serves here as an avatar for the refugees and immigrants who are targeted by MAGA. In the film, he is demonized by his enemies as an “alien” and a “Kryptonian”, accused of trying to destroy human society from within. The villainous Lex Luthor, meanwhile, is presented as a techno-utopian capitalist with more than a passing resemblance to Elon Musk.
Despite the Right-wing outrage, Gunn is fundamentally right that the Superman mythos has always been a metaphor for the immigrant experience in America. Earlier versions of the story presented the character as the ideal immigrant of the early 20th century, one who had excised any traces of his heritage and fully assimilated into becoming a patriotic citizen.
It’s why Superman was raised in the heartlands of Kansas by a modest yokel couple — and not in a major city, where most immigrants lived — to buttress his all-American bona fides. Indeed, it was Clark Kent’s move from Smallville to Metropolis which produced the bigger culture shock. American history is as much about internal migration as it is about welcoming newcomers into the country. From the Gold Rush to the Great Migration of black Americans, US citizens have always been a people on the move.
Later versions of Superman, including Gunn’s film, do more to emphasize the character’s double consciousness of being at once alien and human. Is his real identity Clark Kent or Kal-El? The director’s comments about Superman being an immigrant caused an uproar partly because it de-assimilates the character and places his “alien” status above his American identity in a way which reflects current debates around multiculturalism.
The contemporary case against immigration largely focuses on the idea that the immigrants now entering America are very different to the idealized immigrants of yore. Today’s newcomers are usually eager to embrace their hyphenated identities, often showcasing a diaspora nationalism even if only in aesthetics. This is why images of Mexican-Americans protesting Trump’s deportations by flying the Mexican flag riled up the MAGA crowd: it seemed to confirm their suspicions of disloyal “aliens” living among them.
Superman is not just a symbol of the immigrant story but a parable about American power. He embodies a hope for liberals and neoconservatives alike that the nation has a providential mission, that its strength should be used to stand for freedom and justice against tyrants and evildoers. In Gunn’s film, Superman, being a naive idealist, unilaterally involves himself in distant foreign conflicts to defend small peoples against larger forces without understanding the unintended consequences these interventions might ignite. Put simply, his good versus evil framework does not allow him to take a realist approach.
Superman’s story is all about how America is a land where anyone, no matter their origins, can begin anew. They can transform into someone entirely different, and defy any idea that their destiny is decided from birth. James Gunn’s Superman may not be the best version of this tale, but it is not anti-American. Instead, it is just the latest iteration of a modern American legend.
Ralph Leonard is a British-Nigerian writer on international politics, religion, culture and humanism.
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