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FILM REVIEW: JAMES GUNN’S SUPERMAN  
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Mitchell Plitnick
July 18, 2025
Mondoweiss
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_ James Gunn’s new Superman movie, which draws an analogy between
Israel and the villainous country of Boravia, demonstrates how
Israel's idealized image in American culture has been shattered by the
widespread acknowledgment of Palestinian oppression. _

Still from James Gunn’s “Superman” showing Metropolis falafel
vendor, Malik Ali, helping Superman during his fight with the villain,
the “Hammer of Boravia.” , James Gunn's superman

 

SUPERMAN
Directed by James Gunn
129 minutes, DC Studios, 2025

_Editor’s Note:__ __This article contains very mild spoilers_.

“Truth, justice, and the American way.”

Those words are the long-time tagline of the DC comics character,
Superman. They are not as prominent today as they have been in the
past, but for those us, like me, who were great fans of DC comics in
the 1970s and 1980s, they still defined Superman. 

They were also one of several reasons why, although my youthful
passion for comic books leaned much more toward DC than its rival
Marvel in those days, I didn’t care much for Superman. I liked the
idealism he was supposed to represent, but his simplistic presentation
and, more than anything, his deference to authority was a message my
young and rebellious self was profoundly uncomfortable with.

So how is it that in 2025, James Gunn’s new movie, _Superman_, has
delighted me and many others by striking the biggest cultural blow to
date against the United States’ mindless support of Israel, even as
it commits war crimes and guns down innocent Palestinians on a daily
basis?

The dynamics of this movie are fascinating to watch, but the responses
are much more important.

‘BORAVIA’ IS ISRAEL, and is the bad guy

Since _Superman _premiered, there has been a lot of chatter about it.
The film broadly tells the story of Superman intervening against
Boravia—which, both in the movie and in the comic book lore it is
drawn from is presented as an Eastern European country—conquering
its neighbor Jarhanpur—clearly depicted as an economically and
physically ravaged country populated by people of color, many of whom
are visibly Muslim. The scenario is inescapably evocative of
Palestine. 

“Superman has gone woke” is one extremely popular attack on the
film. That one is rooted in _Superman_’s clear message supporting
the rights of immigrants, but it also goes hand-in-hand with the
complaint that the character has been warped by the “liberal
media” to condemn Israel.

Even leaving aside the notion that Superman, as a character, ever
represented anything other than kindness and caring for all, even if
in a highly pro-American way, the arguments are silly. Anyone who is
familiar with the character would recognize Superman’s simple
argument when he is criticized for stopping the surrogate for Israel
in this film, Boravia, from slaughtering innocent and helpless
civilians: “People were going to die!”

Superman’s strength as a character is his idealism, which often
spills over into extreme naivete, and his determination to treat all
life as precious and equal. That’s what the crowd whining that
“Superman has gone woke” just can’t grasp.

Since Israel, Palestine, or any other country—save the United
States, of course—is not mentioned in _Superman_, the metaphor of
Boravia can be interpreted, or denied, at the viewer’s whim. But to
do so, one has to ignore the unambiguous evidence in the film. 

James Gunn, who wrote and directed _Superman_, insists that Boravia
and its neighboring country Jarhanpur, are not direct references to
Israel and Palestine
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but his explanation is very telling. 

“When I wrote this the Middle Eastern conflict wasn’t happening.
So I tried to do little things to move it away from that, but it
doesn’t have anything to do with the Middle East… [the movie
depicts an] invasion by a much more powerful country run by a despot
into a country that’s problematic in terms of its political history,
but has totally no defense against the other country,” which he said
“really is fictional.”

Just from the statement that “the Middle Eastern conflict wasn’t
happening,” we can tell that Gunn is not deeply learned in Israel
and Palestine, although what he probably meant was that October 7 had
not yet happened (he started writing the film in late 2022) and
neither had the overt genocide in Gaza. As such, it may be fair to
take him at his word that he was referencing a broader idea.

But it’s an inescapable reality that the powerful country vs a
helpless people describes Israel and the Palestinians, especially in
Gaza. 

Sure, in addition to Israel and Palestine there are a few parallels
with Russia and Ukraine. But that allegory doesn’t really fit since
Boravia was said to be a close U.S. ally. Plus Ukraine, while
certainly not the military power Russia is, is clearly far from
helpless in the face of Russian aggression. 

The deep relationship between the Boravian dictator (who speaks with a
thick Russian or Eastern European accent and looks like a caricature
mix of Benjamin Netanyahu and David Ben-Gurion) and the American
corporate sector resembles Netanyahu, even while his alienation from
the American political sector might evoke Putin a bit more.

But the Israel-Palestine metaphor is clearly there. It may have been
one among several examples of the political dynamic in Gunn’s head,
but what emerges on film is unmistakably influenced by Israel, even if
not solely so. 

Gunn likely did not want to be too on the nose with his allegory,
although he pretty clearly failed at that effort. More importantly,
this movie is the foundation for what he and his backers at Warner
Bros./Discovery hope will be a multi-billion-dollar franchise to rival
that of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He wants the political debate
to enhance the film and its legacy, not to overwhelm it, so some
degree of space to be evasive about politics is prudent.

More important than the writer’s intentions, though, is that the
political conflict depicted was so quickly seen for what it is.

PROFOUND CULTURE SHIFT

In the past, even the very recent past, it would have been
unfathomable for an American summer blockbuster film to show Israel,
even a metaphorical Israel, as an invading, corrupt country whose
neighbors were in such terror they had to pray for a superhero to save
them, or all hope would be lost.

A writer would have come to the studio with a script like that, even
one where the allusion to Israel was obscured to a much greater
degree, and it would have been tossed out. There might be fear of
backlash, or it simply might be that this concept would be seen as too
challenging for Americans who still hold on to the mythical image of
Israel as either the poor victim of the ravenous Arab and Muslim
hordes or the plucky little state that rose to become a military power
and key American ally. But that didn’t happen here.

The fact that Gunn wrote this movie is notable enough. But
Warner/Discovery spent $225 million to make it and anticipates another
$125 million in advertising. That’s a significant investment.
Moreover, they have two more high-budget films in the works, eight
more in development, as well as two more television series in
production and five more in pre-production.

If _Superman_ failed at the box office or caused a backlash that might
lead to boycotts of DC media, it would be a disaster. But there
hasn’t been a hint of trepidation or pressure on Gunn to soften this
message. Warner Bros./Discovery CEO David Zaslav is known for his
frugality, his willingness to scrap projects just for tax breaks, and
for a relatively conservative approach. He obviously didn’t see this
as much of a risk.

A movie painting Israel in a villainous light reflects the change in
generations as well. After all, the older audience, the folks still
denying the real nature of Israel, is not the target of this film. Nor
am I, as a man in his late 50s. It’s younger people, and they see
Israel differently.

NO GOING BACK TO AN IDEALIZED ISRAEL

More than just reflecting that shift, a movie like _Superman_
entrenches it culturally in a way that all the political activism,
analysis, protests, and even exposure of the truth can’t. It
normalizes the view of Israel as an aggressor state. That’s why it
provokes denial from the likes of far-right Israel backer pundit Ben
Shapiro [[link removed]] and hysteria
from other pro-Israel zealots who don’t deny the reality of the
movie.

Consider the words of the far-right, racist Israeli rapper known as
Hatzel [[link removed]] (The
Shadow): 

“Instead of presenting a character who defends the weak and fights
for justice, they turned it into a disgusting political caricature,
where Israel (under a different name) is portrayed as a fascist state,
a warmonger, and a close ally of the U.S., which supplies advanced
weaponry to fight ‘poor and miserable farmers (the good
Palestinians) with pitchforks and stones.’ And Superman? He comes to
save them from bloodthirsty Israel. This is literally a film of
incitement against us… And I will tell you here, clearly: The
liberal Jews in America are the main contributors to anti-Semitism in
the U.S…There is no greater enemy to an Israeli than the progressive
American Jew.”

The bile and hate of this racist activist are typical of the responses
from the pro-Israel and Israeli far-right. But as much as they might
rant, they can’t avoid the fact that the world now sees what Israel
does every day, and that a more realistic understanding of Israel is
becoming not just a debating point or a political issue but a part of
the cultural zeitgeist.

It’s not just about Israel. _Superman_ goes to great lengths to
present the hero as an independent actor, following only his own
ethical code. The other superheroes in the film are sponsored by a
huge corporation. They eventually come around and help Superman, but
it takes a while.

This might have been what pleased me most. The second blockbuster
movie about Superman, back in 1980, ended with Superman flying through
space carrying an American flag. But the U.S. comes off very badly in
this movie.

Superman is betrayed by the U.S. and handed over to his nemesis, Lex
Luthor, who imprisons him. He is told he has no rights since he is an
alien (i.e., immigrant). The U.S. also continues to back Boravia
throughout the movie, and Superman is criticized for interfering in
the murderous Boravian operation without American authorization. As
more of the nefarious plot is uncovered, the U.S. government stands by
doing nothing and never taking responsibility for its actions. Only
the superheroes are working to save the day.

_Superman_ doesn’t only challenge the long-held, false image of
innocent Israel, it also challenges Americans’ fecklessness, the
ease with which its government is manipulated, and its blind, greedy,
self-serving arrogance. Of course, it treads lightly on this point;
again, there is only so much Gunn wanted to dive into political
issues. It is, after all, a light-hearted fantasy movie that is
expected to launch a series that will bring in a ton of money.

But _Superman_ proves there is no going back to the idealization of
Israel that was kick-started back in 1960 when Paul Newman
romanticized Israel’s creation in the film _Exodus_, and boomed
after the 1967 war. The delusion about Israel’s colonialist birth
and apartheid life has been shattered by the exposure of its genocidal
present. And a movie like _Superman_ ingrains that shattered image
into our culture. This, like Superman himself, might just provide a
bit of hope in these dark times. 

MITCHELL PLITNICK
Mitchell Plitnick is the president of ReThinking Foreign Policy. He is
the co-author of Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive
Politics and maintains the Cutting Through newsletter on Substack at
mitchellplitnick.substack.com/
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* Superman
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* Comic Books
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* Israel
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