“Superman” director James Gunn questioned right-wing backlash to his new summer blockbuster by reiterating that “kindness” is at the “center” of the movie.
Gunn, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly published Friday, said he’s “curious” why critics considered the movie “woke.”
He suggested that such takes could be tied to recent comments in which he described “Superman” as the story of an immigrant before adding that he mostly sees it as showing how “basic human kindness” is a value that’s been lost.
“That’s the thing we can all act upon, is kindness,” stressed Gunn, who noted that the value could contribute to how people act, whether that’s who they vote for or how they react to other drivers on the road.
He later continued, “I mean, people did value kindness in the past. That was an American value, was kindness, and it doesn’t necessarily seem to be that way to me anymore. So that was always the center of the movie for me, and it wasn’t about anything other than that.”
The story of “Superman” has been viewed as an allegory for immigrants. The character’s creators — Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster — were the children of Jewish immigrants, and publisher DC Comics once shared that the Man of Steel was himself a “refugee.”
Gunn’s immigrant comments, which were published in the Times of London earlier this month, became the focus of conservative criticism and served as the topic of a “SUPERWOKE” debate on Fox News’ “The Five.”
The director, when asked earlier this month about the backlash by Variety, said “Superman” was a film for “everybody” before pointing back to his talk of kindness being the center of the story.
“Superman” — the first film in the DC Universe franchise — continued to flex its strength at the top of the domestic box office in its second weekend with an estimated gross of $58.5 million ($236.2 million total), per Deadline.