Film Review: James Gunn’s Superman cements Israel’s villain status in the American imagination
▻https://mondoweiss.net/2025/07/film-review-james-gunns-superman-cements-israels-villain-status-in-the-a
Superman vs. Israel - made in Hollywood? J’hallucine ?
18.7.2025 by Mitchell Plitnick - 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.
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, 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.
A movie painting Israel in a villainous light reflects a generational shift in how Israel is viewed. Warner Bros. clearly didn’t see it as a risk.
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 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 (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.
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.
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.
SUPERMAN
Directed by James Gunn
129 minutes, DC Studios, 2025
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/.
