Photo: Warner Brother’s Pictures
Photo: Warner Brother’s Pictures
If they’re honest, most MAGA Republicans feel more affinity to a vicious, vengeful billionaire in Lex Luthor than in Clark Kent’s alter ego’s boundless benevolence toward the disparate human beings in his path.
Republished with permission from John Pavlovitz
And, well, the rank-and-file of Trump’s perpetually offended misery movement didn’t need any more prompting than that to enter into a full-on fascist freakout, with Fox News branding the film “Superwoke” and Right-Wing social media threatening a boycott, lest their unsuspecting children get exposed to empathy at the multiplex and start contemplating subversive Leftist propaganda about welcoming the stranger, caring for your fellow man, and fighting rich sociopaths.
Now, let’s put aside the fact that Superman’s creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were Jewish immigrants whose experiences of alienation, fear, and the desire to belong are well-documented pillars of the character’s origin story and narrative arc, as are many Biblical connections to both Hebrew and New Testament narratives.
And let’s shelve the reality that throughout World War II, Superman was a powerful visible symbol embodying America’s rejection of the Nazis.
What the current Conservative histrionics toward a literal alien delivered to a foreign place to escape the destruction of his homeland illustrate with crystal clarity is how far Conservative culture has drifted over the past 85 years.
Where it once identified with the earnest optimism and stratospheric hope of the Man of Steel, it now feels contempt for such things.
Though in the past, it would have championed the Kryptonian’s steadfast rejection of bigotry and discrimination, it now bristles at the suggestion of empathy for immigrants or defending the oppressed underdog.
Where before it had found a kindred spirit in a hero whose entire ethos was rooted in kindness, justice, and helping humanity, it now traffics in grievance and exclusion.
Ironically, if they’re honest, most MAGA Republicans feel more affinity to a vicious, vengeful billionaire in Lex Luthor than in Clark Kent’s alter ego’s boundless benevolence toward the disparate human beings in his path.
They hate Superman because goodness has become their Kryptonite.
They have embraced the calloused heart of their supervillain savior and now find America’s greatest ideals, evils to be driven out and destroyed.
The highest aspirations of humankind have become moral failings and character flaws to be freed from.
They despise diversity, are sickened in the presence of compassion, and cannot abide any real or fictional invitation to be decent.
And though that is all fairly disheartening, it also helps us all remember that we are on the right side of history here: the side of welcome, of courage, of intolerance for hatred. The more violently they push back against us, the more sure we can be that we are stewarding this place well
The core message of the Superman film is the simple tagline Look Up.
In days like these, when it could be easy to submit to the malevolence around us and admit defeat, it’s helpful to have a reminder that true goodness perseveres, it endures, it wins.
The heroic heart is fierce and unrelenting and unstoppable.
Look up, true believers
John Pavlovitz is a writer, pastor, and activist from Wake Forest, North Carolina. A 25-year veteran in the trenches of local church ministry, John is committed to equality, diversity, and justice—both inside and outside faith communities. When not actively working for a more compassionate planet, John enjoys spending time with his family, exercising, cooking, and having time in nature. He is the author of A Bigger Table, Hope and Other Superpowers, Low, and Stuff That Needs to Be Said.
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