The illusion of subversion: how Hollywood packages “progressive” stories
Recently, the new Superman film sparked significant discussion online about supposedly being an allegory for the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Or maybe it was about Ukraine. Or Kashmir. Truthfully, it was hard to discern the film’s political messaging. Superman depicts a generic oppressed nation, without giving any of its inhabitants the opportunity to express their identity, culture, or beliefs. Lawyer and academic Faisal Kutty notes that assumptions of the film’s pro-Palestine stance garnered considerable online praise for the unthinkable reality that a blockbuster could go against the grain. For some viewers, the parallels between the film’s antagonist, an imperialist ally of the US, and the innocent Jarhanpurian civilians, whom Superman swoops in to save, appears to be a condemnation of the genocide in Gaza. But Jarhanpur is not an accurate depiction of Palestine. Superman shows Jarhanpur as a sovereign nation, protected with internationally recognised borders, unlike Palestine. Superman absolves America as a co-conspirator in Boravia’s (purportedly the fictional Israel) aggression against the Jarhanpurians, framing Lex Luther as an evil mastermind who pulls the wool over the US military’s eyes. This exoneration of US complicity contradicts the reality of the Gaza genocide. It seems to us that Superman is not an allegory for Palestine, or, at the very least, is an extremely clumsy one.
Superman presents Jarhanpurians as ‘perfect victims’– passive in the face of colonial aggression, praying for Superman to come defend them, without ever taking up the task of self-defence. In a scene that feels almost comical, the powerless Jarhanpurians arrive at their border with Boravia armed with wooden planks and pickaxes (only to run away the instant the Boravian military, with their automatic rifles, armoured vehicles, and tanks, arrives). Not only does the film fail to force its Western audiences to reconcile with the reality of armed resistance, it also fails to make us confront the idea that colonised people have any agency outside of praying for a Western saviour.
In actuality, unlike in Superman, the Justice League is not coming to save anyone. Colonisation is defeated through the resistance of the colonised themselves. The fact that so many people saw Superman as a statement of solidarity with Palestinians is a testament to the rising tide of opposition to the policies of the Israeli government, as well as to how Gaza remains at the forefront of our cultural consciousness. However, it is also a testament to our failure to recognise armed resistance as a necessary precondition for liberation, and our desire to absolve ourselves from our own complicity in colonial oppression.
Films like Superman give audiences an illusion of subversion. The film takes the side of the victims of what could be seen as US imperialism, appealing to an audience that is hungry for justice, leaving viewers with a sense of moral satisfaction. By reaffirming our faith in corporate media’s capacity to produce narratives critical of American foreign policy, we passively accept the legitimacy of institutions that have spent the last 23 months (76 years?) manufacturing consent for genocide. By extension, we also accept the possibility that all Western institutions responsible for colonisation, including Western film giants, are redeemable and can, in fact, be a force against imperial expansion.
Late last year, Warner Bros. announced plans to create a biopic of the Israeli Air Force founder, an attempt, social media users claim, to “artwash” the crimes of the Nakba. In the same vein, journalist Asawin Suebsaeng reports that Man of Steel (2013) was produced in close coordination with the National Guard. Director Zack Snyder filmed commercials for the military force that sought to equate the figure of Superman with National Guard soldiers, and vice versa. Despite the militaristic objectives of the US state and its subimperial proxy in the Middle East, after two straight years of consistent protest against Israel’s genocide, Superman was still interpreted by countless people as a critique of American foreign policy. This symbolic dissent ultimately functions to maintain US soft power while absorbing meaningful critique into safe, vague, and ambiguous narratives. These two years of protest show our desire for a better world. But when we allow ourselves to get preoccupied by this brief sense of relief, that James Gunn is answering our prayers, we foreclose our imagination. Professor Ball argues that films like these “create for us the ‘undetectable’ environment” and “the less we recognise our environment, the more powerful it becomes.” Viewing Superman as an expression of our desires to see a liberated Palestine says far more about what we want the film to be than what it actually is.