Superman 2025 shows us what it means to be (uber)human
Meta-human, or Superhuman, or very-human, being human is about choice
My latest article prior to this one was about the phenomenally successful erotic Fifty Shades novels. This article is about Superman (2025, dir. James Gunn), a film totally without ambiguities. I mean to say, there’s nothing that is not very stark and spelled out about Gunn’s directorial masterpiece, a film that simultaneously is exactly what we need right now and yet is also connected and celebratory of its ‘80s predecessor. Let me put it this way: Film buff
wrote that it’s the most timeless of comic book movies (it’s in the title of his review) but that it might also be “the best movie of the moment. Possibly, but I think that, as the world teeters back and forth near the cusp of absurd disaster, it's more interesting for a film to be alive in this present, having something to suggest or recommend to an audience wishing for escape from fear, neglect, and ignorance.” Well said! I agree that it’s a momentous film and I will go further to say that it rises to the moment in more ways than one. I’m thinking of the uncomplicated way it stages the heroes and the villains. There is nothing gray about it. The ethical message, delivered at last by the character Jon Kent,1 is that we determine what we are with our choices. There are villains in the world who are what they are by their own choices and those villains have a consistent strategy where the rest of us are concerned. They attempt to define us instead of letting us define ourselves. The villain wants to set the tone, the boundaries, and the rules of the game. If you play the villain’s game, you will lose. I’ve come across many people who have been grappling with this truism with respect to one very menacing President of the United States. “Don’t play his game,” one might say; or, don’t play as if his worldview is a paradigm reflective of reality. As soon as you give weight to his rules of engagement, you’ve surrendered, essentially. Just accept that his paradigm reflects Earth Two. Meanwhile, on Earth One we still get to define what reality is.Lex Luthor tried gaslighting Superman by shaping a false image of the superhero as an enemy of mankind, sent to Earth by extraterrestrials who believed themselves superior to Earth dwellers. Lex almost had Superman convinced that he was somehow a bad guy, a malicious immigrant, even though he, as Clark Kent, had been raised by humans and really only knew himself in human terms. (What does this say about the immigrant who comes to the United States as a five-year-old, or even younger, only to be told as an adult in 2025, by the President no less, that he/she doesn’t belong here?) It was Clark’s human father who reminded him, in Dumbledore/Harry Potter fashion, that our choices define us more than anything else. Clark may have been born Kal-El on Krypton, but in fact he has no memories of his Kryptonian (I suppose it should be Kryptonite?) existence and no conception of his biological parents except through a partially damaged audiovisual recording. I know I am human, he tells Lex in what is probably their most important scene together. “I'm just as human as anybody; I love, I get scared, I wake up and despite not knowing what to do, I put one foot in front of the other and I try to make the best choices I can.”
For Lex Luthor (a damaged human obsessed with patching up his imperfections with artificial marks of superiority) being Superman or some other meta-human is about having power over everyone else. For such a person, it is not responsibility that comes with great power; it is a false sense of superiority. Hence, the arrogance. It’s not about having the power to help someone you love, but rather it’s about, for them, having the power to bend others to their will. Thus, their Superman is a mafia don, an authoritarian leader, or totalitarian ideologue. Whether communist or fascist, their Superman is a person who has concentrated the power of the state into himself. Their Superman has removed the power of choice, of self-determination from everyone but himself. It’s Nietzsche’s Uber-mensch—German for, in a way, Superman, or actually, Over Man. The Uber-mensch is the man who has achieved self-mastery and mind over matter, who has become something more than what society has tried to mold him into. Rachel Maddow talks about that in Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism (2023). If you read nothing else in that book, read the chapters on Huey Long. It’s fascinating stuff!
Of course, the fascists in Maddow’s painstakingly thorough narrative twisted Nietzsche’s meaning into something I don’t believe he intended. But, well, that’s what ideologues do, isn’t it? They twist things so that the message conforms to their propaganda. They don’t take truth as it is. For the propagandist, Earth must become Earth Two, a place where the lies can be sold. It’s an alternative reality with alternative facts. The fascist wants to be a Superman, but fundamentally misunderstands what it means to be superhuman. He does not understand that a superhuman is still human. You can’t overcome fear and uncertainty. You put one foot in front of the other despite those things. That’s why it takes courage. If you get rid of fear, you don’t need courage. Humans who love, though, will always have fear. It’s called fear of loss and it is the price of loving. “Grief is the price we pay for loving,” said Queen Elizabeth II supposedly. It’s the kind of thing a megalomaniac fears more than anything because it makes him vulnerable, something that makes a person feel terrifyingly powerless unless you understand power’s true source.
There are, indeed, endless angles one could take in analyzing Superman (2025). I honestly think the baseline, or where we could start, is in the core message about choice and everything else is a branch from there. Our choices mark the things we care about, what we prioritize, what we think about obsessively, what keeps us awake at night, and what motivates us to keep putting one foot in front of the other. At the beginning, we have a Superman who is, at least in his mind, identified more strongly with the Super side—that is, the Kryptonian2—because he associates his superhuman abilities with the story he believes, based entirely on the flawed recording of his biological parents—the story that his purpose here on Earth is to help humans. When Lex Luthor “fixes” the damaged part of the message and plays it for the world in his attempt to turn the world against Superman, Superman at first doubts that the “fix” is real. Learning that it is, he is forced to reevaluate his whole sense of self. Why am I here? Am I good, or am I bad? Who am I?
Good? Why good? Because he wants to be good. He chooses to do and be good. Goodness, it turns out, is not tied to DNA. It has nothing to do with abilities. We know this from Dumbledore’s conversation with Harry Potter in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. It’s a lesson worth being reminded of.
The film is extraordinary and excellent in many points. I’m glad the idea behind Man of Steel (2013) was not pursued here. The 2013 film was based on a darker interpretation; it lacked story and was excessive, for lack of other words, in the whiz and the bang and the blow it up. Superman 2025 does still play out the whiz and the bang, make no mistake, but it has a solid story, a solid message, and it is bathing in sunlight. It gives us laughter. So much laughter! Mr. Terrific, oh my goodness! He is terrific. The whole Justice League is fantastic. (The guy from Castle as the Green Lantern is brilliant casting!) And in my opinion, the Jimmy Olsen actor is one of the delightful throwbacks to the Superman movies of the 1980s; Skyler Gisondo is not just comic relief, he’s comedy gold with his performance. We have returned to a lighter, sweeter Superman paradigm. Lois Lane, too, is portrayed by a strong female; that’s another echo from the ‘80s. I love the choice of Rachel Brosnahan as Lois. She almost reprises her Marvelous Mrs. Maisel performance in playing Lois. It’s more or less the same don’t-bullshit-me, I’ll kick you in the balls if I have to kind of energy. Most importantly, of course, she has chemistry with David Corenswet, the up and coming superstar who hit his performance as Superman/Clark out of this world. Again, we’re back to the light, hope and humor of Superman circa 1980s. As Arceneaux put it, writing about Corenswet, he’s got the love-me eyes and the desire to be a good boy.3
Corenswet personifies the fundamental idea that Gunn has said he wanted to convey, that is, that Superman is more human.4 The word Superman, of course, invokes an image of something better, stronger than the average….but there is also a sense that the Superman is also “super” in the less idealized qualities of humanity. He is more human in all ways, negative and positive, for better or worse. I love that Gunn made it part of his objective to show Superman “getting his butt kicked.” That is such an effective visual for the sense of vulnerability. It makes Superman not only relatable but lovable. Gunn has often said in his post-release interviews about the film that the core message is underscored by the very human feelings of kindness and compassion, feelings that humans too often disconnect from as we fight over stupid things on and off, but especially on the internet. You can’t love someone unless you recognize the humanity in that person. We love Superman (Kal-El, Clark Kent) not because he is faster than a speeding bullet but because we recognize in him what is like us. It doesn’t matter that he’s an extraterrestrial, another thing that Gunn sought to emphasize as the screenwriter and director of the film. Superman being from another planet is in this movie an analogy to the immigrant, the refugee, or the stranger. Of course, if you see the immigrant as an invader who wants to replace you, it will be hard to treat them with kindness and compassion; but what if you saw their hopes and fears, the desires in their hearts to make a home, to be safe, to support themselves through hard work? What if they had “love-me eyes” and just wanted to be good? I don’t know. I think the film achieves something very important in reminding us to look for the best instead of the worst in each other.
https://music.apple.com/us/album/superman-2025-epic-version-single/1786823673
Jonathan Kent, father of Clark, is referred to in the script written by director James Gunn as Jon. He is portrayed by Pruitt Taylor Vince.
Kryptonian, Kryptonite….the substance of that planet that, in Earth’s atmosphere, has a toxic effect on Clark, depriving him of his superpowers.
