Pretty much everyone who saw Superman instantly figured out that it was about Israel and Palestine.
The core of the movie’s plot is a conflict between fictional nations Borovia and Jarhanpur. Borovia boasts a high-tech, heavily armed military and full U.S. support, whose ultimate plan is to seize Jarhanpur’s territory and use overwhelming force to displace its people. Hm, sounds pretty darn familiar.
And, as such, audiences got a nice thrill out of watching Superman and his Justice Gang pals fighting back against this obvious Israel analog, especially at the catharsis of what Hawkgirl does to Not-enyahu.
Now, director and writer James Gunn is insisting this is all purely by chance. In an interview with Variety, he said:
“Absolutely 100% of that movie was written and done before anything ever happened between Israel and Palestine, and everyone continues to refuse to believe that that’s not what it’s about. It’s not. It just isn’t. You can take whatever you want from that, to mean what you want, but I didn’t write it to be a stand in for Israel and Palestine.”
Wow, Gunn was really ahead of the curve writing Superman in 1948, before the State of Israel was established and over 700,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes! Impressive achievement for a minus-18-year-old!
Joking aside, Gunn began work on the Superman script in Aug. 2022 and completed it just before the Writers Guild of America strike began in May 2023. This means he couldn’t possibly have been influenced by events that took place after Oct. 2023.
Even Israelis think it’s about them!
However, it’s ridiculous to argue that the Israel/Palestine situation began in Oct. 2023, so Gunn saying that it was “done before anything ever happened between Israel and Palestine” is simply wrong.
What’s more likely is that he was consciously or unconsciously influenced by the Israel/Palestine situation, which has long been the most prominent global example of a key US ally stealing land from its defenseless neighbor, and incorporated it into his script. How could he have foreseen that, to 2025 eyes, his Superman would extremely obviously be about that – even to Israelis:
— Betar Worldwide (@Betar_USA) July 14, 2025
I am a man boiling with rage.
Yesterday, I went with my son to watch the new Superman movie. Superman! The ultimate superhero, a character created by two Jewish immigrants, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, in the 1930s. The character is supposed to represent hope, justice, and… pic.twitter.com/Vvi5RXeVJi
Or perhaps it reallyy is just a wild coincidence? At this point, ‘death of the author’ kicks in. Even if Gunn genuinely didn’t intend Superman to be a mirror for Israel’s genocide it, it plainly is. And, judging by its wild success at the box office, summer blockbuster audiences were eager to see the Man of Steel take down these murderous tyrants.
