James Gunn responds to ‘Superman’ is ‘woke’ comment

DC Studios chief James Gunn on Monday responded to the backlash ‘Superman’ has been receiving since he called the character an immigrant.

Gunn received backlash from US President Donald Trump’s conservative supporters after he said that the Man in Steel was an immigrant who came to America from “other places.”

Actor Dean Cain, who starred as Superman in ‘Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman’ between 1993 to 1997, said that the ‘woke’ narrative will hurt the film at the box office.

However, the film proved to be a box office hit, generating $406 million worldwide since its release on July 11.

James Gunn is now opening up about the criticism of the film being called ‘woke.’

“I’ve heard people say it was woke, and then I’ve heard a lot of people say it’s not. I am curious as to what in the movie is considered woke,” the DC Studios chief said in an interview with a US media outlet.

He added, “I think people took something I said…The guy for the London newspaper. Originally, he said that [Superman comic creators] Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were the sons of immigrants, and they wrote Superman as an immigrant story. And I said, yeah, it’s a story about an immigrant, but mostly it’s a story to me about kindness, which it is. That’s the centre of the movie for me.”

James Gunn reiterated his previous stance of the film being centred on human kindness and compassion.

“I mean, people did value kindness in the past. That was an American value, was kindness, and it doesn’t necessarily seem to be that way to me anymore. So that was always the centre of the movie for me, and it wasn’t about anything other than that,” the DC Studios chief said.