Earlier, James Gunn sparked controversy after suggesting that Superman is an immigrant story, ahead of the film’s release.
Now, he, in an interview with EW, looked back at the backlash, coming mostly from the conservative section, “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’s head explained his remarks, which he made in an interview with The Times of London. “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 center of the movie for me,” the filmmaker noted.
“That’s the thing we can all act upon, is kindness,” the director continued. “And so what does that lead to? Well, does that lead to the way you vote? Sure. Does that lead to everything? Yeah. Does it lead to how many people are dying from road rage?”
“Yes. All those things are affected if people just start to value kindness. I mean, people did value kindness in the past,” the 58-year-old added.
“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 center of the movie for me, and it wasn’t about anything other than that,” he concluded.
Superman is running in cinemas.
