Superman over Times Square. Photo by Craig T Fruchtman/Getty Images
By PJ Grisar
July 14, 2025
The following contains spoilers for James Gunn’s Superman.
In a pivotal moment in James Gunn’s crowded but crowd-pleasing Superman, we see Clark Kent celebrating Christmas.
It’s in a home movie, part of a montage that Kent — played by David Corenswet — watches in the Fortress of Solitude, and it is a statement about his true parentage — and his true values.
Earlier in the film, a crew of Supes’ robot staff show him the message his biological Kryptonian parents sent with him to Earth. It soothes him, we’re told, and the dispatch is itself uplifting, with Bradley Cooper as Jor-El and Angela Sarafyan as Lara, telling him that, while they are doomed, he is their “hope.”
Though it’s delivered in Kryptonian, and part of the recording is missing, the message could certainly resonate with those who insist on a Jewish reading of the character, brought into this world in 1938 by the children of Jewish refugees. It reflects not just the hopes of immigrants for their children, but the story of Moses, sent out into the bulrushes to deliver his people.
But there’s a twist coming that is a major break with Superman’s film canon. Nicholas Hoult’s Lex Luthor, looking to discredit Superman, invades the Antarctic Fortress and uncovers the full message.
In it, Kal-El’s parents insist that Earthlings are weak, the Kryptonian bloodline is strong and it is the duty of their son, who they believe is the last survivor of his race, to take many wives and produce Kryptonian children on his new planet and rule its denizens.
The DC universe’s answer to Fox News accuses Superman of taking a “secret harem,” infiltrating humanity in an attempt to rule them. This vision of Superman’s origins also lends itself to a Jewish gloss — one favored by white nationalists.
Sneaky Superman, who can pass for human, brought up to believe himself to be superior and encouraged to infiltrate his host planet and change the makeup of its population? It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a variation of the Great Replacement Theory!
All due disclaimers: Gunn isn’t intentionally advancing an antisemitic conspiracy theory. The way he treats the reaction to Superman’s directive could be accepted as a satire of this kind of canard, and the racist history of fears of so-called “miscegenation,” if not for the fact that the words are never challenged. We’re told the message is legitimate, leading to a crisis for Clark.
The plot point — a variation of which appears in the comics — becomes truly problematic if you are committed to viewing Superman as Jewish by virtue of his ancient Kryptonian roots.
There’s something to be said for that perception in Richard Donner’s original film and even Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, where a heroic Jor-El (played by Marlon Brando in the former and Russell Crowe in the latter) exhorts his son to serve the people of his new planet, to be a beacon and ambassador of their lost civilization. The marching orders are basically an intergalactic tikkun olam and an example of a wholesome immigrant story.
Ironically, the nature of Gunn’s version, which he insists takes a positive view of immigration, leading to real-world tantrums on Fox News, seems to lend credence to what some anti-immigration hawks believe about those who come here: That they may be hostile to the values of the country they’re entering into based on the beliefs of their place of origin.
It’s very possible that Superman’s parents and their intentions for him on Earth may yet prove to be noble in subsequent films. Some online are speculating that Jor-El removed the objectionable part of the message because it was delivered under duress, possibly owing to the threats of General Zod.
But going by the movie alone, the question of what makes Superman super has a pretty conservative answer.
In a poignant scene, following a sequence where Superman dodges black holes while holding an alien baby, Clark returns to the Kent farm in Smallville. He’s distressed that his birth parents had evil designs for him, and fears what that means for him as a person.
Jonathan “Pa” Kent (Pruitt Taylor Vince) tells his son “your choices, your actions, that’s what makes you who you are.”
But the film doesn’t really buy that — at least entirely.
In the final minutes, the Fortress of Solitude robots once again ask Clark if he’d like to see the message from his parents. Only now when he says “yes” do we see Ma and Pa Kent raising him. The takeaway is clear: It was these cornfed Americans, with their Christmas tree and their down-home values who guided his actions. They are the ones who made him who he is.
This was always part of Superman’s story, but it once was blended with the heroism and pride of his Kryptonian background, the culture he was not free to celebrate but the ethics of which he internalized. Without that, we can’t really call Superman Jewish. Unless we let the Lex Luthors of the world define us.
