James Gunn's 'Superman' Said Free Palestine!
Plus '40 Acres,' & Clipse Tiny Desk in Your Weekly Binge, Jul. 13 Edition
Saving the children of Gaza, Black and Indigenous survival, and a long-awaited family reunion: this is Your Weekly Binge, July 13. edition:
SUPERMAN
*Very mild spoilers for the plot of Superman*
I never thought I’d cry in a Superman movie. I haven’t put much stock into the character since I watched the Lois & Clark show as a kid in the ‘90s, and its star Dean Cain grew up to be such a racist weird MAGA loser that I would never revisit it. (Seriously, between him and that transphobic hag J.K. Rowling, I’m really carrying the July 31 birthdate on my back!!! Help me!!!) But then the 2025 standalone reboot premiered in theaters this weekend.
Mind you, James Gunn, the director of Superman and the new head of D.C. Studios, was fired from the MCU over some really gross “joke” tweets he made in his 40s about engaging in pedophilia, rape and other WTF stuff, so I’ve never been checking for his work, either. (Your regular reminder that cancel culture doesn’t exist!) I never even received an invite to a screening of the film nor did I request one. But then, I saw a post on Threads that said Superman was about Palestine. I was in the theater an hour later.
The plot of Gunn’s Superman hinges on an evil bald billionaire named Jeff Bezos Lex Luthor (played by my longtime boo, The Great’s Nicholas Hoult) in cahoots with an evil eastern European tyrant named Benjamin Netanyahu Ghurkos (Zlatko Buric), to invade and occupy a country of brown people, PALESTINE Jarhanpur, in the name of “liberating” them. Ghurkos rules Boravia, an ally of the United States, so despite how transparent his and Luthor’s “goal” of “liberating” Jarhanpur is, the complicit western media has no choice but to mindlessly parrot Ghurkos’ words. In truth, Ghurkos and Luthor plan to invade, occupy and genocide the people of PALESTINE Jarhanpur and split the land in half for each of them to rule over. Three weeks before the timeline in the film, Superman had stopped Boravia’s most recent invasion, and Luthor is more determined than ever to destroy Superman.
At the climax of the film, IOF Boravian soldiers in army gear, tanks, and sniper rifles stand behind the border fence primed to genocide the people of PALESTINE Jarhanpur. The soldiers are literally directed to “Kill all of the people of Jarhanpur!” The brown civilians of Jarhanpur have come to the border fence to protect themselves and their land with sticks and stones (!!!!!!). Their children raise a flag with the Superman logo on it and cry for him to come back again and save them. This is where I lost it.
This is a real photo by Fadi Al-hawari from the Zionist genocide of Palestine, showing a little Palestinian boy in Gaza City wearing a Superman cape as he walks through the ruins of his home. The real children of Palestine call on Superman—or literally anyone—to come and save them from this genocide every day. They don Superman capes in hopes that if they wish it hard enough, they can become him and save their people and land from this horror, since the rest of the world watches their genocide with indifference.
This is a clip from Superman, where the young boy hoists his makeshift Superman flag into the sky and whispers his name like a prayer. At this point in the film, Luthor has Superman on the ropes. We know he’s not coming to save Jarhanpur this time, it’s impossible for him to be in two places at once, as he’s busy trying to make sure that there’s still a planet left to defend. Luthor gives Ghurkos the go-ahead to begin the invasion and the IOF Boravian occupiers bust through the fence in their tanks, holding sniper rifles. One child-killer points his sniper rifle directly at the head of this little boy with the Superman flag. The boy closes his eyes, braces for the end—but it is not the end! Superman has friends. He sent the Justice Gang in his stead, and Green Lantern surrounds the boy in a green bubble and all harm just bounces right off of him, returned to sender.
I’m full-on bawling at this point. But it gets better.
Green Lantern then forms giant green middle fingers and blasts through IOF Barovian tanks and soldiers with them. LITERAL MIDDLE FINGERS DESTROY THE OCCUPYING FORCES AND THEIR TANKS AND SOLDIERS! It could not be more clear what Gunn is doing here.
And everyone cheers! And I can’t stop crying. I won’t spoil Netanyahu Ghurkos’ fate, but—yum. Delicious. Gonna watch it again immediately.
Most superhero movies are literally made in cooperation with the United States military as propaganda for American might. Gunn’s Superman, is exceptional. It exposes the Pentagon and the US military and its raggedy complicit media, and its collusion with billionaires as the enemies that they are. Whether its Luthor kidnapping and indefinitely imprisoning rivals, independent members of the media who voice the truth of his corruption, ex-girlfriends or anyone on his “enemies” list (hello, Elon Musk! Hello, Trump!), or the Secretary of Defense holding meetings at the Pentagon with Luthor on how to kill Superman, Gunn is very clear that Superman is literally an undocumented alien unbeholden to the US-billionaire class’s corrupt broligarchy.
Gunn’s superheroes aren’t agents of the state, but use the power of their humanity and empathy in conjunction with their superpowers to defend life at all costs. Though a metahuman who was sent to destroy and conquer—and has the ability to do so—Gunn’s Superman is literally an example of what the best of humanity is and can be if we choose it. In a struggle between ultimate dominance, power, ego and destruction, Gunn’s Superman chooses humanity, shared power and life. He doesn’t demand to be the hero of Jarhanpur, but shares the load to fight for humanity with the Justice Gang. In this film, the work of life, of justice is a community effort.
Yes, the fight scenes are incredible and entertaining. Shoutout to Edi Gathegi as Mister Terrific who has the hands-down best fight scene in the whole movie and finally gets his due after being shafted in both the Twilight franchise and the X-Men franchise.
But Superman is bigger than its sublime action scenes. By essentially putting an avatar of the Palestinian people at the heart of this struggle for humanity and demanding that the heroes of the world stand up and do whatever it takes to protect them—in the middle of a genocide and at a time of rising fascism—James Gunn has achieved exactly what a superhero movie should be. Only a powerful white man could get away with doing this in a blockbuster movie from a major studio. And I’m glad he did it.
Watch Superman in theaters now.
40 ACRES
Starring Danielle Deadwyler, “40 Acres” takes place in a post-apocalyptic near-future where all animals on Earth have succumbed to a disease and have been eradicated. As a result of the famines and global food chain collapses, farmland has become the most valuable resource. It’s every man for himself, as community can only be assured within the fenced-in boundaries of one’s own property.
Deadwyler is Hailey Freeman, a descendant of enslaved Africans in America who escaped to Canada and started a farm with 40 acres of land in 1865. She and her son Emanuel (Kateam O’Connor) have made a family on the farm with Hailey’s longtime Indigenous friend, Galen (Michael Greyeyes) and his daughter Raine (Leenah Robinson), and together Hailey and Galen have had two more daughters, Dawn (Milcania Diaz-Rojas) and Danis (Jaeda LeBlanc).
It takes no time for a militia of white men to try and take what they’ve built.
Thankfully, R.T. Thorne, a promising Canadian filmmaker with a keen eye for composition, has a deep love for the Black and Indigenous family in his story (which can stand in for the Black and Indigenous audience). Though tragedy strikes and thrills abound, Thorne insists on Black and Indigenous survival. And the gorgeous cinematography of both the Black and Indigenous cast, as well as the Canadian wilderness, adds to the peace and beauty of the story, even during the unsettling events in the plot.
Still, the final moments rush from violent action to conclusion in a way that robs the family and the audience of a necessary catharsis for all they’ve been through. In that way, the ending echoes the main question of the film: What good is survival if there’s no time to live?
Watch 40 Acres in theaters now.
Clipse Tiny Desk
Clipse is back! After 16 years apart, the rapping brothers Pusha T and Malice have reunited for the album “Let God Sort Em Out.” It’s a glorious return and old-school album rollout that’s topped off with an amazing Tiny Desk performance. If you haven’t watched it yet, here it is! Unfortunately for me, I’ve been listening to the album while reading bell hooks’ Salvation, and now I have *thoughts*. Be on the lookout for that piece later this week. In the meantime, enjoy!
Stay watchin’,
Brooke
Re: Superman, I said the SAME THING!!!! YESSSS!