Why MAGA's Superman tantrum matters

MAGA’s tantrum over “woke” Superman is nastier than their usual whining
Lying about the character's legacy is part of the larger right-wing project to rewrite history

By Amanda Marcotte
Senior Writer
Published July 21, 2025 6:45AM (EDT)


(Salon) At this point, the right-wing grift is predictable to the point of tedium. Every time there’s a pop cultural phenomenon — a blockbuster movie, a chart-topping single, a hot new fashion trend — conservative media and MAGA influencers rush to denounce it as anti-American, anti-family or even demonic. Labubu dolls are Satanic. The “Barbie” movie is anti-male. Conservative men are being traumatized by rap songs informing them that women can experience sexual arousal. (Not that said conservative men are willing to believe it.)

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My initial reaction when I saw right-wing media conduct its all-too-predictable tantrum over the new “Superman” movie was that it’s just more of the same: Claim it’s “woke” propaganda, work the audience into a tizzy of boycott threats and reap the reward of alienating their base further from the rest of society so that the MAGA cult is all they have left. Which, to be fair, is bad enough. But the actual content of the complaints made this whole exercise even more sinister. The attacks on “Superman” are part of a larger effort by the right to completely rewrite history, so they can pretend that being a patriotic American means embracing authoritarian values.

The furor, for those lucky enough to have missed it, had nothing to do with the actual plot of the movie, which was about Clark Kent learning to love his poorly-behaved dog Krypto. (There was also some stuff about fighting Lex Luthor and saving the world, but let’s face it, the dog made the movie.) The MAGA talking heads are big mad that director James Gunn said that Superman is an immigrant. “Superman is the story of America,” Gunn told The Times of London. “An immigrant that came from other places and populated the country.” They were also furious that Gunn said Superman stands for “human kindness.”

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This is part of a larger and far more serious effort by Trump and the MAGA movement to rewrite history, and therefore, to rewrite what the story of America even is. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been hyperfocused on erasing all acknowledgement that women, people of color and queer people have long served in the military, all to prop up his childish fantasy that the only real heroes are white men. Under the guise of stopping “DEI,” shorthand for “diversity, equity and inclusion,” Republicans are waging war on libraries and museums, censoring books and displays that reflect the basic truth that the U.S. has always been a multi-ethnic society. Republicans are getting increasingly aggressive about spreading Christian nationalist lies that the U.S. was founded as a functional theocracy, when it was intended to be a secular nation. .............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/07/21/magas-tantrum-over-woke-superman-is-nastier-than-their-usual-whining/