I found the new Superman movie entertaining, replete with interesting characters like Krypto (the Super Dog), the Justice Gang (a motley crew of several superheroes), and a giant Kaiju-like monster, as well as cosmological concepts like pocket universes, an imaginative raging antiproton river, and other fictional eye-candy like Superman’s Fortress of Solitude.
But what I didn’t track with was casting Kal-El’s parents as dictators, which has no precedent in the eponymous Superman comics or movies. (At this point, I’m not casting judgment, only stating a divergence.) I wondered why James Gunn, writer and director, would do that. Then, I realized the answer to my own question when I saw the scene of Superman talking to his adoptive father.
Sitting shoulder to shoulder on the front porch, Pa Kent, portrayed as a simple farmer, explains that they (Pa and Ma) didn’t raise their son for some greater purpose. (Okay. This could be construed as not wanting to impose on their son’s freewill. Fair enough.) He continues to tell him, “Parents aren’t for telling their children who they’re supposed to be.” (Ma and Pa simply love him for being their son. Nothing wrong with a little sentimentality. But it’s another quote that makes me think there’s something else going on.) Pa finishes, “Your choices, your actions, that’s what makes you who you are.” (Hmm. But isn’t that just stating the obvious, which isn’t worth mentioning given its platitudinous nature? I would like to point out that Pa is waxing sentimental not inspirational.)
If you’ve seen previous Superman movies, you know this is a galactic departure from the wise words of a simple (but not dumb) father.
In Man of Steel (2013), Jonathan Kent gives his son sage advice. I quote him in full:
“You’re the answer, son. You’re the answer to, ‘Are we alone in the universe?’”
[Clark at 13] “I don’t want to be.”
“And I don’t blame you, son. It’d be a huge burden for anyone to bear; but you’re not just anyone, Clark. And I have to believe that you were… that you were sent here for a reason. All these changes that you’re going through, one day… one day you’re gonna think of them as a blessing; and when that day comes, you’re gonna have to make a choice… a choice of whether to stand proud in front of the human race or not.”
According to Kevin Costner’s portrayal of Jonathan Kent, Superman has a greater purpose (reason) for living among us. After all, he has always been a symbol of hope, fighting for truth and upholding justice.
So it seems apparent that Gunn radically reinvents Kal-El’s parents and Clark Kent’s parents, pitting nature versus nurture, portraying his biological parents as “bad” so he could contrast them with his prosaic parents, who represent a different value system from previous parents (2013).
But why? I’ve been wondering that myself. Could it be that he wanted his film to be different in order to attract Superman fans who’d otherwise be bored with the same backstory?
Or could it be that he has humanist tendencies with possible woke sympathies, wanting to challenge the notion that our nature is a design mechanism that—when fulfilled—enables us to flourish, in favor of reinventing our natures so we can essentially become someone else entirely, if we so choose, flourishing by simply being true to our choices? Or maybe it’s both. Minimally, Pa Kent’s quote seems to favor the second option: “Your choices, your actions, that’s what makes you who you are.”
(As an aside, I believe there’s at least one counter-example that holds that we should fight against our nature, that being our sinful nature, which was not God’s original intention for us. To behave according to our intended moral and spiritual natures, as well as our biological natures ensures our survival and that we also thrive. The implication is that we were meant to be re-inventors of our sinful natures by God’s power in order to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, not be conformed to the pattern of this world.[1])
[1] See Romans 12:2a.