Ever since Superman hit theaters, the film’s political message has been widely debated, and writer/director James Gunn’s recent comments about the DC movie’s parallels to the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict have reinvigorated the discussion. This comes as a result of the geopolitical storyline in Superman, where David Corneswet’s Man of Steel intervenes to stop a war between two countries.

Boravia, an ally of the United States, invades Jarhanpur, a more impoverished country and no friend to the U.S., under the guise of freeing the nation from a tyrannical regime. However, Superman intervenes in an effort to prevent the loss of human life, destroying some of Boravia’s tanks and other weaponry before confronting Boravian President Vasil Ghurkos (Zlatko Burić) to convince him to stop the war.

As Superman tells Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan), “Whether or not Jarhanpur is an imperfect country does not give another nation a right to invade it.” While that statement could apply to a number of real-world conflicts, audiences have largely ᴀssumed the inspiration for Superman’s geopolitical storyline is the Israel-Palestine conflict, which has escalated since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks.

However, Gunn has pushed back on the idea that the Israel-Palestine conflict directly influenced the plot of his DC movie. It’s not necessarily a new stance for the writer/director, who has previously maintained he finished the script in 2023 before the October 7 attacks, but it has revived the discussion on Superman‘s thematic meaning.

What James Gunn Said About Superman’s Real-Life Inspirations

Prior to the release of Superman in July, Gunn spoke to The Times of London about whether Boravia and Jarhanpur have real-world counterparts, and the filmmaker insisted they aren’t rooted in any specific inspirations:

But when I wrote this the Middle Eastern conflict wasn’t happening. So I tried to do little things to move it away from that, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the Middle East. It’s an invasion by a much more powerful country run by a despot into a country that’s problematic in terms of its political history, but has totally no defense against the other country. It really is fictional.

More recently, Gunn was interviewed by Variety about Peacemaker season 2, which has seen its тιтular anti-hero exploring an alternate dimension that, in the most recent episode, is revealed to be run by Nazis. When asked what it’s like having written a TV show that’s become particularly prescient thanks to the real-world rise of fascism, Gunn touched on the discussion surrounding Superman:

I mean, there’s weird things with this show. There were weird things with “Superman.” Absolutely 100% of that movie was written and done before anything ever happened between Israel and Palestine, and everyone continues to refuse to believe that that’s not what it’s about. It’s not. It just isn’t. You can take whatever you want from that, to mean what you want, but I didn’t write it to be a stand in for Israel and Palestine.

It’s important to remember that when Gunn says Superman was written before what happened with Israel and Palestine, he’s speaking specifically about the escalation of that conflict in October 2023. Variety reported that the Superman script was done by May 2023, which was five months prior to the Hamas attacks. Although Israel and Palestine have a longer history, Gunn is referring to the most recent conflict.

Superman’s Meaning Is Bigger Than James Gunn’s Intentions

In the days since Gunn’s most recent comments have been made public, the debate over Superman‘s meaning has gotten new life. It’s been argued that Gunn saying Superman isn’t directly based on the Israel-Palestine conflict weakens the movie’s political message, but the opposite is true — presuming one agrees with the concept of “The Death of the Author.”

The term “The Death of the Author” originates from a 1967 essay by literary theorist Roland Barthes, in which he argues that an artist’s intentions shouldn’t matter more than the audience’s interpretation. The definitive message or meaning of a work, in this case a movie, is determined by each individual’s reading of the film, rather than the filmmaker.

Although Gunn has repeatedly insisted he wrote the Boravian-Jarhanpur war in Superman without intending to recreate or reference real-world conflicts, no movie exists in a vacuum. Outside factors will always affect how a work is viewed, whether it’s the context of the filmmaker’s past work, a particular genre or the broader history of world events.

Ultimately, the question then becomes whether the filmmaker’s stated intentions, or the influence of those external factors, matters more to each viewer. For almost 90 years, Superman has existed as an avatar or proxy for so many of the world’s ideas and issues. Gunn’s film underscores the likelihood that Superman, above almost every other costumed hero, will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.