MAGA’s tantrum over “woke” Superman is nastier than their usual whining

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 reported conservative men are willing to believe it The ultimate goal is to persuade people to reject movies music TV and other cultural artifacts as woke or Satanic and turn exclusively to MAGA influencers for their entertainment necessities The reasons right-wing pundits engage in this are transparent The biggest is simple attention economics Glomming onto popular topics is a good way to attract new audiences especially those who may not be that political and lure them into engaging with reactionary content It also helps feed the paranoia that fuels the right by propping up the narrative that all of pop society is out to destroy them and their way of life The ultimate goal is to persuade people to reject movies music TV and other cultural artifacts as woke or Satanic and turn exclusively to MAGA influencers for their entertainment demands Ben Shapiro s Daily Wire even has a movie studio where they turn out subpar content that only has an audience because they ve convinced right-wingers to eschew quality films as too liberal 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 thoroughly rewrite history so they can pretend that being a patriotic American means embracing authoritarian values Related Superman is super woke on purpose 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 specific 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 stated that Superman is an immigrant Superman is the story of America Gunn explained The Times of London An immigrant that came from other places and populated the country They were also furious that Gunn stated Superman stands for human kindness Immigrants and kindness are both canceled in Donald Trump s America so the right was outraged Jesse Watters of Fox News joked that Superman should have MS- on his cape Co-host Kellyanne Conway agreed wondering if the movie would fail on the assumption that American audiences also hate kindness and immigrants Dean Cain who played Superman on TV before finding a job better suited to his acting talents right-wing punditry was also mad How woke is Hollywood going to make this character I don t remember Cain s version of Superman so maybe he did go around kicking dogs and sexually harassing women like a proper MAGA superhero But honestly I doubt the studio would have allowed that This is all very dumb but what was striking was how brazenly dishonest it was If there is one thing that everybody knows about Superman it s that he s an alien who was smuggled to Earth Being a refugee is as central to the character as the cheek dimples and the broad chest It would be one thing if the Fox hosts were disputing the values of the movie In the age of Department of Homeland Assurance Secretary Kristi Puppy Killer Noem we get that be nice to dogs is an ideology that MAGA loathes No what makes this next-level evil is they were denying a centerpiece of the character s history as well-known as the date of Independence Day and the colors of the American flag Cain tried to hedge by admitting that Clark Kent is an immigrant but he attempted to spin it anyway nonetheless saying but there are rules and there have to be limits because we can t have everybody in the United States If he s trying to make this about legal vs illegal immigration well we all also know Superman didn t apply for a visa before crashing into the planet s surface This leads me to think Cain is hinting that the limits are about skin color not paperwork After all in the same rant he went off on how terrible it would be if the United States were more like Somalia Want more Amanda Marcotte on politics Sign up for her free newsletter Standing Room Only now also on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts There have been a lot of dutiful fact-check-style responses pointing out that Superman is an immigrant and the character was constantly woke in that he has a history of fighting fascists and KKK members But in a sense that was unnecessary because everyone already knows this That s where this Fox News gambit goes from being stupid to deeply sinister They are asking their audience to deny not just the facts but a fact we all grew up with something woven into the DNA of our American identity 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 reliably 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 The Superman gambit is the pop custom version of this In one sense it s not as big of a deal as the Trump administration systematically removing Black historical figures from the citizens record But it s still deeply troubling precisely because it s an attack on a story that s so fundamental to American civilization The right understands how crucial storytelling is to the way a society views itself Superman s origin story is as much a part of the American identity as Betsy Ross and Abraham Lincoln Before largest part of us grow up and learn the more complex story of how the United States was built by waves of immigrants who often endured plenty of racist resistance we were warmed up to the idea by learning that the Man of Steel is an immigrant who hid his true nature until he realized he needed to unveil it to be a force for good We need your help to stay independent Subscribe nowadays to patronage Amanda Marcotte s journalism Stories like Superman have helped build up the American immune system to demagogues like Trump who cynically build their own power by exploiting the lizard-brain impulses to hate and fear difference Trump got elected by stirring up irrational fears that darker-skinned immigrants are coming to rape women and eat pets But in a hearteningly quick turnaround polls already show that Americans don t like Trump s white nationalist politics when they see them enacted A new Gallup poll shows a shocking about-face in general opinion now that people are seeing horrific images of ICE raids and hearing stories of innocent people sent to concentration camps euphemistically described as detention centers During the campaign of Americans revealed they demanded less immigration That s dropped to In of Americans commented immigration is a good thing Now it s up points to the highest it s ever been in Gallup polling That bounce-back to basic decency owes a great deal to the fact that Americans have long notified ourselves a story about how we are a nation of immigrants and the best of us are often those who come from far away to build their lives anew We don t just see our family histories in the immigrants who are now being rounded up by right-wingers who threaten to feed them to alligators We see our ancestral stories reflected characters like Superman By trying to rewrite the history of the character that everyone knows MAGA pundits are asking their audience to join in a collective lie one whose purpose is to dismantle the core understanding of what America is and replace it with their dystopian fascistic vision for us instead Also Americans love dogs You can t take that from us MAGA Krypto forever Read more about this topic Superman can t focus on fame He s busy changing diapers The MAGA war on PBS was never about money Ben Shapiro is cracking under the pressure to shill for Trump The post MAGA s tantrum over woke Superman is nastier than their usual whining appeared first on Salon com