Superman's Politics w/ Glen Wheldon [Some Sunday Context]

This Day

Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia

History

4.6 • 982 Ratings

🗓️ 13 July 2025

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This episode is part of our "Some Sunday Context" series, new conversations and favorites from the archives that give some context for the biggest stories of the moment. Today: with a new Superman movie leading to a whole discourse about what he represents, we revisit a conversation with NPR's Glen Weldon about the comic book origins of the Man of Steel, and how he's always reflected the politics of this country throghout the last 85+ years.

Be sure to check out Glen’s work on Pop Culture Happy Hour, and his book: “Superman: An Unauthorized Biography.”

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everyone, Jody Avergan here. Welcome to our Some Sunday Context series where we are bringing
0:07.2	you some new episodes and some episodes from the archives that try and give you a little historical
0:12.4	context for the very rocky present that we are living through here in 2025. Now today, a little
0:19.2	context for the discourse that is broken out around the new Superman movie.
0:23.3	Before that, though, a quick shout out to all of you superheroes out there.
0:27.3	Those of you who have signed up for our newsletter, subscribing, supporting the show,
0:31.0	helping us do this America 250 watch in our big America 250 project.
0:35.9	Thank you to new members, Kathy and Ryan and Cassidy and
0:38.8	Melinda and Jimmy. That's just a handful of you, but we are really, really appreciative.
0:43.7	If you want to get in on it, you can go to thisdaypod.com to find the newsletter,
0:48.1	sign up, and help support our efforts. Okay, so Superman. There is, of course, this big new movie directed by James Gunn, and in many
0:56.4	ways the backstory of this Superman was to reboot the franchise, to bring in a big time director,
1:02.1	and I would say to try and get back to the basic thrills and fun of a superhero movie.
1:06.9	We are kind of coming off an era where there's been a lot of fatigue over these kinds of movies.
1:11.3	Maybe audiences feeling like they are weighed down with too many heavy ideas or storylines.
1:16.6	And I certainly get that.
1:18.1	I feel that.
1:19.1	I would love a superhero movie that kind of feels like a breath of fresh air.
1:22.6	But, of course, as you likely know, in the last few weeks, well, here came the discourse. A lot of it was spurred by the fact that James Gunn, the director, gave an interview a couple weeks ago in which he said, quote, Superman is an immigrant. Now, you can imagine the kind of alarms that that set off. Fox News jumped all over it calling the movie Super Woke. Very clever. The White House tweeted about it. People started calling
1:45.6	the movie Leftist and un-American, all without having seen it, by the way. My main reaction
1:50.9	to this was that it felt very performative and kind of stale. Like, I don't know. The whole
1:56.7	culture has gone to woke discourse. It has played a huge part in our politics over the last few years.
	...

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