![]() Much is made these days about Superman’s Jewish roots. In embracing assimilation, Snyder and Batman are arguably merely in comic book tradition. He’s wrong for failing to realize that Superman-through heritage and choice-isn’t one of those different people. Batman isn’t wrong for hating people who are different. But instead it validates it by suggesting that aliens are okay only when they’re exactly like us. The film perhaps wants to condemn bigotry. Instead, it makes him recognize that he and Superman have someone who could be the same mother. ![]() The magic word “Martha” doesn’t make Batman realize that outsiders have mothers, really. With his hand on Superman’s throat he prepares for the coup de grace with a kryptonite spear, but he pauses when Superman gasps, “You’re letting him kill Martha!” So Batman and Superman bash each other around the screen for a while, until Batman’s kryptonite allows him to win. He then kidnaps Superman’s mother, Martha Kent, and demands that Superman kill Batman. Luthor allows Batman to get his hands on some kryptonite, which can weaken Superman. Zack Snyder’s parable about acceptance and heroic courage is notably timid in most ways that matter. “You were never even a man.” Intentionally or not, Batman’s bile echoes anti-immigrant prejudices directed at so-called model minorities like Jews and Asians, who tend to be seen as both unhuman and as feminized weaklings. ![]() Batman, aka Bruce Wayne, calls Superman a “freak”, mocks his costume (derived from his ethnic Kryptonian heritage) and sneers at him for being an outsider. Luthor convinces Batman (Ben Affleck) in particular that Superman’s enormous power and alienness makes him a threat to humanity. But to summarize, the evil billionaire Lex Luthor (that’s Eisenberg) has manipulated the media and the public into mistrusting Superman. Snyder obviously seems extremely proud of himself for noticing both Martha and Martha at the same time, and he turns the coincidence into a supposedly uplifting, but actually depressing, parable about assimilation and the limits of solidarity.īatman v Superman has, inevitably, a ton of plot. With his typically dour over-carbonated fannishness, director Zack Snyder hinged his film on the fact that Superman’s mom and Batman’s mom in the comic book source material happened to have the same common and unexceptional first name. Nothing summed up the heartfelt bumbling more than the close-up of a battered Superman choking out a weak but impassioned, “You’re letting him kill Martha!”Īs fans of the movie are aware, there’s not just one Martha in the movie, but two. In 2016, as the Trump campaign ramped up, the movie read as a heartfelt but bumbling pro-immigrant declaration, with Henry Cavill’s Superman as the alien outsider who sacrifices himself for true American values. Picturesįive years ago the excessively titled Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice lumbered onto cineplex screens for 150-odd hours of darkly lit fight scenes, ponderous blaring music, clenched jaws and Jesse Eisenberg manically chewing up as much scenery as possible. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Warner Bros.
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