It's About Israel-Palestine?

One of the annoyances of geopolitics and fiction is when people try to neatly fit the latter into a hot-button conflict with the former. This is the case with Superman. The movie’s quite good, better than anticipated, yet you’d think the themes of optimism and hope would be front and centre. And they are! But some less-than-savoury folks have also speculated about one of its subplots and tied it to real issues unhelpfully. For this, I have to discuss spoilers. You’ve been warned.

The film’s secondary antagonist is the leader of a country called Boravia. An ally to The US, Boravia wishes to annex Jarhanpur, its neighbour, using funds that Lex Luthor’s been secretly funnelling. Initially, its intentions are only known to Superman, making him a threat when he confronts Boravia’s leader. However, when Boravia invades Jarhanpur and threatens to massacre its citizens, the ruse is up. There’s a clever commentary here about genocide, and some people have compared it to the situation in Gaza.

I’m not a fan of what Israel’s doing in Gaza. Like, at all. I’ve been transparent about that for some time. I’m also not making excuses for it, especially when I’ve heard plenty from people in my own community. If what I’ve read from Israeli sources is true, it’s a war crime. This is despite also recognizing that Hamas isn’t helping.

That said, comparing The Boravia-Jarhanpur Conflict to Israel-Palestine, while noble, does a disservice on two levels. Superficially, there have been many genocides historically: Armenia, Kurdistan, Rohingya, Darfur, East Timor, to name a few. In this century alone, there’s been South Sudan and Ukraine. Genocides aren’t hard to find, and while it’s worth calling them out, they’re also carried out for various reasons. Comparing this conflict to Gaza, especially given its circumstances, is disingenuous.

On a deeper level, the comparison fails once you draw parallels. For example, is Boravia invading Jarhanpur because terrorists murdered 1200 of its citizens? Is Jarhanpur being governed by terrorists? And is there an ongoing land dispute between Boravia and Jarhanpur dating back centuries? These are questions that’d have to be asked, and we wouldn’t get any answers.

Even within the film’s text, little details don’t add up: Boravia’s leader speaks English with an accent, while Bibi Netanyahu doesn’t. Jarhanpur isn’t led by a Hamas-like government. And while the citizens of Jarhanpur are dark-skinned, they have more in common with Pakistanis than Palestinians. This isn’t accidental, as I doubt James Gunn’s brazen enough to comment on one specific conflict. Instead, he’s keeping it general.

That’s why the Gaza connections fail. Besides, having a general conflict works better. People seeing two fictional countries going at it, all while broaching a serious subject, will get them to think. Make this a direct parallel, and you get more questions than answers. Not to mention, it doesn’t address the issue fairly.

This isn’t the first time people have conflated works of fiction to Israel-Palestine. The subtext of The Last of Us franchise has been questioned over this, made worse by its creator being Israeli. Even the Ghorman subplot in Andor, particularly its conclusion, has been compared to Israel-Palestine, with the Ghor being stand-ins for Palestinians. This is honourable on the outset, but it always falls apart under scrutiny.

Above everything, it’s also tiresome. Not every genocide in fiction is Israel-Palestine-related. Not every oppressive regime in fiction is Israel-Palestine-related. Not everything is Israel-Palestine-related, period! Israelis and Palestinians aren’t the main characters of everything that goes on, and claiming otherwise feels like “Getting Boss Baby vibes from this!” in its analysis.

If a work of fiction could be better used to parallel Israel-Palestine, it’s Romeo & Juliet. Think about it: two families, The Montagues and The Capulets, in a generations-old feud centred on trauma, one that annoys everyone and can’t transcend the love of its youngest members? Ignoring that last point, wouldn’t that fit better? It’s still tone-deaf and falls apart under scrutiny, but there’s something there! And it’s more tangible than what people normally use!

I’m sure some of you are ready to chastise me for deconstructing this headcanon. “Let people enjoy stuff!”. Here’s the problem, though: this isn’t harmless. Calling Drax from the Guardians of the Galaxy films “Autistic-coded” is harmless. Suggesting that Perfuma from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power is trans is harmless. Taking a real conflict with history and trying to force in 1:1 parallels isn’t harmless. Real people have died over Gaza, some not even living there, and comparing the Boravia-Jarhanpur situation from Superman to it is an example of poor media literacy.

I get it: you feel helpless about Gaza. You feel like our political system’s making it worse. You feel as though speaking up is putting a target on your back. Welcome to being Jewish. Take a number and have a seat.

However, if you want to help? If you want to feel useful? If you wish to make positive change? There are avenues. It won’t get better right away, nothing worthwhile does, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have outlets. And they’re more effective than shoehorning a real situation into a movie to score brownie points. Life doesn’t work that way.