James Gunn’s 2025 Superman film presents more than just a superhero spectacle—it delivers a pointed commentary on contemporary digital warfare and the weaponization of truth in the social media era. The movie explores how misinformation spreads, how public perception becomes a battlefield, and how even the most powerful hero can be vulnerable to coordinated digital attacks. Through Lex Luthor’s sophisticated manipulation campaigns and Superman’s struggle against an enemy he cannot physically fight, the film captures the anxiety of our current information landscape.
The Personal Stakes Behind the Script
James Gunn’s Social Media Crucible
The foundation for Superman’s digital dilemma stems directly from director James Gunn’s own traumatic experience with social media persecution. From 2007 to 2012, Gunn maintained a reputation as a provocateur on social media, often making inappropriate jokes that reflected his punk rock horror filmmaker persona. However, this past would return to haunt him in a calculated attack.
In summer 2018, Gunn came under fire from alt-right trolls specifically targeting his political posts. These accounts systematically dragged up his past tweets, leading to his immediate firing from Disney and removal as director of Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3. The attack was politically motivated, designed to silence Gunn’s contemporary political voice by weaponizing his reformed past behavior.
This experience proved transformative for Gunn’s approach to Superman. He has stated explicitly that without enduring this social media pillorying and nearly losing his entire career, he would not have been able to write the Superman script the way he did. The personal understanding of how digital mobs operate, how past statements can be recontextualized, and how truth becomes secondary to narrative warfare directly informs the film’s central conflict.
From Personal Trauma to Universal Theme
Gunn’s experience illustrates a broader contemporary anxiety: the fragility of reputation in the digital age and the ease with which coordinated attacks can destroy careers and lives. This personal crucible becomes the emotional foundation for Superman’s struggle against an enemy that operates not through physical force but through information manipulation and public perception warfare.
Lex Luthor: The Master of Digital Manipulation
The Social Media War Room
The film reveals Lex Luthor as a sophisticated social media manipulator operating from a high-tech command center. Most significantly, the movie positions itself as “Superman versus social media,” but the reality is that Lex Luthor orchestrates every aspect of the digital campaign against Superman. This distinction proves crucial—the problem is not social media itself, but how malicious actors exploit these platforms for coordinated attacks.
Luthor’s operation includes dedicated workers monitoring and controlling different aspects of the digital narrative. His team coordinates drone cameras, battle strategies, and most importantly, the information warfare that occurs simultaneously with physical confrontations. The integration of real-time social media manipulation with actual combat represents a new evolution in superhero storytelling, reflecting how modern conflicts play out across multiple dimensions simultaneously.
The Monkeys on Typewriters: Automated Misinformation
One of the film’s most memorable and comedic elements involves Lex Luthor’s pocket dimension containing monkeys on typewriters generating fake social media posts. This visual metaphor received significant audience reaction during screenings, generating some of the biggest laughs in theaters. The reference draws from the infinite monkey theorem—the idea that given infinite time, monkeys typing randomly would eventually produce the works of Shakespeare.
However, Gunn subverts this concept for malicious purposes. Instead of creating great literature, these monkeys generate hate tweets, conspiracy theories, and misinformation designed to turn public opinion against Superman. The hashtag “superershit” becomes a particular trigger for Superman, representing the flood of coordinated negativity that overwhelms genuine discourse.
This imagery serves as a sharp commentary on how much online discourse appears random and chaotic but may actually be orchestrated by malicious actors. The monkeys represent the automated and semi-automated accounts that flood social media with divisive content, creating the appearance of organic public sentiment while actually serving specific agendas.
The Weapon of Selective Truth
Manipulating the Kryptonian Message
Lex Luthor’s most sophisticated attack involves obtaining Superman’s private Kryptonian message from his parents and weaponizing it against him. The message, originally damaged and incomplete, provided Superman with comfort and purpose—establishing his belief that his parents sent him to Earth to help humanity. Luthor’s team recovers the missing portions and presents them in a way that makes Superman appear to be an advance scout for Kryptonian conquest.
The genius of this manipulation lies in its use of genuine truth. The elements that Jor-El discusses in the message—references to humans being “weak” and directives about ruling—are actual parts of the communication. However, Luthor reorders sentences and strips away context to create a completely different meaning. This represents a sophisticated form of misinformation that proves more dangerous than outright lies because it contains verifiable elements.
The technique reflects real-world information warfare tactics where selective editing, strategic omissions, and recontextualization transform truthful statements into weapons. The challenge for Superman becomes not proving that Luthor is lying—because technically he is not—but rather demonstrating that truth without context becomes a form of deception.
The Impossibility of Fighting Edited Truth
This manipulation creates an almost impossible situation for Superman. How does one fight an enemy who uses your own words against you? How do you explain context in a media environment that rewards brevity and sensationalism over nuance? The film suggests that traditional heroic responses—physical intervention, clear moral stances, transparent communication—prove inadequate against sophisticated information warfare.
Superman’s initial response—”I don’t read that stuff. Superman doesn’t have time for selfies”—reveals both his nobility and his vulnerability. His focus on real-world action over digital engagement, while admirable, leaves him defenseless against attacks that occur entirely in the information space.
Hashtag Warfare and Public Perception
The Hashtag as Weapon
The film demonstrates how hashtags can become weapons of mass social manipulation. The “superershit” hashtag particularly triggers Superman, representing the coordinated assault on his reputation and mission. This digital bombardment operates alongside physical attacks, creating a two-front war that Superman struggles to comprehend and counter.
The hashtag warfare reflects contemporary political and social movements where trending topics can be artificially manufactured and sustained through coordinated campaigns. The film shows how these digital attacks can be more devastating than physical confrontations because they attack the foundation of trust between Superman and the people he protects.
International Incident as Social Media Opportunity
Luthor’s orchestration of the Baravia-Jarhanpor conflict serves multiple purposes, but significantly provides content for social media manipulation. Superman’s intervention in stopping the invasion becomes reframed as American imperialism and alien interference in human affairs. The selective presentation of Superman’s actions—removing context about preventing humanitarian disaster—transforms his heroic intervention into evidence of conquest.
This manipulation technique mirrors real-world information warfare where complex geopolitical situations are reduced to simplified narratives that serve specific agendas. The film demonstrates how even unambiguously heroic actions can be recontextualized through selective reporting and strategic omission.
The Irony of Evidence: Selfies as Truth
The Accidental Truth-Teller
The film’s resolution involves an ironic twist where the same social media tools used to attack Superman ultimately provide evidence for his vindication. Eve Tesmacher, Lex Luthor’s girlfriend and social media enthusiast, inadvertently documents Luthor’s crimes through her constant selfie-taking. Her seemingly narcissistic behavior actually serves as comprehensive surveillance of Luthor’s operations.
Tesmacher’s intelligence lies in her understanding that Luthor never suspects her documentation. Her selfies capture crucial evidence including maps showing Luthor’s plans to divide Jarhanpor and create his own kingdom called “Luthoria.” The superficial act of selfie-taking becomes a sophisticated intelligence gathering operation that ultimately brings down one of the smartest men on the planet.
Social Media as Double-Edged Sword
This resolution demonstrates the film’s nuanced understanding of social media’s potential. The same platforms and behaviors that enable manipulation and misinformation can also serve truth and accountability. Tesmacher’s evidence collection shows how digital tools can preserve truth even when their users do not initially intend documentation for that purpose.
The irony extends to Luthor’s downfall coming through the very medium he used to attack Superman. After orchestrating sophisticated information warfare campaigns, Luthor is ultimately defeated by “a whole bunch of selfies,” as the transcripts note. This outcome reflects real-world situations where powerful figures have been brought down by their own documented behavior on social media platforms.
Contemporary Parallels and Modern Anxieties
The Persistence of Online Harassment
The film’s treatment of Superman’s social media persecution resonates with contemporary experiences of online harassment and coordinated attacks. Even now, as noted in the transcripts, certain groups continue attacking James Gunn personally, “rooting for this Superman movie to fail” and “clinging to conspiracy theories that every person who likes this movie is a paid shill.”
This ongoing harassment of the director mirrors the fictional attacks on Superman, creating a meta-commentary where the film’s themes play out in real-world reception. The persistence of these attacks demonstrates how digital warfare campaigns can sustain themselves long after their original purposes have been fulfilled.
The Conspiracy Theory Ecosystem
The film’s depiction of manufactured conspiracy theories reflects broader concerns about how false narratives spread and persist in digital environments. Peacemaker’s cameo appearance spouting conspiracy theories about Superman demonstrates how even heroic figures can become vectors for misinformation when they lack critical media literacy skills.
The movie suggests that conspiracy theories thrive not through sophisticated argumentation but through repetition, emotional resonance, and the appearance of insider knowledge. Peacemaker’s certainties about Superman’s motivations, despite having no actual evidence, mirror real-world conspiracy theorists who mistake confidence for accuracy.
Fighting Information Warfare
The Limitations of Traditional Heroism
Superman’s struggle throughout the film involves learning that traditional heroic responses prove inadequate against information warfare. Physical strength, moral clarity, and transparent communication—the fundamental tools of classic heroism—cannot directly counter sophisticated manipulation campaigns. The film suggests that new forms of heroism must emerge to address contemporary challenges.
Superman’s eventual approach involves focusing on real-world actions while allowing others—particularly journalists like Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen—to fight the information battle. This division of labor acknowledges that different skills are required for different aspects of modern conflict.
The Role of Journalism
The film positions quality journalism as the primary weapon against misinformation. Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen’s investigation provides the evidence and narrative structure necessary to counter Luthor’s manipulation. Their work demonstrates how traditional journalistic values—verification, context, comprehensive reporting—become essential tools for fighting information warfare.
The collaboration between Superman and the Daily Planet staff suggests that heroism in the digital age requires partnerships between those who take direct action and those who control narrative and information flow. Neither approach alone proves sufficient against sophisticated manipulation campaigns.
The Path Forward
Learning from Manipulation
Superman’s journey involves understanding how he has been manipulated while not becoming cynical about human nature or abandoning his mission. The film suggests that recognizing information warfare tactics does not require abandoning optimism or retreating from public engagement. Instead, it demands greater sophistication in understanding how information flows and how truth can be preserved in hostile environments.
The resolution demonstrates that while misinformation campaigns can cause significant damage, they ultimately depend on deception and manipulation. When truth emerges through careful investigation and documentation, manipulative narratives collapse. However, this process requires time, effort, and the collaboration of people committed to factual accuracy over convenient narratives.
Hope in Human Discernment
Despite its critical examination of social media manipulation, the film maintains optimism about human capability to discern truth from deception. The public’s eventual acceptance of evidence against Luthor suggests that while people can be temporarily misled, sustained campaigns of manipulation ultimately fail when confronted with comprehensive evidence and honest reporting.
The film’s conclusion, where Superman returns to focusing on direct heroic action while maintaining partnerships with truth-seeking journalists, suggests a sustainable approach to operating in the digital age. Rather than withdrawing from public engagement or attempting to control information flow directly, heroes can focus on their core competencies while supporting and collaborating with others who specialize in information integrity.
James Gunn’s Superman ultimately presents social media not as an inherently evil force, but as a powerful tool that reflects the intentions of its users. The film argues for greater media literacy, critical thinking, and the continued importance of journalism in preserving truth in an age of manufactured narratives. Most importantly, it suggests that while the battlefields may have changed, the fundamental struggle between truth and deception, hope and cynicism, continues to define heroism in any era.
