This isn’t yet another post analyzing the thematic or allegorical significance of the film. It also isn’t me dunking on other films while praising this one (though you’re free to perceive it that way). This isn’t like my others, where I argue some empirical, or heavily sourced factoid. No, this is a more personal posting—more personal than anything I’ve written here before. What I’m saying is, feel free to disagree with me, or mock me, or whatever it is that gets your rocks off. This is just my journey with Batman v Superman (BvS).

Politics

This is the big one, folks.

In 2015-early-2016, I was very adjacent to the then-nascent alt-right movement. By that, I don’t mean I was posting swastika-clad Pepe memes, or repping Kekistan. I also wasn’t harassing women online and didn’t see Anita Sarkeesian as the reincarnation of Baphoboogielucipazuzu. What I was doing, however, was watching “FEMINIST CRINGE COMPILATION #586” or “MILO YIANNOPOLOUS EVISCERATES WITHOUT MERCY AN ARMY OF FEMOIDS” (no, I won’t actually link these videos in this article). Not only that, but I was also actively sharing these because I saw them as funny take downs of crazy people by “smart” people. “It isn’t political, it’s just funny” I would say when confronted about these videos.

I am pretty ashamed that I saw the world like that back then, but it wasn’t until I saw BvS and talked about it quite a bit did I start to understand that “On this Earth, every act is a political act.” Then, from there, I started actually paying attention to politics, and to things I was watching. While I’m not a straight white male, and I’m certainly not a bigot (I would like to believe), or particularly right-wing, I was still a useful idiot for the alt-right in spreading their videos and their ideology around. I don’t think I’m a gullible person, and heck, I’d say I’m a pessimist by nature (most who’ve interacted with me would agree), but after being told by these anti-feminist skeptic types over and over that their videos aren’t political and are just satire… you start to believe it, even if just slightly.

By now, the alt-right pipeline is well-documented, and passing their videos around and consuming them yourself is one of the early stages. One of BvS’ central narratives was “who decides what Superman does, and does he have the right to act unilaterally?” From there, various people projected their views and biases onto him. To some, he was a god, to others an invader, to others still, a murderer. What this means is the simple act of doing something “apolitical,” like catching someone who fell off a roof, becomes a political discussion. It was understanding this about the discourse in the film that made me realize my “apolitical” actions weren’t, and that I was actively spreading around a gateway that leads to much darker stuff. This is when I stopped consuming those videos, and stopped spreading them around. I don’t think it’s reaching to add that without this realization from film analysis, I would probably have gotten deeper into the alt-right mindset.

Thanks to BvS (and the rise of Trump) I am now very political and pay close attention to politics and the issues of our times… but that’s a topic for elsewhere. I will say, however, it’s made me staunchly left-wing and very anti-corporate, as those were prominent themes in the film (and if you followed the Justice League debacle, there’s a lot of evidence for why corporations aren’t your friends and have no decency next to making a profit). Needless to say, I’m thankful for this transformation in my views, even though it can be depressing.

Empathy

“Martha.” Haha, mucho funny, very laugh.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s talk about the second most important thing BvS taught me. You read it right: empathy. The ability to put yourself in someone’s shoes and understand where their feelings are coming from. Again, I was big on the whole “facts don’t care about your feelings” rhetoric for most of my life. When someone disagreed with a widely-held notion, I would throw facts and statistics at them, and then blankly expect them to fall in line.

What a naive, silly way to go about your life. Batman had all the “facts” backing him up, but what changed his views was an appeal to his emotions. Would Superman landing in front of him and yelling the realities of the situation do anything? No, because he yelled “I understand!” He already has his skewed facts to back up his irrational argument—which is sort of necessary when you’re running on the 1% Doctrine. It was understanding this from the film that made me notice that the alt-right talking heads were always quick to cite studies to back up their dubious claims, but when you actually go check the studies, you realize the information from them are cherry picked and the conclusions drawn sometimes run completely counter to the conclusions the studies came to.

So since facts are easily-mutable into whatever truth supports your view of the world, maybe feelings play a much more important role than those of us who hold academia to a high level of significance care to admit. After all, why else would you prop up a belief you know is wrong by cynically and shamelessly twisting facts to suit that narrative if not to preserve your feelings? That’s why Batman, and the public at large, would never come together to see the type of good immigrants Superman brings to the table: because their arguments weren’t rational or reasonable, but were rooted in emotion.

“Martha,” is brilliant because it isn’t a rational argument. It’s not an argument at all, in fact. It’s two people coming to understand each other’s positions. It’s one person coming to understand that the narrative he’d built up in his head was one born out of malicious hate. That was something I wouldn’t have been able to comprehend back in 2015, and my first time seeing this film I didn’t buy it then either. But as I watched the film more, as I embraced its message more, as I engaged in discourse about it more and as I saw the country become more divided throughout the 2016 election process, it really resonated with me on a fundamental level. While it’s never brought me to tears, it has made me realize that callously disregarding the appeal to emotion is removing the humanity from a subject, not unlike what Batman did with Superman in this film.

Look, I’ll never stop being an atheist, but I can understand why someone would be religious, and will never try to talk them out of it. I will never stop being anti-alternative medicine (or at least highly skeptical of it), but I won’t try to convince you to not buy Gwyneth Paltrow’s magic vagina jade eggs. As long as you aren’t hurting anybody, more power to you, man. That is a view of the world I didn’t have until BvS. This new view is also why I don’t tend to engage in BvS debates anymore; I simply say what’s on my mind and then move on. Think it’s the worst movie ever? Again, more power to you, man.

Art

I always had an appreciation for art (written, spoken, drawn), but that’s all it ever amounted to. I always found art to be an amusing distraction, not worthy of being much more than that. I was (and probably still am to many) a typical STEM bro, only seeing value in those fields (as an aside, isn’t it insidious how extremists appeal to you by assuring you of how smart you are?). That was why my approach to films could be summed up as “What’s its rating on rottentomatoes?”

Now before you begin to roll your eyes, I’m not here to make the argument that BvS deserved more than it got (but let’s be honest, your eyes have already rolled); this is a different conversation. For me, if a film scored 59 or below, I considered it not worth my time back then. I didn’t have the view on rottentomatoes that I have now, and found their work very important.

I’d been waiting years for BvS. This was the first time in my life that I’d ever been excited for a superhero film… so imagine the crushing disappointment when I saw the rottentomatoes score. Actually, you don’t have to imagine it because I never delete my texts. I’d like to think that after all the anticipation, and all the psychological build up, that I wouldn’t have let a bad rottentomatoes score stop me from seeing a film, but who’s to say? I had already bought a BvS ticket from before the review embargo was up, so I was going to go see it either way.

And then I saw it. Not the movie I expected it to be. It wasn’t Batman and Superman punching each other. It wasn’t snappy one-liners. It wasn’t any of the fun I expected it to be. I was left dazed and confused, but I knew it wasn’t what rottentomatoes was telling me it was: rotten. So I went for a second viewing, and a third, and a fourth, and a fifth and finally a sixth. As of Zack Snyder’s live watchalong, I’ve seen the Ultimate Edition 31 times, and the theatrical cut 6 times.

What all this means is, BvS taught me that art criticism is ultimately just opinions, and are not empirical. It taught me that my view of art, thinking of numbers and likening it to my own STEM pursuits, was wrong (or at the very least, highly flawed). The physical world is quantifiable, but what lies in the human mind isn’t; art is just an expression of the artist’s ideas. It is this revelation (coupled with art history research) that made me come to appreciate many things I wouldn’t have otherwise, like Aronofsky’s mother! or even Webber’s Cats (more appreciate than like). There is no objective review, there is no objectivity to art, and anyone who tells you otherwise is a poopyhead liarpants.

Now here’s the controversial bit: I would’ve liked BvS less if it was warmly received by everyone. No, it’s not to be contrarian. If BvS was well-received, it would’ve gotten the label of “fresh” slapped on to it and the discourse would’ve died down in about a month, and we’d all move on to the next film to be mindlessly consumed. Heck, I’d probably still be satisfied by your run of the mill superhero film, instead of openly disdaining them for aiming so low. In that universe, I’m a happier consumer, but also maybe I’d be laughing at Jordan Peterson videos or worse. The fact that BvS is still so hotly discussed 4 years later, where the typical Marvel superhero movie stops being talked about 2 weeks later, is due in large part to the divide between those who love it and those who hate it.

Very few people have measured, lukewarm reactions to it, and in my opinion, that’s where the most powerful art is. Compelling art challenges. If people don’t hate it, then it probably isn’t challenging the status quo, or expectations. I’m not saying Dora the Explorer suddenly needs to start discussing the ethical concerns about border detention camps, as there’s room for comfort food, but I am saying that I’m glad that BvS wasn’t just comfort food or blind escapism.

Discourse

I saved the real spice for the end, gents.

But first I want to talk about Parasyte. Well, that’s not true. What I want to say is that I just don’t get it. I understand it’s a commentary about social stratification, how the rich view the poor, and all that jazz. I understand all that, but I just don’t get it. The film is well-made, and the themes carry throughout the story, but I don’t get it. I’ve seen, read, listened and lived class separation, yet film isn’t remarkable in any way to me. I recognize that were I raised in South Korean culture or the country itself, it would likely mean a lot more to me, almost assuredly so. But I wasn’t, and it doesn’t. I’m not going to say the film is bad, or trite, but I will admit to just not getting it on the level so many others do.

And that’s fine, I’d like to think.

What I’m getting at is, and I see this almost every single time, but a lot of people don’t get BvS. This film, and the discourse around it, has made me more open to admit to being wrong, or simply not getting something because I’ve seen so many people who won’t. Recently, this played out. The basic ABC’s of the plot completely fly over the heads of so many who deride the film as “bad,” “nonsensical” or what have you. If the most basic level on which one can engage with a film (the silly plot level), is beyond you, then how could you ever even begin to understand the elements of the film that have made it stay in the zeitgeist for four years? If the closest thing to meaty discussion you can get into is whether Batman should kill or not, how could you possibly understand?

When people discuss BvS, it’s rarely ever not on the level of “It was so cool when Patrick Wilson was the president,” or “It was so cool when Doomsday didn’t have a penis!” While those things are arguably cool, they’re just plot—a child can come up with a plot: a sequence of events (not even necessarily connected to each other strongly). Themes, structure, artistry, allusions—these are things you’ll find being discussed in academia, and in BvS discussions. If you won’t show the humility to say you don’t understand, then you’ll never see what we see in BvS. This is a good crash course.

To tie this back to the film’s very story, the primary antagonists in BvS are Lex, Batman and the 24-hour news cycle. Batman, Lex and the news media all know the narratives they want to push and project onto Superman. We’ve already talked about Batman coming to grips with what he’s become, so I want to focus on the other two. By the end of the film, the media has to fall in line with the public after Superman’s sacrifice because how will they profit otherwise? Lex is the one who never changes and desperately holds on to his position, even when he knows its wrong. When all of his plans have failed and Superman confronts him in the ship, the only thing he can manage to say is, “I cannot let you win.” Take away the word games, the pompousness and the control, and all Lex could muster was a petulant “I cannot let you win.”

Don’t see admitting to not knowing something, or holding a shaky position as a weakness. It’s a strength to know when you’re out of your depth. It’s a strength to change and grow as more information presents itself. It is fine to say that you just don’t get the film on the level that others do. It doesn’t make you stupid, or lesser.

Leading from that, I want to get to another point that often comes up from people who I feel don’t understand what BvS is or what it was trying to do: the comparisons. Sadly, I fell into this trap as much as these people did, I’ll admit. It was after many discussions that I came to the understanding that in comparing BvS to its contemporary colleagues, I was doing the film a disservice. I don’t think BvS can be compared to any Marvel film, not even any contemporary DC film.

Captain America: Civil War (CW) was Marvel’s answer to BvS, but to compare it to BvS was a trap I fell into frequently over the years, both online and offline. It simply isn’t comparable. CW wants to tell a story where heroes clash, while at the same time assuring you at every turn that they’re all still friends and aren’t really trying to hurt each other; at that point it’s like “Why even bother making this film then?” The answer is in the link at the start of the paragraph: to match BvS. But Zack Snyder was already fleshing out this film during Man of Steel and he told a story that wasn’t terribly concerned with keeping the brand squeaky clean and selling you toys. It was a real and powerful story, setting these monoliths of culture in our real world.

It came to light in 2019 that these movies were envisioned and shot as part of a 5-movie arc, so they were never meant to be part of some sprawling cinematic universe. Where CW was meant to be a disposable popcorn flick to keep the brand strong, BvS was meant to be the emotionally-draining nadir of an arc. Disposable popcorn flicks can be flights of fancy to escape a grey world, where you don’t have to mull the stresses of the real world and instead simply revel in the spectacle, but that’s not what BvS is, and judging it based on a criteria it was never trying to fill is like judging a triple bacon cheeseburger from a local burger joint against a meal from a 3-star restaurant. Likewise, I wouldn’t compare BvS to Aquaman, Wonder Woman or Shazam, because those are meant to be fun romps of action and grandeur.

I personally don’t care for film escapism, and I’m not the biggest fan of spectacle, but I’m not going to sit here and tell you you can’t enjoy those things; more power to you on that stuff, in fact. Just, you know, don’t expect me to engage in discussions with you at that level. The only superhero film comparisons to BvS that I think warrant actual discussion are The Dark Knight and Watchmen: The Director’s Cut.

Housekeeping

Well, as you can see, I wasn’t very diplomatic in this piece. While it may come across as a bit of a take down, it really isn’t. It’s a celebration of BvS and what the film means to me—not in the thematic sense, but how the film has impacted my life until now (but if you want stuff less personal, I got you covered). I’m glad I watched this film, because it got me into reading philosophy, it got me to follow politics much more closely than I ever did, made me put on my research cap for something other than genetics in art history, and made me learn about Hollywood financial structures, among other things.

I don’t know about you, but I know for me, Batman v Superman is the most formative film piece of art of my adult life, and I am absolutely confident it has made me a better, a more socially-conscious and a more thoughtful person overall. If this film is just a Zack Snyder dumpster fire in your eyes, then I hope someday you can find something that can be as positively formative for you as this film about men in costumes yelling at each other was for me.