This article contains spoilers for Superman.
Are you the kind of person who feels really bad when you run over a squirrel? The kind of person who cheers for the creature running under your car to make it out unscathed? The kind of person who feels temporary, albeit unbearable, sadness, when you see a dead animal on the side of the road? Then the new Superman movie is for you.
And I get it, because the new Superman is also for me. But i🎶n a , 🧔writer/director and DCU head honcho James Gunn said that a quick shot of the Man of Steel taking a quick break in a city-threatening battle to carry a squirrel out of harm's way really annoyed test audiences.
It's Called Save The Cat, Not Save The Squirrel
"It was probably the second- or third-most hotly debated moment in the movie," Gunn told Rolling Stone.
"They’re like, 'Why the f*** is he 🌳saving a squirrel? Why is he taking time out, saving a squirrel?' There was a cut where I cut it out and I’m like, 'I really miss the squirrel. He’s gotta save the squirrel.' In addition, there were also some geographic problems with where he ended up if I didn’t have him fly over with the squirrel. So I put the squirrel back in despite the protestations of some of my people on my crew."
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I get why people don't like the squirrel moment. I can see how it could take someone out of the reality of the movie. Like, if Superman can save this squirrel, how many creatures is he not saving? If a squirrel's life is valuable, why not the ants on the sidewalk that are surely getting crushed to death during the kaiju's rampage? Does this mean Superman is a vegetarian? Is Superman judging me because I eat 💛meat? This simple choice can open an ethical can of worms that most viewers would rather leave sealed during a popco❀rn movie's action set piece.
And, once you've seen the end of the movie, you kno♋w that Superman isn't above killing — o൩r, at least, vanquishing via black hole — some people.
Maybe Saving Squirrels Is The Real Punk Rock
But the moment captures so much of Superman's ethos, especially the version of Superman that Gunn introduces us to in the film. He's the kind of person who cares about the little guy, even if that little guy is literally little and not actually a guy. His actions in the film's second act are motivated, not by high-minded ethical principles, but by his desire to find his dog because it’s probably scared. He supports the fictional wartorn country of Jarhanpur because it🌳s poor inhabitants are being terrorized by its technologically superior neighbor Boravia — which we find out early on is financially supported by LuthorCorp. He stands up for victims; he stands up against bullies.
The kaiju isn't a bully, not real꧃ly. It's just a big monster that got transported into Metropolis against its will. It isn't actively targeting the squirrel, either, it's just an unfortunate animal who happened to get in its way. Superman saves the squirrel, but it isn't because he wants to hurt the kaiju. When the Justice Gang kills the monster, Superman is frustrated that he didn't have th💖e opportunity to transport it to safety.
By giving Superman an overriding need to help everyone, no matter how inhuman or seemingly insignificant, Gunn finds a way to make the character compelling, which isn't always the case. Though Superman adaptations date back to the 1940s, the character isn't the sure thing that DC stablemate Batman is. With his tragic backstory, moral conflict, and brooding inability to get close to people, Batmꦗan is the more naturally compelling, complicated character. But Gunn makes Superman's inherent simplicity just as rich.
Unlike Batman, Superman isn't at war with himself. But he is at war with a world that casually devalues life. Even if that life is just a squirrelꦓ’s.
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