{"id":74526,"date":"2025-07-19T04:57:16","date_gmt":"2025-07-19T04:57:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/74526\/"},"modified":"2025-07-19T04:57:16","modified_gmt":"2025-07-19T04:57:16","slug":"after-his-woke-superman-criticism-went-viral-dean-cain-clarifies-his-stance-on-james-gunns-new-film-exclusive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/74526\/","title":{"rendered":"After His \u201cWoke\u201d ‘Superman’ Criticism Went Viral, Dean Cain Clarifies His Stance on James Gunn\u2019s New Film [Exclusive]"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dean Cain<\/strong> stood for truth, justice, and the American way as Superman on TV<\/a>, but he\u2019s now at the center of a very different conversation. After TMZ<\/a> published comments in which Cain criticized the so-called \u201cwoke-ification\u201d of the Man of Steel, headlines spread like wildfire \u2014 with many assuming he was attacking James Gunn\u2019s<\/strong> Superman<\/strong><\/a> reboot outright. Now, Cain is setting the record straight.<\/p>\n

Speaking at FanX<\/strong> during a panel hosted by Collider\u2019s Maggie Lovitt<\/strong><\/a>, Cain clarified the comments by first saying, “I just continually speak what I think is the truth.” He proceeded to explain what he really meant when asked about Gunn\u2019s film in recent interviews:<\/p>\n

\n

“They were asking me a question about the new movie. I said I haven’t seen it. They were asking the question ‘How woke will this be or will it be woke?’ So they took that quote, stuck it in a headline and had me going ‘How woke this movie is.'”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Cain emphasized that he never slammed the movie itself \u2014 in fact, quite the opposite:<\/p>\n

\n

“I think James Gunn makes funny movies. I love the first Guardians of the Galaxy<\/a>. In truth, I think the film will be phenomenal, but that wouldn’t be a headline\u2026 It’s crazy how this industry works.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Despite the viral narrative, Cain claims his comments were never intended as an attack on Gunn personally or the film\u2019s creative team<\/strong>. Indeed, Cain later went on to add that he faced prejudice himself when being cast as Superman back in the early 1990s. Cain, born Dean Tanaka, is quarter-Japanese, and recalled being labelled “Sushiman” when he was first cast. To date, Cain remains the only non-100% white actor to play Superman.<\/p>\n

What Did Dean Cain Reportedly Say?<\/p>\n

\"Dean<\/p>\n

Image via Warner Bros. Pictures<\/p>\n

In a TMZ interview last month, Cain commented on what he called Hollywood\u2019s obsession with updating legacy characters \u2014 Superman included:<\/p>\n

\n

“How woke is Hollywood going to make this character? How much is Disney going to change their Snow White? Why are they going to change these characters [to] exist for the times? For Superman, it was \u2018truth, justice, and the American way.\u2019 Well, they dropped that\u2026 They came up with \u2018truth, justice, and a better tomorrow.\u2019 Changing beloved characters I don\u2019t think is a great idea. If you want to create a new character go ahead and do that.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Cain was particularly critical of Gunn\u2019s previously reported comments to The Times of London<\/a>, where the Superman director said the film was about \u201can immigrant\u201d and called Superman\u2019s story \u201cthe story of America.\u201d Cain disagreed with the framing, saying the metaphor falls flat when taken too far:<\/p>\n

\n

“Superman has always stood for \u2018truth, justice and the American way,\u2019 and the \u2018American way\u2019 is immigrant friendly, tremendously immigrant friendly. But there are rules. You can\u2019t come in saying, \u2018I want to get rid of all the rules in America, because I want it to be more like Somalia.\u2019 Well that doesn\u2019t work, because you had to leave Somalia to come here\u2026 We can\u2019t have everybody, society will fail. So there have to be limits.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Cain is no stranger to weighing in on the politics of superheroes \u2014 but this time, he\u2019s clarified the narrative that he\u2019s not entirely opposed to Gunn\u2019s new vision. While he holds firm to more traditional views of what Superman should represent, he now acknowledges that Superman could still be a success \u2014 and that his viral criticism may have been taken out of context<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Superman is in theaters now, and James Gunn recently confirmed development on a follow-up is already underway<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"01703330_poster_w780.jpg\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\tSuperman
\n\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\n Release Date<\/strong>\n <\/dt>\n
\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJuly 9, 2025<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n

\n Runtime<\/strong>\n <\/dt>\n
\n

\t\t\t\t130 minutes<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n

\n Director<\/strong>\n <\/dt>\n
\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJames Gunn<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n

\n Producers<\/strong>\n <\/dt>\n
\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLars P. Winther, Nik Korda, Peter Safran<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dean Cain stood for truth, justice, and the American way as Superman on TV, but he\u2019s now at…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":74527,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[171,53,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-74526","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movies","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114878129596303930","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}