In Peacemaker season 2, Chris Smith has discovered that the "best dimension ever" is, in fact, a world ruled by the Nazis. On the American flag, the stars signifying the 50 states have been replaced by a swastika, and James Gunn recently confirmed that it's Earth-X.
Much has been said on social media about James Gunn possibly writing the HBO Max series with real-life politics in mind. Remember, it was his outspoken opinions in 2018 about President Donald Trump that led to conservatives digging up some old Tweets, which eventually led to him being fired by Disney.
When Variety caught up with Gunn, the trade pointed out that he wrote Peacemaker season 2 before knowing the outcome of the U.S. Presidential Election. Still, the interviewer couldn't help but wonder what it's been like "watching the real world edge closer to Earth X."
After taking a long pause, the DC Studios co-CEO responded, "I think I don’t know how to answer the question. Obviously, there are many things in the world I’m not happy with. I’m not so narcissistic as to think of the world in relationship to my TV show. I mean, there’s weird things with this show. There were weird things with 'Superman.'"
"Absolutely 100% of that movie was written and done before anything ever happened between Israel and Palestine, and everyone continues to refuse to believe that that’s not what it’s about. It’s not. It just isn’t," Gunn stated. "You can take whatever you want from that, to mean what you want, but I didn’t write it to be a stand in for Israel and Palestine."
Asked if he feels the same about Peacemaker season 2, Gunn gave a thoughtful response and doubled down on his desire to tell stories about kindness that he hopes will appeal to everybody.
"I mean, you’ll see some things next episode where, of course, there’s parallels. We’ve seen more racism lately, right? Is that because there’s more racism or because it’s more OK to be out in the open? It’s probably the latter. That’s obviously f***ing discouraging. And if my stupid TV show has anything to do with people being like, 'Oh, maybe I should be more aware of my prejudices,' great."
"But that isn’t what I write the show for. I write the show for the emotional angle, just like I wrote 'Superman' to be about kindness. If there was a sociopolitical aspect of 'Superman,' it’s that there has been an absence of kindness and understanding and loving a human being, no matter what their thoughts or feelings are."
"Everybody’s a f***ing antihero. Everybody’s too f***ing cool. What about not being cool? What about being a nice human being to someone? Why is that considered old-fashioned and Pollyanna? I want to be Pollyanna. I love that aspect of myself. I believe in the goodness of the human spirit. I think a lot of the people that are doing things I don’t like, I think that they are essentially good people. They just have weird ideas about things, and I think that we can communicate with those people. Maybe I’m naive, I don’t know, but that’s who I am."
Next week's episode of Peacemaker will pull back the curtain on Earth-X, and that's obviously going to mean touching on some potentially touchy subjects (particularly as, in this reality, non-whites are imprisoned).
It's hard to watch any movie or TV show these days without someone finding a political aspect to it, even when that's not necessarily the intention. The world is more divided than it's ever been, though, perhaps making it inevitable.
Still, it sounds like Gunn has no intention of making the DCU political. Of course, if you are offended by Nazis being portrayed in a negative light, it might not be a bad time to embrace some of the kindness the filmmaker refers to...