Gunn recognized this, and in fact, it’s what burst open the story for him. If the film begins with Superman coming to terms with his first ass-whooping, then his vulnerability is no longer a mystery. Everyone knows what it feels like to lose.
So at the start of the movie, David Corenswet’s Superman just lost his first physical fight in the field. Back home Clark Kent also fights with his girlfriend, Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan). She loves him, but his actions in the cape cause her great concern. A trained journalist, Lois questions Superman’s rogue nature when it comes to managing international conflicts. Clark, on the other hand, believes right and wrong should always be simple. If people are going to die his responsibility is to intervene.
In the middle of one of their fights, Lois laments that she and Clark have nothing in common. She sees herself as punk and Clark as pop. Clark name drops a favored band and Lois scoffs. To Lois, the band can’t be punk because punk is edgy and gritty. Everyone likes that band, just like Clark likes everybody. “Maybe that’s what makes me punk rock,” Clark sulks.
It’s nearly a throwaway line. The audience roars with laughter because Superman is a clean cut, morally superior boy scout. He’s the antithesis of the hard edged fringe community most think of when they hear the word punk. But this line, one of Gunn’s favorites in the film, reads like a loud declarative: being kind is punk.
“Punk rock is going against the grain,” Gunn tells us when we catch up with the writer-director during the Superman press tour. “We live in an age where everything is so mean and so ugly. Everyone is screaming at one another. Right now the most punk rock thing you can do is be kind, be raw, be open, look out for the person who needs looking out for, be unapologetically earnest. I think those are the things that are most rebellious.” If Batman is loved because he is human, then Gunn’s Superman is loved because he longs to be human. And in Gunn’s mind that is the most punk thing in the world, even when we note that makes Superman a bit of a square.
“Being a goodie, goodie is what’s punk rock about him,” Gunn adds. “He is those things, he is Pollyanna. He is old-fashioned, and aren’t we a little thirsty for people like that [because] there aren’t any anymore? They’ve all become mean.”
