Superman, Champion of the Oppressed

Abstract

This chapter discusses Superman as a champion of social justice. It discusses claims that Superman exemplifies the Jewish idea of tikkun olam (healing the world) and shows how this is historically impossible. Instead, the argument situates Superman as a deeply convinced New Dealer, who kept up his efforts long after the New Deal lost steam. It does so by situating Superman’s activism within a broader Jewish American, and a more narrowly biographical, context, to argue that his conviction most likely owes to his creators’ own lives as Jewish Americans. Special attention is paid to the Jewish American turn to the liberalism championed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) and his Democratic Party.