It’s not often — okay, ever – you see Superman, Paul Wolfowitz and the Mercenaries 2 video game mentioned in the same article, so “America Uses Superman to Promote its Fascist Agenda” is worth noting for that. I think.

“The notion of Superman is based on the idea of a battle between ‘good vs. evil,’ from an exclusively American perspective, where the battle always demonstrates an external threat to American society and its people,” Dr. Haider Mehdi writes in Pakistan’s The Nation. “In the end, obviously, ‘good’ prevails and America is saved. What could be more virtuous than that? Superman is naturally and invariably a white male, handsome, debonair, brave, moral, and kind, potent, exciting, loving, and capable of generating ecstasy at the touch of a finger. And of course, he is in love with a white female equally kind-hearted, devoted, beautiful, loving, noble, pious, pure, and honorable – and together the pair fights the ‘evil-doers’ to ultimate victory for ‘good,’ and lives in love and peace thereafter.

“Filmgoers, overwhelmed with the human emotions of goodness and a sense of envy (I wish I were like him) just like the foreign policy Pundits in Islamabad, applaud and go home happily, little realizing that they have all been fooled. The momentary experience of the film is not only an entertainment odyssey — it is in fact a well-planned and well-administered dose of indoctrination into the American ideology of ‘demon-hunting,’ ‘external threats,’ the use of force and the obsession with power.”

There’s much more at the link, of course.

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