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It’s not a dream. It’s not a hoax. Justice has finally been delivered. On Sunday morning, HBO Max released
the full trailer for Zack Snyder’s Justice League, the film that only a year ago many said didn’t exist, and even if it did, wouldn’t be released.
And now, here we are just a little over a month out from the release of the film that has been
a passion project for both fans and the director himself. If there was any remaining notion among general audiences that the Snyder Cut was just the studio butchered 2017 film with some additional scenes, the full trailer dispels all of that. What we’re getting a glimpse of is something that looks and feels entirely new, and continues the themes of Zack Snyder’s
Man of Steel (2013) and
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) in a meaningful way. Yes, it’s a superhero film, but as someone who has only grown increasingly aware of his own race in this current climate, it feels like more than that.
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For all the anticipation that comes with seeing these heroes team up, it is their individual moments that this trailer focuses on, suggesting some major soul searching from the film’s central characters following the death of Superman. Even with little dialogue exchanged between heroes, there is a subtext in the images on screen found. There is the suggestion of Wonder Woman confronting what her godhood means in the face of New Gods, of Batman struggling to regain the honor he lost in a conversation with the Joker (Jared Leto), of Superman learning to fly to new heights with the words of Jonathan Kent (Kevin Costner) guiding him, and Cyborg undergoing his own “first flight,” with a match-cut between he and Superman suggesting that of all the characters Victor Stone may be closest to the ideal of Superman and idea of what it means to exist as a hero while being simultaneously othered by society.
It’s that last point that really drives home the importance of this film’s release for me, especially as someone who has always aligned Snyder’s Superman, in part, with the Black experience in America. To have an actual Black character appear to carry that torch forward, is not only significant but potentially revolutionary. Because it’s not just a desire to see ourselves in costumes as heroes, but to see ourselves as heroes with respect given to the fact of how we are treated differently even with all of our power, how our voices take longer to be heard, and how our flight is a greater struggle because we’re always starting on lower ground.
And it’s not just Cyborg’s journey in these films that holds the promise of illuminating how we see ourselves. The members of the Justice League each taken on a greater significance in regards to our current conversations surrounding inclusivity. The vast majority of fans of Snyder’s DC films that I’ve encountered on social media, and had genuine conversations with, are not straight white males. When I saw the release of the Ultimate Edition of
BvS, the majority of the audience was comprised of Black people and women. These metrics mean something, and too often go unacknowledged in favor of long held personal biases.
These are superheroes writ large within our current considerations of politics, social justice, race, and theology. It is those moments that fans of Snyder’s DC films, particularly those who have been marginalized, have come to expect. It is for those moments that #ReleasetheSnyderCut ever became a thing in the first place. When you cut through all the noise and antagonism, created by those so fervently against the film that they entered the realm of fabrication and cruelty, and those so fixated upon the film’s release that they’ve become just as cruel, no longer upholding the values of the heroes they claim to love, when you get past all of that, you have a story about incredible individuals simply trying to be better. What could be more human? What could be more optimistic? I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve been disturbed by both vicious personal attacks on the filmmaker from bloggers, and the cult-like behavior from fans who have turned to harassment again, and again.
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