There is a wonderfully ridiculous line from the 2014 comedy The Interview that somehow became bigger than the movie itself: “They hate us ’cause they ain’t us.” It is juvenile, arrogant and hilarious. After watching some of the reaction surrounding HBO’s Lanterns — particularly Episode 3, “OutKast” — I couldn’t help thinking about it.

Not because everyone who criticizes Lanterns is racist, or because every criticism of John Stewart is secretly about Aaron Pierre being Black. And certainly not because Lanterns should be above criticism. There are legitimate conversations about pacing, structure, nonlinear storytelling and whether the grounded detective-drama approach delivers enough of the cosmic spectacle traditionally associated with Green Lantern.

That’s television criticism. But then there is another criticism: “It’s woke.” That’s the one I find fascinating, because if your objection to “OutKast” is simply that John Stewart’s experience as a Black American matters to the development of John Stewart, I don’t think Lanterns is struggling to be cool. I think you might be.

Maybe Being Post-Racial Means Race Doesn’t Scare You

Somewhere along the way we developed a strange definition of what being “post-racial” was supposed to mean. Apparently, the enlightened position became pretending nobody notices ethnicity anymore. We’re all just people. It sounds beautiful, but it also sounds nothing like America.

America has never been a country without ethnic identity. Irish, Italian, Jewish, Polish, Greek, Mexican, Chinese, Japanese, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Nigerian and countless other American communities preserve traditions, foods, music, stories and family histories. Nobody has to stop being those things to become American. That’s the point.

The American experiment, at its most aspirational, isn’t supposed to require cultural amnesia. You don’t have to erase where you came from to prove that you belong here. So why should John Stewart?

“OutKast” asks what fear means to a Black American family and how that family’s experiences helped shape a boy who would eventually wield one of the most powerful weapons in the universe. The show’s creative team has discussed John’s family, identity, military discipline and the psychology beneath his controlled exterior.

You can disagree with how effectively the episode executes those ideas. But dismissing the ideas themselves as “woke” misses something more interesting.

John Stewart Is Allowed to Know Who He Is

What I like about Aaron Pierre’s John Stewart is his quiet confidence. He isn’t constantly announcing himself or walking into every scene delivering speeches about his identity. He doesn’t need to. He knows who he is, and there is something incredibly cool about that.

Pierre gives Stewart stature without turning him into a caricature of masculinity. He’s physically imposing, but his strength isn’t limited to his body. John observes, thinks, calculates and exercises restraint. The series allows him to be intelligent without making intelligence his gimmick, confident without requiring someone to humble him, and courageous while still examining where his understanding of fear originated.

Most importantly, he is allowed a quiet pride in who he is. That shouldn’t be controversial.

There is something peculiarly un-American about demanding that someone minimize his heritage before we are willing to consider him universal. America isn’t universal because everyone became identical. At its best, it allows radically different people to share citizenship without surrendering themselves.

We haven’t always lived up to that ideal, but superheroes aren’t supposed to represent the worst things we’ve done. They’re supposed to represent the things we’re trying to become.

Superheroes Were Never Supposed to Represent Superiority

This is where the “woke” criticism becomes especially strange to me. Superheroes have always been fantasies about extraordinary ability constrained by moral responsibility. Superman could dominate humanity, but he doesn’t. Batman possesses enormous wealth, intelligence and physical capability, yet the heroic ideal requires him to use those advantages in service of something beyond himself. Wonder Woman possesses abilities ordinary people could never challenge, but her heroism isn’t that she is superior. It’s that superiority doesn’t become an excuse for domination.

That is why any conception of superheroism rooted in racial superiority collapses under its own contradiction. White superiority cannot be reconciled with the moral architecture of superheroism because racial superiority begins with a claim that one racial group possesses greater inherent human value than another. Heroism runs in the opposite direction.

Heroism says strength creates responsibility. It protects the vulnerable, recognizes dignity in strangers and requires sacrifice for people who may never know your name. Americanism, at least as expressed through America’s highest civic ideals, makes a similar claim.

“We the People” remains an unfinished proposition precisely because Americans have spent generations arguing over who gets included in that “we.” That struggle doesn’t make someone less American. It may be one of the most American struggles imaginable.

John Stewart Doesn’t Need to Pretend

John Stewart doesn’t need to pretend race doesn’t exist in order to transcend race, nor does he need to walk around angry about it. He can simply understand it. He can know the history, understand his parents and recognize what shaped them without allowing their fears to completely define him.

He can disagree with some lessons, carry others and keep moving. That’s considerably more interesting than pretending a Black man somehow reaches enlightenment when he stops noticing that he’s Black.

The genuinely post-racial response isn’t becoming uncomfortable whenever a Black character acknowledges being Black. It is being comfortable enough with your own identity to encounter someone else’s without interpreting it as an attack on yours.

Come On, Man. Be Cool.

Maybe this is my age showing, but cool used to mean something different. Cool wasn’t being threatened by somebody else’s confidence. Cool was Miles Davis, Sidney Poitier, Steve McQueen, Pam Grier and Prince. Cool was somebody walking into the room completely comfortable with who they were and not needing everyone else to validate it.

Aaron Pierre’s John Stewart has some of that. He’s not begging the audience to approve of him, apologizing for his stature, explaining why he’s intelligent or asking permission to be formidable. He’s John Stewart. Deal with it.

And It Makes Him a Better Green Lantern

Green Lantern mythology makes this discussion more interesting because fear is central to the concept. Willpower isn’t impressive without fear, and courage doesn’t exist without it. If nothing frightens you, overcoming fear isn’t bravery. It’s Tuesday.

“OutKast” complicates the concept by asking what happens when different people approach the same question carrying different histories.

The Guardians can treat that as an abstract measurement. Human beings can’t. Our answers come from somewhere. John’s comes from family, childhood, military experience, successes, failures and everything he has absorbed along the way.

That doesn’t weaken the character; it gives his courage weight. Pierre’s stillness, confidence, physicality and restraint all matter because underneath them is somebody who understands that courage isn’t pretending fear never existed.

DC Deserves Some Credit Here

DC has produced television that wasn’t afraid to get weird. Titans took chances, and then there was Doom Patrol. Man, I loved Doom Patrol. That series could be ridiculous, heartbreaking, profane, philosophical and completely absurd — sometimes within the same episode.

And I have to give a special shout-out to Brendan Fraser. His Cliff Steele/Robotman could have easily become a one-joke character: an angry brain trapped inside a robot body screaming profanity. Instead, Fraser found the humanity.

Cliff could be selfish, hilarious, broken, furious and heartbreaking. Beneath the absurdity was a man dealing with regret, family, identity and the realization that extraordinary circumstances don’t automatically make someone extraordinary. Fraser made you feel it.

That’s what happens when comic-book television trusts character, and that’s what I’m seeing again in Lanterns. It isn’t the same style or the same universe of weirdness, but it shares a willingness to let superhero characters be people before reducing them to powers.

They Hate Us ‘Cause They Ain’t Us

So no, I’m not particularly bothered that some people think “OutKast” is woke. I’m more amused by it, because I think Lanterns understands something those criticisms sometimes miss.

John Stewart doesn’t have to choose between being Black and being American, cultural pride and universality, or being Black and being a superhero. Those things aren’t contradictions. They’re layers. That’s America.

The country has always contained different cultures, experiences, religions, languages and histories struggling, cooperating and somehow constructing an American identity together. Quietly acknowledging where you came from can be one of the most American things you do.

Perhaps the most superheroic thing John Stewart can do isn’t pretend the world never gave him reasons to fear. It’s looking directly at those reasons, understanding them and choosing courage anyway. That isn’t woke. That’s character development. That’s heroism. And from where I’m sitting, that’s pretty damn cool.