Super is an allegory about the US lingering hegemony in the world. As many cultural observers, I believe that “oil” is the ultimate symbol of the US across the world – in fact lots of US foreign policy’s opponents use this powerful icon to dramatize the debatable military actions, like the war in Iraq or the various interferences in South America and the Middle East.
From the inside, oil is a mean for freedom and independence: it’s the strategic resource for the industrial development of a society, and also the commodity that powers cars, the definitive symbol of individual freedom. However, from the outside, the US “oil imperative” and exponential needs cause numeral external effects on local populations. As a symbol, it crystallizes fear and antipathy, but also maybe revenge, as the actual increase in oil prize reveals a changing balance of power. The pictures of the third worlds gas stations are a perfect way to put the viewers at the center of the dilemma, and make them interrogate the two sides of the same issue.
