Review: A Super Progressive Movie is a limp bit of conservative humor

About halfway through A Super Progressive Movie, the cheekily named Australian animation made in conjunction with controversial politician Pauline Hanson, a character says how the world has a habit of shrinking in on you sometimes. You might surround yourself with people who look like you, think like you, talk like you, etc., until you forget that there are other ways of thinking and living out there. It's a fine point, and one of the weirdly good-natured moments in a film that feels like it has a bit of an identity crisis, and maybe why I even bothered checking this movie out. 

I went into A Super Progressive Movie knowing it wasn't going to line up with my own beliefs and worldview, and that it would probably be a bit of a tough sit. But I am interested to see movies that reflect different ideologies sometimes. Film is a great generator of empathy, and most of my favorite movies reflect experiences that I'll never have, points-of-view that are distinct from my own. Now, of course, generally that's like...oh, this movie is about a Japanese person, or an old woman living in Europe, or a disabled person. I'm not generally seeking out movies that are this conservative-leaning. But in this case, because it's animated, my curiosity won out, and I gave it a go.

I try to meet every movie where it's at, and to assess it for what it's trying to do. And on that front, I think A Super Progressive Movie will work quite well for its target audience. As you might guess from the title, this is a movie that spends most of its energy taking shots at progressive ideologies and various minority identities. It's often said that conservatives just have one joke (which is basically claiming to have x gender identity/pronouns), and that's mostly the case here. There's a lot of playing on various buzzwords: the progressives live in a literal progressive bubble. There's a structure called the echo chamber. You'll hear everything you expect to hear: cultural appropriation, safe space, social justice warrior. It's mostly pretty first-draft, easy target stuff, so not often super funny.

Credit where credit is due though, as this movie has a few jokes that are marginally more clever. The powerful object the characters are after is called the Victim Hood, a magical cloak that grants the wearer moral authority and shields them from criticism. In the progressive utopia, the trauma center is right next to the Generational Trauma Center. That made me laugh.

Weirdly, I think what makes this such a kind of limp-dick effort is that the movie doesn't really have teeth. It makes all the obvious jokes in mostly pretty obvious ways, playing on the same rhetoric we see online every day, and doesn't go much further. I don't think the movie is necessarily looking to offend (wild for a movie that engages with plenty of transphobic, homophobic, racist, misogynist, etc. etc. humor), but even so, this feels like the most mild episode of South Park you've ever seen. I thought it would be edgier or nastier, but it honestly just kind of left me bored. Like, it's so by-the-numbers in its pot shots at progressive politics that it doesn't even feel offensive, just regurgitated. Reheating someone else's transphobic nachos, so to speak. 

Other times, I wasn't even quite sure what the joke was. For instance, the film starts off taking about Aborigines and their first encounter with white colonizers. The Aboriginal village is presented as being super technologically advanced, including having flying cars and fancy coffee. I wasn't sure if the joke is that people speak well of a culture that didn't have modern technology, or that they deserved to be mistreated because of it? I'm still puzzling over the intent there. 

I do appreciate, though, that this is an actual movie. There's a plot, characters, an original song that's unfortunately catchy. The film follows a band of characters, including a straight white male slave named Pete, as they venture out from the Progressive Bubble to find the Victim Hood, as only that powerful garment can restore their city's shield and thus protect them from the horrors of the outside world.

The gag is that, once they're out there, they find that most of the people they meet are just normal, good-natured people, most of whom are actively not racist. This is another way that the film feels like it's a bit at war with itself. I think it's nice message, that most people are generally decent, but then the film itself is quite nasty to a lot of its minority and queer characters, especially the trans ones. (It really feels like conservatives can't stop obsessing over trans people, despite their existence having literally nothing to do with them.) At times, it feels like this film is almost trying to do a little damage control for Pauline Hanson, who voices a version of herself in the movie. It seems like she's trying to show that she's not the hateful, Trumpian bigot that the world knows her to be (or at least that Australia does...I hadn't heard from her until I found out about this movie). I can't imagine this is actually accomplishing that, but it would explain the kind of liminal space the film occupies.

A Super Progressive Movie's main message is to focus on the hope of the future rather than dwell on the trauma of the past, which is the kind of blithely toothless message that grants some plausible deniability. Like, yeah, it would be great if we can build a better future where people are kind and empathetic to each other. But isn't there a saying about those who ignore history? Hm, whatever it was, I'm sure it wasn't important.

I wish A Super Progressive Movie had either really leaned into its humor and found a stronger, more unique voice, or that it had maybe taken a wider-ranging approach to its targets. As it is, it feels like a kind of no-man's movie that isn't likely to thrill anyone too much.