Why Did “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” Become Both the Villain and Hero of a Right-Wing Culture War?
How an innocuous kids’ movie became entrenched in conservative hypocrisy
It’s no secret that The Super Mario Bros Movie is nothing more than a vehicle to market other Nintendo properties. It's a seemingly endless stimulatory dash through familiar visual Easter eggs, scored with musical motifs meant to maximize nostalgia. The movie jumps from sequence to sequence, cramming in as many possibilities to mirror Super Mario properties as it can pack into a kids movie’s runtime. As a result, we get a weak plot and 90 minutes of inconsequential fun — not great, but far from the worst output of the commodity-turned-film mimeograph.
Subsequently, I think a genuine critique of The Super Mario Bros Movie is largely unwarranted. It’s not like movies made for adults are comparatively lacking in advertising endeavors (though they may be more incognito in their marketing), so slamming a children’s movie for blatant product placement is just a bad faith method of channeling anti-capitalist sentiments.
However, what fascinates me about The Super Mario Bros Movie has very little to do with the content of the feature, and has everything to do with the jarring cultural reaction. Absolutely nothing about the film is groundbreaking or remotely controversial — by every metric, it is a ringing endorsement for maintaining the status quo that is commercial filmmaking. But for some bizarre reason, the film became a major target for a right-wing culture war, somehow simultaneously earning itself a spot as a indictment and catastrophic endorsement of amorphous wokeness.
In the era of global media sharing platforms, beloved IPs such as Super Mario frequently fall into a paradigm of online political or philosophical dissections, despite explicit innocuousness. This content formula thrives in reactionary internet circles among creators who revolve their criticism solely around diverse casting. However, in a film as devoid of substance as The Super Mario Bros. Movie, conservative commentators found themselves grasping at straws to condemn fingerprints of any left-wing agenda present in the film. In a video essay nearly as long as the film itself, media commentary channel KNIGHTS WATCH slammed Princess Peach as an “insufferable girlboss,” citing evidence such as her wearing pants and being a confident fighter (despite her having consistently been depicted this way since 1988.) Right-wing commentator Anna Perez even claimed that this modern depiction would lead to the feminist brainwashing of young audiences, purposely isolating the history of the character to fit an anti-woke agenda.
But while some of the right-wing was quick to pounce on the new adaption, critics seemed to fall into the same camp, earning the movie low scores on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic compared to its audience reception. Eager to capitalize upon the box office success of the film, while simultaneously turning against mainstream critical outlets, the right-wing began to champion the film, citing its mostly white cast and allegedly conservative star Chris Pratt as evidence of Nintendo’s refusal to go woke. Powerful voices on the right, like Charlie Kirk and Steven Crowder, claimed that the movie is a triumph against the woke movement, and that its box-office success is a product of its refusal to buy into their idea of a left-wing agenda.
Obviously, the global success of the movie cannot be pinned on any of the films’ political messaging, because there is none to begin with. It’s a $100 million blockbuster helmed by some of the biggest studios in animation about the most popular video game character of all time, and was successfully marketed to young children and their nostalgic parents. The Super Mario Bros. Movie is a 90 minute fan-service advertisement that takes no stance on any contemporary issue other than in the political field that matters most: profit.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie was released on April 5 and is currently in US theaters.