Semi-Pro (2008)
Directed by Kent Alterman
No — Semi-Pro is not woke, scoring 0 out of 100 on our wokeness meter.
Semi-Pro arrives from 2008 with the confidence of a film that has nothing on its mind and no intention of acquiring anything.
Consciousness Markers
No modern representation-casting agenda; minority characters are period-appropriate for 1970s ABA basketball and never framed as an inclusion statement.
No LGBTQ+ characters, themes, or subtext.
Female characters appear but the film offers no feminist critique or agenda.
Race is not used as a thematic lens; the struggle is economic and athletic, not racial consciousness.
No environmental or climate themes.
The film satirizes sports-business gimmicks and market-size snobbery but ultimately celebrates entrepreneurial ownership rather than anti-capitalist politics.
No body-positivity themes; physical comedy is played for laughs.
No neurodivergent characters or themes.
A fictional ABA team is inserted into the real 1976 merger, but this is sports-comedy invention, not revisionist history for social justice.
No preachy messaging or lecture energy; it is a broad sports comedy.
Why it received this score
Semi-Pro arrives from 2008 with the confidence of a film that has nothing on its mind and no intention of acquiring anything. Will Ferrell plays Jackie Moon, a one-hit wonder who purchased the Flint Tropics with the proceeds of a song called Love Me Sexy and installed himself as owner, coach, announcer, and starting power forward. The American Basketball Association is folding into the NBA, only four teams will survive, and Flint is not one of them. What follows is a desperate campaign of corn dogs, a wrestling match with a live bear, and a granny-style free throw. It is a sports comedy, and it knows it.
The supporting cast includes André 3000 and Tim Meadows, and the roster is largely Black, as any 1976 ABA team would be. The film treats this as scenery. Race is not a lens here, it is a uniform. Maura Tierney appears as a girlfriend and is given nothing to do beyond tolerating the protagonist. The film's real preoccupation is commerce: media markets too small to matter, buyouts, promotional stunts, a man discovering his only asset was stolen from his dying mother's napkin. The satire points at marketing gimmickry, and then it celebrates the hustler who survives it. There is no indictment of the arrangement, only affection for the guy working it.
This is comedy from a period when a studio could release a ninety-minute goof about a defunct basketball league and consider the matter closed. The film lectures no one. It has no sermon, no thesis, no corrective ambition. It simply wants to be funny, and by most accounts it only half succeeds. For our purposes that is not a flaw. It is an absence of agenda, and the ledger reflects it. A relic, and a quiet one.
Analysis generated by our Consciousness Algorithm
Synopsis
Jackie Moon is the owner, promoter, coach, and star player of the Flint Michigan Tropics of the American Basketball Association (ABA), the worst team in the league. In 1976 before the ABA collapses, the NBA plans to merge with the best teams of the ABA at the end of the season. Only the top four teams will make the move and the worst teams will fold. If the Tropics want to make it to the NBA, Jackie Moon must rally his team and start winning.
Questions about Semi-Pro
Is Semi-Pro woke?
No — Semi-Pro is not woke, scoring 0 out of 100 on our wokeness meter. That earns it a verdict of Ultra Based.
Does Semi-Pro have any woke elements?
No. All 10 markers score zero.
How does Semi-Pro compare to other 2008 movies?
It ranks #175 of the 212 films from 2008 we've scored; their average is 12. The wokest is Milk (68).
How is the Woke Score calculated?
An AI-assisted process researches the film and its reception, scores it 0–100 on ten markers, then combines those into one 0–100 Woke Score. It measures a specific set of 2020s cultural themes, not film quality.