A Review of the Movie Sausage Party (spoiler alert)
Yeah, you read that right. Some (the more genteel among you) are probably wondering what the heck is Sausage Party? It’s an animated film released in 2016, voiced by a bunch of celebrities including Seth Rogen, Kristen Wiig, and Salma Hayek. For those of you who have seen the movie, you are most likely thinking “Profound message! WTF?”
Yes, this cartoon was clearly written by people under the influence of serious amounts of marijuana. It is laced with the F-word at least once per sentence. (But so are the plays by very highbrow David Mamet). The plot tells the story of a mega supermarket where the food is actually alive. Didn’t we all suspect it? The corn sings, because they have the best ears. The ethnic foods all have the accents, and stereotypical beliefs of their culture. Yes, the bottle of tequila is drunk, and the German bratwurst march in goosestep. The whole store has one belief in common though. That the world outside those automatic doors is The Great Beyond, and the shoppers are gods that choose them for a better life. A blissful life. The lavash bread (read Moslem) thinks he will be rewarded with seven bottles of extra virgin olive oil in The Great Beyond. “My flaps will never be dry.”
How Do We Get To Heaven?
Part of this quasi-religious belief structure is the idea that they MUST stay fresh and in the package. Pure. Okay, see where this is going? We are all like the weiners and buns in this comedy,waiting for the good times in the afterlife. We all have this externalized idea of what good is and how we have to live up to it. And we are all just a little bit prejudiced against those from “a different aisle.”
Of course, the tables turn, and the food learns that certain supermarket shelf elders made up the whole Great Beyond so the products wouldn’t be scared. Once several of the sausages realize that there is no Great Beyond, they work to
wake everyone else up. And here is where it gets relevant to us here at the Pleasure Evolution. What do the foods do with their release from the shackles of external ideas about purity? They have SEX! Lots of it. Gives a whole new meaning to food orgy. If you have never seen a lavash penetrate a bagel, or a taco going down on a bun, this is the film to pop your cherry. It may be the weirdest porn ever.
We’re not saying that religion is not important, or dismissing your spiritual beliefs. In fact, we think you should honor your “shoulds.” Maybe just not blindly. What if Heaven was not the afterlife, but now? Who might you be if you weren’t trying to prove that you were good and worthy? What new tastes might you try? What new aisles could you walk down? How can you create bliss and love NOW?
The problem with Sausage Party is that, for all the silliness, it so desperately wants to be taken seriously. What should have been a shamelessly filthy stoner movie has been watered down with ill-judged, undergraduate musings on religion, philosophy and race. You might argue, as I’m sure the writers would, that there is a message of hope in the uniting of disparate foods from opposing aisles, all joining forces to beat a common enemy. The inter-product orgy that concludes the film is certainly a pretty clear thumbs-up to tolerance. But the racial stereotyping is so criminally lazy that it undermines this argument.
A well thought out and valid description of this movie. I would argue it was pretty shameless and filthy though. I would wholeheartedly agree that this movie used lazy stereotyping to such a lazy degree as to border on juvenile, but that is what I’ve come to expect from ‘stoner movies’.
You are very right. A flawed movie, and not for everyone, but it still made me laugh.