Sausage Party

Movie, 2016, R

Premise – The foods of Shopwell live in a blissful utopia, their happiness based solely on a religion established by the non-perishable foods. It is this religion that motivates them to do good deeds and stay fresh for the humans (or their gods), knowing that if they get chosen, they will enter a heavenly and erotic eternity. What they don’t know is that their religion is entirely fiction, created in order to protect them from their own meaningless lives. The foods who get chosen are actually brutally and mercilessly killed for human consumption. Frank the hot dog wants to share this horrific truth, but the other foods would rather choose to stay ignorant.

Review – No shame? I loved this movie. Like a lot. Definitely a lot more than I was expecting. Would I admit that to someone I just met? Probably not. It’s one of those films that is so absurd, inappropriate, crude, and just plain stupid, that I would not willingly bring it up in conversation. And that’s exactly what I was expecting! Based on the original red-band trailer (which is excellent, by the way), the film is set up to be simultaneously smart and stupid, a clever premise with a ridiculous execution. What makes this film great is that, even with these expectations, it is both so much smarter and so much stupider than I had imagined. When I sat down alone in my bed on a Sunday night surfing through Netflix and clicking on the dumbest movie possible, I definitely could not have guessed that I would be watching the most profound allegory on religion that I had ever seen.

I never take notes while watching a film – EVER. I want to spend all of my attention actually watching, and I trust my memory well enough to be able to recount all of my thoughts afterwards. But this movie had so many clever analogies, puns, and themes going for it that I had to write them down while I was watching, just to keep track. I’ve mentioned that this entire film is an allegory on religion using a society of foods, which is already inherently clever. But what’s so impressive about this allegory is how intensely thorough it is. This is a film that covers sexuality, virginity, modesty, God, prayer, the bible, sin, baptism, heaven and hell, lgbt, the spiritual power of drugs, organized religion by culture, racism, sexism… And then to get into the higher order themes of the film, it’s about the value of ignorance, fear of new ideas, and most importantly, denying empirical evidence in favor of the status quo of organized religion. And the film is not subtle, either. While sometimes the film relies on analogy and metaphor, other times it’s fairly straightforward in its comparison. The Jewish foods and the Middle Eastern foods don’t get along because the Jewish foods took over their aisle, even though they were displaced by the German foods. The Native American alcoholic drinks were screwed over by the crackers, as were the clearly African American “Grits”. 

For a film that is so direct in its confrontation of racism, the characterization of the different foods comes off as rather racist. This is not necessarily a fault of the film though, but rather an important thematic point. The film acknowledges the irony of the racism whole heartedly, with a line of dialogue “We need to unite and stop focusing on each other’s differences. Especially in immature and outdated ways.” It’s almost as if to say “Yes, we poke fun at racial stereotypes because of how stupid they are, and if you’re upset about these immature jokes, remember that there are much more important racial problems at stake here.” 

In addition to the direct commentaries on society, the film gives us more abstract questions to contemplate. Is consuming another live being for growth and power evil? Does that make humans evil, keeping in mind that most foods ARE alive at one point or another, just in the form of animals? Is it better to be ignorant and happy, or aware and miserable? Is there meaning to life if we know that nothing exists beyond death? Is there a point of doing good if we know God is never going to reward us with a Heaven, or punish us with a Hell? Despite all these questions, the film also provides us with one solid answer: The way in which to change people’s beliefs is firstly to respect them. We should acknowledge that no one truly has all of the answers, and any evidence that threatens the validity of one’s religion should not be taken as a personal attack towards any one individual or culture. 

The film utilizes a formula that, for my own personal enjoyment, is incredibly effective. It oddly reminds me of The Lego Movie, though it’s weird to even mention The Lego Movie and Sausage Party in the same capacity because they appeal to such different audiences, but they do both utilize this formula. We have a cutesy, animated utopian world blinded by the status quo that is either capitalism or religion, not only unable to see a harsher reality, but fervently unwilling. Both use a computer-animated medium to capture our simple, immature imaginations, making profound, and controversial topics more easily digestible. That said, this film is not exactly… easily digestible… depending on your sense of humor. I can stand it because nothing is too weird for me anymore. I embrace the uniqueness of this film (it’s the very first computer-animated R-rated comedy!). But again, I’m not expecting everyone to, so I’m not going to go raving about this film to people I’ve just met. I’d rather keep it to this blog. 

  (93/100).

Quote -  "Look, I'm sorry. I wasn't respectful of your beliefs and I acted like I know all the answers. But I don't. Nobody knows everything." - Frank

What to watch for - There's a direct nod to the theme of this blog. This film exists in its own universe, and the characters have their own reality. Perhaps the sequel will transcend into our own world.

If you liked this movie, I'd recommend The Lego Movie!

Directors: Conrad Vernon, Greg Tiernan

Distributor: Columbia Pictures

A Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg film