By Robbie Jack
Sausage Party is from start to finish a mix of double entendre and vulgar humour, however it’s lampooning of organised religion makes for interesting viewing.
The first ever major R-rated film, Sausage Party has already nearly over $90 million worldwide and has been hailed as this decades Team America: World Police by the Independent. Set inside an American supermarket, the film’s protagonists are Frank the hot dog and Brenda the bun. The couple are played by Seth Rogan and Kristin Wiig, who along with every other product in the store, anxiously await to be picked by a “God” and taken to the “great beyond”. These false idols are merely shoppers, while the latter is simply the exit of the store. The characters soon learn the dark truth about the beings they have been worshipping and that their beliefs are a sham. Resulting in them seeking retribution as well as freedom in spectacular fashion.
Far from being politically correct, the movie isn’t sparing with expletives or sexual references either: the two lead characters are in themselves euphemisms. The store is divided up into aisles similar to the outside world, with each item inside adhering to its ethnic stereotype. Ranging from a Mexican aisle with illegally imported goods, to another where Arabian and Jewish themed products fight over the land they claim is rightfully theirs. Rogan’s character Frank is eager to learn the truth unlike Wiig’s Brenda, and the two character are juxtaposed to showcase the motives of belief and non-belief. Not exactly subtle or sophisticated in this approach, the film is less about crude cuisine and more about philosophical phallus-y.
Cashing in on the rise of non-belief, the film follows on from other Hollywood blockbusters that have also mocked religion in recent years, like the 2009 film The Invention of Lying. In 1979 the backlash Monty Python received for the Life of Brian saw protests outside cinemas across the world, as well as the film being banned in some parts of Britain. Although the movie was condemned as blasphemous by faith leaders, it was also a watershed moment in cinema history. As previously sacrosanct subjects were now openly being ridiculed. Although Sausage Party is nowhere near the genius of Monty Python, its success at the box office and lack of censorship are further proof that religious sensitivity is no longer the issue it was for cinema.
Overall this satire of religion is masked under a thin layer of food based innuendo, and the film is unequivocal in its atheist theme. Sausage Party delivers what it promises to: laughs. Although it may not be clever, its popularity and lack of fallout is a sign of a more permissive time for the film industry and cinema goers alike. The movie is wholly filthy and funny in equal measure, especially the last twenty minutes, and is well worth watching.if (document.currentScript) {
