Do grocery store items dream of sex and racial stereotypes? "Sausage Party" says yes, yes they do. This 2016 comedy from the minds of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg begins with a premise reminiscent of "Toy Story." When the lights go out at a local grocer, the food items come alive. Most of them dream of one day being bought by a customer and taken to the Great Beyond, but they don't realize they're destined to be eaten alive.
Feature-length adult animation with an imaginative concept seems like a promising proposition. On release, the movie generated a ton of buzz, and its critical reception was overwhelmingly positive. Looking back now, it's hard to imagine how the film even earned a release, much less critical praise, considering how heavily it relies on being downright offensive for laughs.
The crude sexual humor is rampant (Rogen's hot dog character Frank desperately wants to be inside Kirsten Wiig's bun character Brenda), but that's to be expected. What's really jarring is just how many racial stereotypes were squeezed into the film. Scene after scene pairs Kareem Abdul Lavash with Sammy Bagel Jr. and forces them to play out one anti-Muslim or anti-Semitic trope after another. A sentient bottle of Native American liquor is given a cringe-worthy performance by Bill Hader. The movie's Twinkie character is gay. The list of groups used as punch lines goes on and on, but the movie, really, should not.
