SAUSAGE PARTY

SUMMARY

In an unassuming American town, the protagonists of the story reside in a well –

stocked supermarket called Shopwell’s. It is established by the start of the film that the
story revolves around the fruits, plants, vegetables, and other consumable goods that
are everywhere in the supermarket. These ‘food beings’ believe that the humans who
buy them from the supermarket are gods who will take them to the ‘Great Beyond’.
Many of the talking grocery items think that the ‘Great Beyond’ or the outside holds
great promise which fulfills their true destinies. All of them excitedly sing their ‘Pick me’
song at the beginning parts, expressing their desire to be picked by their benevolent
gods. During the festivity, we are introduced to the main protagonist of the film: a
sausage named Frank, his hotdog bun girlfriend named Brenda and their group of
friends which consist of Carl and Barry, both are also hotdogs like Frank. Finally, Frank
and Brenda are bought by an unassuming human. They are elated and are looking
forward to exploring the ‘Great Beyond.’ While on the way out of the store, the products
in the cart are warned by a jar of honey mustard that their beloved ‘Great Beyond’ is
nothing but a lie. Nobody gives the unhinged jar attention; except for Frank which hears
him out. The jar then commits suicide by falling down and breaking itself. In its last
dying breaths, the jar tells Frank to go to an elder named Firewater, which is a bottle of
liquor. This event then inadvertently causes the products to fall out of the cart. We are
introduced to a lavash named Kareem and a bagel named Sammy who hate each
other. Another new person on Frank and Brenda’s aisle along with Kareem and Sammy
is a vengeful vaginal douche that suffered a bent handle because of the fall. It swears
revenge on Frank and his girlfriend. Frank, Brenda and their newfound friends then visit
the mysterious Firewater. They are introduced to a band of old products from the store.
They tell the friends that the ‘Great beyond’ was just a fabrication which was made by
them in order to make the products in the store to alleviate the horror of the food from
being eaten by the humans who buy them. Frank vows to tell the others about the truth.
Meanwhile, Barry and Carl were one of the ‘lucky’ ones that did not fall from the cart
earlier on. The food’s happiness turns into horror as they realize that they are going to
be boiled alive and fried. An egg tries to commit suicide by falling, but is cracked and
fried to death. A potato is boiled, much the others’ horror. The same fate goes for a
bunch of baby carrots. Carl is sliced in half and Barry manages to escape. He sees the
‘great unknown’ as it is – a dreary, dirty city. Barry goes into a drug junkie’s house and
tries to hide. But the druggie is on bath salts so he acquires the ability to speak to food.
The effects of the drug wear off and the addict prepares to cook Barry. Barry narrowly
escapes yet again. In Shopwell’s, Frank is ridiculed by his peers of his apparent change
of heart concerning the ‘Great Beyond’. Frank shows them proof of the reality of the
‘great unknown’: A cookbook he retrieved from a freezer that Firewater directed him to.
The others vehemently deny Frank’s revelation until a group of food comes back from
the human’s house to tell them of the ordeal that they have been through. Barry joins
them and corroborates the horrific stories, thereby proving that the gods were mere
humans. Frank and Barry devise a battle to end the illusion imposed upon them by the
elders once and for all. They lace the free sample toothpicks with bath salts and a war
ensues between the hallucinating humans and the talking food. Frank and his
compatriots win in the end and celebrate their newfound loss of reinforced meaning by
spontaneously engaging in a grocery – wide orgy with the other products in the store. In
the end, they all have a figurative (and literal) collective sigh of relief.

ANALYSIS

Sausage Party is one of the most fitting adaptations of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.
From the start of the film, the audience is fed by the numerous insinuations that these
figures, that get the talking food out of the grocery, are somehow divine. This is also
true in the literal sense. The humans in the film are portrayed as clean, yet slimy
individuals whose faces darken whenever they are in the process of consuming food.
Although that is how the food see them.

In reality, humans are just going about their days, preparing food and humming to a
tune or lounging about on a couch and spacing out. Frank is portrayed as a mild –
mannered hotdog who has questions of his own, regarding the reason for the reverence
of these supposed gods and the matter of the ‘Great Beyond’ and its actual significance.
Frank is a skeptic at heart. But, if it were not for the honey mustard jar and his
persistence in disseminating the true reality, his questions would have still remained as
only that. Frank is the ‘culinary’ representation of the escaped prisoner. He is shocked,
almost hurt by the reality of the outside world, (in this case, the Great Beyond). But this
truth did not hinder him. He tells his fellows about the truth, and yet they do not believe
him. Their faith in the shadowy visages of the humans who pick them up from the store
is so strong, that it took a long and trying time for them to accept the truth. They even
sing odes to these humans and perk themselves up so they look desirable to pick. They
are the representation of the prisoners being trapped and chained, looking at the
shadows in the cave, playing a game based on their anticipation of what would happen
and who would be right next.

They thought that what they were seeing was real, never taking into consideration the
word: Beyond. In short, they did not want to think beyond their sense perceptions, who
would blame them? It was not required to think beyond of anything until some stray
hotdogs came along and survived what their fate at that time was. Earlier, there was
mention of prisoners being trapped in a cave.
In terms of Sausage Party, the Cave is the supermarket. It keeps them in the dark and
simultaneously, out of the dark reality of their ends, because; being food, they mostly go
unnoticed and consumed by us at the end of the day.

The ‘Great Beyond’ is clearly a representation of the outside world. The Philosophical
truth in the allegory of the cave is re-imagined in this movie. Yet, it still holds the same
weight. Why? Because when the prisoner went out of the cave and into the light, it
blinded the prisoner for a period of time, but as the vision adapted to the surroundings,
so did the escapee’s frame of mind. There was another prisoner in the allegory of the
cave. This prisoner was different from the others because this prisoner did not go back
into the cave. If we look at Sausage Party and its symbolism about questioning
everything you have come to know and the perils of trying to tell the truth to people who
choose to be deaf, there would be escapees, yet they all returned. But, if we look at it
from the perspective of Frank realizing that their fates could be somehow tweaked in
their favor, the symbol of the freed prisoner who never returned would be realized.
Frank had come to the crushing realization that they were only sustenance for the gods
that they were worshipping. In the end, he used this version of the truth in thinking of a
new way out, even if they did not go out of the cave that is Shopwell’s.

Frank is content, knowing that the products in the store know about the reality of the
outside world. He has seen the horror and yet he has also seen a glimpse of what good
was to be if they did not offer themselves to be consumed anymore. Frank and his
companions have accepted that there can be many truths in the world, and the only
thing that could really stifle their existential dread is acceptance of the fact that the
humans eat their kind for sustenance but they can prolong their stay (and life) in
Shopwell’s by hiding or other cunning means, as well.

The characters in the movie were horrified at what they saw, but in the end, they
accepted it because it was natural and there was no beating around the bush with that
fact. The citizens in Shopwell’s could hide for very long, but inevitable expiration will
soon come upon them. The truth is difficult to deal with, but we have an uncanny ability
to accept it and forget about it for some time until it reseurfaces in front of our faces
again to haunt us.

Submitted by: Diane Huldong (H11-A)