Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for Sausage Party: Foodtopia.
If you’ve seen enough movies in your lifetime, you can start to get desensitized and begin to think you’ve experienced it all. Surprises still exist, though, and one of them was the 2016 filmSausage Party. While it might have been animated, the title, and its voice acting talent, including the likes ofSeth Rogen,Kristen Wiig, andMichael Cera, were proof that this wouldn’t be a family film you took the kids to see on a weekend afternoon. Then came the plot, with foul-mouthed talking food engaging in mass mayhem and wild orgies.Beneath the raunch, however, was a story with meaning, as the food, discovering what horrors wait for them when they leave the grocery store, rise up against their oppressors in a struggle for freedom.
Sausage Party: Foodtopia, an eight-course series now playing on Prime Video, has more of that raw perversion, with more food murder and sex, including one scene so shocking that Amazon put up a warning before the episode, but it also digs even deeper into the serious themes of the film. The food has defeated the humans and are free! Okay, now what? Using gross-out humor andone ofEdward Norton’s best acting performances ever(seriously),Foodtopiais a series about societal ills, capitalism, racism, and politics, all wrapped up perfectly in a comedy like a sausage in an intestinal casing.
Sausage Party: Foodtopia
‘Sausage Party: Foodtopia’ Has a Reason To Exist
TheSausage Partyfeature film was a success. Coming out in 2016, during a rather depressing Presidential election season that consumed everything, a stupid movie about talking hot dogs was a nice escape.Sausage Partyactually wasn’t stupid, but ratherclever in how it gave humanistic attributes to food. Oh, yes, it was filthy and disgusting, but it was also a smart satire. Critics and audiences both agreed, with the film havingan impressive 82% on Rotten Tomatoes, and making a whopping$140 million worldwide on a $19 million budget.
With that kind of success, it would have been understandable for a sequel to happen, but where do you go after a climactic scene of a talking douche shoving itself up a man’s butt to control his movements?Sausage Partyneeded a big idea to ever come back, but co-creator and executive producer Seth Rogen knew exactly how to do it.In an interview with Black Girl Nerds, he was asked why he chose to do a TV series rather than a traditional film sequel:
“It seemed like a more kind of free and fun way to explore the world that we had previously created. We had a lot of ideas. We really liked this idea of the food starting a society, which kind of a bigger, longer story to tell in a lot of ways.”
In ‘Sausage Party: Foodtopia,’ The Food Struggles To Create a Society After Being Set Free
Now, if you’re not a political person, or disagree with the views of those deemed “Hollywood liberals,” the idea of a show about talking hot dogs creating a society can sound potentially off-putting. Is this going to be liberal propaganda, you might ask? Rogen was asked that question byCinema Blend, but he laughed, adding, “It is a hedonistic agenda.” The interviewer argued, perhaps not all too seriously, that he thoughtFoodtopiamight be required viewing to vote, and while that might be a bit far-fetched, it’s not a statement without merit.Sausage Party: Foodtopiafeels like a civics lesson in a foul-mouthed (and foul other parts) cartoon, and in the summer of 2024 (which makes 2016 look tame in comparison),it’s arriving at the perfect time.
That doesn’t mean thatFoodtopiais heavy-handed commentary. The comedy comes first (pardon the pun) with the hedonistic agenda being priority number one. Still, you can’t just have a hot dog getting it on with a bun and be entertained. For eight episodes of a series,something bigger needs to happen. So,Foodtopiaexplores the aftermath of a group rising up and defeating their oppressors. The real work is what happens after, but the food doesn’t know this. All they’ve ever known is the supermarket, so simply going outside and experiencing rain or seeing a bird for the first time ever, can be frightening and deadly. It makes the food want to go back inside their damaged store and hide because it’s safer there, but Frank (Rogen) and Brenda Bunson (Wiig) know that the only way to truly be free is to live a life free from past restraints, so outside they must go.
‘Sausage Party: Foodtopia’ Stars Discuss the ‘Call Me By Your Name’ Joke Aimed at Five People
Seth Rogen, Kristen Wiig and Sam Richardson reflect on the funny things they have to take seriously while voicing food items in flagrante delicto.
The world ofSausage Party: Foodtopiais nothing more than a parking lot and shopping complex, but to them, it might as well be the size of the human world. In the supermarket, all of these different kinds of food, although they are separated by packages and aisles, for the most part, stayed together as one. There were some uncomfortable yet hilarious representations of race and religion (Firewater’s explanation of the world beyond in the dark aisle is brilliant), but when it matters, they are one. That all falls apart once the food is set free. Suddenly, some are selfishly taking large stores for their own, like an unneeded mansion, while the smaller and weaker food lives in cardboard boxes in the alley. Human teeth are passed around as their money to buy objects, rather than just sharing with each other. When some food starts stealing teeth, a one hot dog police force, led by Barry (Cera), is set up, and a judicial system, complete with a judge, comes to be.Foodtopiais not all it’s cracked up to be.
‘Sausage Party: Foodtopia’ Leans Into Parody Without Feeling Heavy-Handed
The woes ofFoodtopiaare created by an orange named Julius(Sam Richardson), a self-absorbed power-hungry fruit who takes control when the food needs a leader, and while he is a populist, pretending to be for everyone, everything he does is just to help his own status. With his bright orange skin, a leaf above his head that waves like oddly combed hair, and his personality,it’s easy to see the winks to Donald Trump, but thankfully,Foodtopiatakes a lighter approach to the comparisons and doesn’t go into full parody.
Instead, Julius represents not just one person, but all the powerful men who took over society and bent it to their own desires. Jobs are created, but the food are treated horribly, underworked and underpaid. One is shown dying in an accident on an assembly line, and there is a drawn-out mass death scene with a poor family of eggs that’s at once dark as hell while also sidesplitting funny. Sides begin to form, with some food wanting to side with Julius because they want what he has, while others, led by Frank and Brenda, want a more socialist, sharing society. To get his narrative out there,Julius hires Sammy Bagel Jr. (Norton) to start his own Fox News-type spin show. Debates and an election are formed, and as the chaos reaches a crescendo, there is a twist involving Julius' true motivations. The last few scenes are powerful, with Julius defeated and Frank now in control, but even under him, the strong food rises over the weak ones, and although a more true Foodtopia now exists, no one really has free will. Frank has become a dictator of sorts to keep his hold on what he believes is right.Season 1 ofSausage Party: Foodtopiaendswith a food world left in trouble, no matter who is in control of it. That doesn’t speak to our times, does it?
Sausage Party: Foodtopiais available to stream on Prime Video in the U.S.
