A new movie out just last weekend focuses on the role of faith in our daily lives: Who shapes our beliefs and what do we do when confronted with facts that directly contradict our belief system? Do we reject faith or double down on embracing it, despite any looming truths? The movie also tackles concepts of ethnic tribalism, moral relativism and more. You might not have guessed that this is Seth Rogen’s latest vehicle, “Sausage Party,” an R-rated animated film.
Don’t mistake the Pixar-spoofing CGI film for “Toy Story” or “Finding Dory” — this film featuring characters cursing a blue streak, is saturated with sexual innuendo and engages in one visually overwhelming and unbelievably graphic sex orgy. NPR called the film “gleefully profane.”
The film centers on Frank, a protagonist sausage trying to find (and fill) his bun. But the writers — including actor-writer Rogen (who stars as Frank) and his longtime collaborator Evan Goldberg, along with their frequent collaborators and executive producers Ariel Shaffir and Kyle Hunter — went beyond the joke to construct a belief system for sentient food.
“We didn’t set out to write a movie about [faith],” Shaffir said in a phone interview. “The genesis was ‘the secret life of food.’ ” But as the writers discussed it, they realized that “the food can’t believe that they get eaten is the starting point, so what do they believe?”
The food characters at the film’s fictional Shopwell’s supermarket expresses their beliefs every morning, in a musical number titled “The Great Beyond,” that deliberately recalls show-stoppers in “The Little Mermaid” and “Beauty and the Beast.” Indeed, the song was composed by eight-time Oscar winner and 19-time Oscar nominee Alan Menken, who composed those Disney classics with his late partner, Howard Ashman, and with lyrics by Tony-nominated and Grammy-Award winning lyricist Glenn Slater.
In the writing process, the filmmakers realized the song — in the script from the start — was actually the key to setting up the structure of faith for the film’s characters.
“We tied it to the belief system and who created it and how it got changed and perverted throughout the aisles, making them at odds with each other,” said Hunter, who co-wrote the lyrics with Slater, along with Rogen, Goldberg and Shaffir.
 and Sammy Bagel Jr. (Edward Norton) in Sausage Party.</em></span></p>
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As the characters sing, they also pray that the gods (humans) will choose them and take them out the store’s doors into the Great Beyond.</p>
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“Every aisle thinks something different … ” the lyrics go, “Everyone else is f—ing stupid, except for those who think like me.” As the grocery products sing from their respective aisles, they display their different flavors and countries of origin. For instance, the sauerkraut, as it imagines what it will do in the great beyond, sings, “We will exterminate the juice.”</p>
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“We realized that grocery stores are divided into ethnic types, which lent itself to representing different faiths and ethnicities and belief systems,” Shaffir said. “After that, it was a natural progression” for the theology and faith-based content, he said.</p>
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A few characters begin as one-off racial or ethnic stereotypes but go deeper — exploring issues of religious conflict and racism. Central among these issues is the role of native peoples in relationship to those who came to their lands. The Native American Chief Firewater (Bill Hader), who lives among the nonperishables, is a hinge for the story’s action — and, we discover, the creator of the morning song and a forger of the very belief systems that the groceries hold dear. Grits (Craig Robinson) represents the anger of having been enslaved by the Crackers. And ethnic foods Sammy Bagel Jr. (Edward Norton, channeling Woody Allen) and Kareem-Abdul Lavash (David Krumholtz, who played Lavash at table reads over the course of seven years of production) argue over the occupation of shelf space. (Hummus sits, fairly peacefully, between them.)</p>
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“Trying to write this, we wanted to make sure we were presenting both sides of the argument,” Shaffir said. “Especially the Middle East conflict, we tried to present both sides of the argument, and that was our goal and I think we did that.” </p>
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“We realized we were treading on potentially offensive waters,” Hunter said. “But we were ‘equal opportunity’ about it, and touch on as many different things as possible. But we were conscious about making the overall message one of tolerance and acceptance.”</p>
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The basic concept to make an R-rated, Pixar-style movie was Rogen’s and Hill’s, Shaffir said — he and Hunter came on board in 2008 — “we got in a room and talked about story, and it all came together.”</p>
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Although Rogen and Goldberg are well-known Hollywood names, it wasn’t easy to get the film made, the writers told the Journal.</p>
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“None of the studios were biting, both because of the risky controversial subject matter, and there hadn’t been an R-rated CGI animated movie before,” Hunter said. There was “no financial model in place, and they were a little scared.” Then Megan Ellison from Annapurna Pictures read it, “loved the script and took a huge gamble,” Hunter said. Ellison persuaded Sony to co-produce, and the film was in motion.</p>
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Because animation takes so long to produce, Shaffir said, “we were writing and revising up until 10 months ago — the process was very lengthy.” The long process, however, meant that “we had the opportunity to storyboard it and see what it looked like,” Shaffir said.</p>
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Shaffir and Hunter have been writing together since 2002. Hunter knew Rogen and Goldberg from Vancouver; Shaffir had met Rogen in 1998 in Israel, on what he described as a “Birthright-style” trip for alumni of Habonim Dror (Jewish labor Zionist) summer camps. Shaffir later met Goldberg at McGill University in Montreal. </p>
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Rogen, Goldberg, Shaffir and Hunter aren’t known for particularly child-friendly content to begin with, and “Sausage Party” kicks the language and graphic content up a notch, but the packaging — including a series of ubiquitous billboard ads all around Los Angeles — still has some kids clamoring to see the film. Pico-Robertson area children have undoubtedly seen the sign depicting the “deformed” sausage Barry, with text that reads “Mazal tov!”</p>
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Hunter said he’d never seen a film advertised with so many “warnings and banners all over it,” affirming that “we made a movie that is not for kids.” He noted that he has already heard stories that, whether by accident or intentionally, some parents are nevertheless bringing kids. </p>
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“Hopefully, those parents can figure out a way to explain it their kids,” said Shaffir, a father of two small children.</p>
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