“Sausage Party”: Surprisingly heartfelt and real, real funny

Recommendation: Yes, wholeheartedly yes, see it now

Verdict: “Sausage Party” is smart, funny and in-touch with all of the divisions it pokes fun at.

If you spend your time surrounded by easily butt-hurt “whimper-me-this” types (easy to do as a college kid… they’re everywhere!) you’ve probably heard that “Sausage Party” is crass, racist and sexist trash.

This is a ridiculous untruth and you should unfriend these people post-haste.

“Sausage Party” is crass, for sure, over the top un-PC and more than a little wacko. It is also full of literal food porn, cringe-worthy “Saving Private Ryan” references, religion-shaming and racial stereotypes. This may sound unappetizing but I promise you, “Sausage Party” is smart, informed and amazingly heartfelt for being built upon a penis joke.

“Sausage Party”’s world is a fully fledged mini-verse within our universe– the anthropomorphic foods that occupy Shopwells’ supermarket spend their days singing to the Gods (us humans), who in turn choose the most obedient foods to whisk out into the “Great Beyond.” Out there in that glimmering place beyond the grocery store doors the Gods love and care for them, and, as they say in their song, “nothing shitty ever happens to food.”

Hotdog Frank (Seth Rogen) and hotdog bun Brenda (Kristen Wiig) pass their days waiting to be chosen by the Gods, that way Frank can finally slip himself into Brenda without arousing the wrath of the Gods for pre-Great Beyond fornicating. But then a jar of honey mustard is returned to the store, bearing a horrifying story: the Gods are actually monsters who torture and devour all the food they choose; the joys of the Great Beyond are wicked myths!

In his search for the truth, Frank ends up on a romp through the racially-segregated grocery store with Brenda, a Jewish bagel (Edward Norton doing a jaw-dropping Woody Allen impression), an Arabic lavash (David Krumholtz) and a lesbian taco (Salma Hayek). All the while, they’re being hunted by an angry, juiced-up douche played by Nick Kroll channeling a slightly more crunked Bobby Bottleservice (“No disrespect bro but you look really gross.”)

“Sausage Party” finds racially insensitive jokes in every one of its characters: the bagel and lavash argue about occupying the West bank of their aisle, the lavash awaits 77 virgin olive oils in the Great Beyond, the only black character is a box of grits, nd Bill Hader makes an appearance as a feathered headdress-wearing bottle of Firewater, who smokes weed out of a kazoo. And guess what? It’s flipping hilarious. And guess what else? You don’t have to be a racist bigot or an ignorant lax bro to think so.

“Sausage Party” gets its rocks off hating on everybody, and more than that, it does so while being totally attentive to racial and religious divisions. It makes jokes predicated on race, all while leading up to a climax that says “Hey, we’re all the same, we can work through our differences with a little love and respect.”

In fact “Sausage Party” has more nuanced convictions about resolving racial and religious tensions than just about any religion-hating indie movie I’ve seen in recent years. And again, this is a movie about foods fucking each other. Mad props.

It’s a hedonistic vision, an atheist’s (or maybe Satanist’s?) perfect humanity, of everyone throwing off the shackles of religion and living in truth and knowledge.

But aggressive, stupid and militant it is not. As a stubby sausage points out, you can’t just tell people they’re dumb if you disagree with them, you have to give them hope. And hopeless as this movie’s conclusion might seem long-term, it’s a rousing testament to finding enough hope in each other to keep on living when the long-term bad news seems insurmountable.

All this while being consistently hilarious. I didn’t laugh at every joke, mind you, but I laughed enough to be impressed. Sometimes I laugh/cringed, sometimes I just giggled at a pun, but I was always engaged. And when the end rolled around, the eye-popping, hysterical sensation it was, I screamed with laughter while basking in its message. Never underestimate how palatable philosophy can be when delivered by a horny sausage.

You should see “Sausage Party” now, in theaters, no matter your religion or race. And when the first opportunity for whining hits—which happens very early, by the way, within the first few minutes there’s an amazing Hitler character threatening to exterminate the “juice”– don’t flee in PC panic. Sit, laugh, listen and stay through the end. You might walk away with a new perspective.