On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked if movies have women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, EFFI bast start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.
Oh gosh, welcome to the Bachdell Cast.
Okay, yeah, ready to party, Ready to sausage party?
Yes I am, because today is my shameless plugging day. Today is the day where we are doing a movie that is technically about hot dogs but is also I don't know, I don't know, uh, but we're celebrating the release of Raw Dog, my first book. When you're hearing this, it will be out. You should definitely go buy it
at your local bookstore. Don't know, Amazon, fuckery. Please I'll accept the Barnes and Noble, but only if you're in a difficult like only if you're not near an independent books, which you probably are, So go get It's my book about the history of hot dogs and a road trip I took in twenty twenty one trying hot dogs across
the country. It is about leftist politics, it is about workers' rights, it is about the history of like how American jingoism is connected to the hot dog It's about following people around in the Wienermobile. It's about falling in love with Joey Chestnut. But also it's complicated and I don't really fuck with him, but I do have a crush on him, gross problematic fave Joey Chestnut and my king to Karo Kobyashi,
as well as all of the kind of twisted bizarre. Well, this is actually maybe where it overlaps with Sausage Party, which we're talking about today, which mercifully does not come up in the book. I did not there, there is no space, and I didn't want to know. I just didn't want to. But in Professional hot Dog Eating, there's a lot of historical issues regarding racism and gender discrimination within that sport. Yes, it's a sport. No, I will
not be taking questions or arguments about it. It is a sport, and that is something that has in common with the movie we're discussing today, So shameless plunge.
And racism and yes, all of those things, yes huh.
But one thing it doesn't have that Sausage Party does is bad writing. It's a good book. I should buy it, and I or if you're not in a position to buy it. We'll link in this episode of different ways to request that it be brought to your local library. That's also a great way. There's also an audio book that's narrated by me, but they're like, hey, podcaster getting that booth and I did. And my audio engineer's name was Tim, and he was a vegan, and he was like,
oh my god, oh gee whiz. We really learned from each other that week. He's from New Zealand, kind of iconic, and he's like, I can't do anyw Zealand accent. But he was like, this country is so fucked and I was like, that's right, Tim, that's right. And that's an example of something that did not pass the Bechdel test. Me and Tim shooting the shit. Yeah. Was it pleasant, yes, of course, but did not pass.
And which what a wonderful transition to our show and what it's about. So this is the Bechdel Cast.
Hello.
My name is Caitlin Derante.
My name is Jamie loftis author of Raw Dog Out Now.
And this is our show where we analyze movies through an intersectional feminist lens using the Bechdel It was a weird way to say that using the Bechtel test simply as a jumping off point to initiate a far larger conversation about representation and such in FLIM. The Bechdel test being a media metric sometimes called the Bechdel Wallace test that first appeared in Alison Bechdel Queer icon queer cartoonist
Alison Bechdel's comic Dykes to Watch out For. Originally intended just as sort of like a one off joke, it was a bit, but it has since been used as this media metric. There are many versions of it. The one that we use is this two characters of a marginalized gender must have names. Those characters have to talk to each other about something other than a man, and we particularly enjoy it when it is a narratively meaningful conversation and not just a hi, hot dog number one Hello.
Yeah.
Also, I resent the aggressive gendering of the hot dog expanded universe. Hot dogs are Look, they're beautiful. They don't know gender, and this is I mean it, Katelyn, no love. I love these damn things.
I love to eat hot dogs.
When they're ethically produced. I'm smiling, and they don't know gender. They transcend gender and class. That's the whole point of a hot dog there for everybody. Why according to this movie that's rogan God, we'll talk about it. Got well, actually I have a lot of hot dog gendering thoughts, which we'll get around to. But yes, this movie, I mean, for it's many flaws. It does pass the Bexel test,
not the way as I particularly like. Oh it's heinous, but yeah, but that's why we talk about all the time. It's a flawed metric. It was created as a bit. But there's plenty to talk about. And boy, oh boy, this movie came out in twenty sixteen, but it really feels like it came out in two thousand and four. It has like huge two thousand and four vibes. But it was a I kind of forgot we were talking about this earlier. I forgot that Sausage Party was apparently a huge hit.
Yes, it was like a box office smash hit. It was for a while the highest grossing R rated movie ever until it was really such a bummer. Oh sorry, okay, I made some stuff up. It was the highest grossing R rated animated film, not R rated film in general, but which R rated animated film because it grossed one hundred and forty one million dollars at the box office against a budget of nineteen million dollars, which is a low budget for an animated feature. And will go into
how that happened later. The budget on this movie is low for.
A animated and then I have a lot of feelings on animation labor. Yeah, well, sEH, we'll get to Animators are treated so horribly and people across the spectrum in terms of jobs in animation are just treated terribly. And this also it also feels like it ties into conversations that have gone on in the last couple of years around effects workers in Marvel movies, where that's constantly been like people working overtime and then not just being worked
to death. And you know, the whole ethos is like you should be lucky to work on a Marvel movie, and it's like, go fuck yourself. Yes, but yees, so it was a pretty big hit and I'm realizing Kaitlyn. I, first of all, I appreciate that you were willing to do a hot dog themed movie to line up.
With Oh yeah, this was my idea.
Sorry hot Dog, which is which dog out?
Now?
I will say I thought this was the only movie about hot dogs, but shows what I fucking know because my friend Mitch last night gave me a DVD for something called hot Dog the Movie. Why that came out in nineteen eighty four. Well, I haven't read this anopsis yet, Okay, I've had It's definitely share it. Well, of course I can. Let me get the sticker off. Hold on, Okay, there's
a booklet inside. How we're gonna just read the beginning good snowballs and powder bunnies, the sex tactic, slapstick slaloam of hot Dog the movie? What hot Dogs the movie? I'm not even following. I think it's a skiing movie is Also what's gonna do? Is the whole thing appears to take place at a Let's find out what Dog
the movie is. This is the supreme Bacchanalian Ski movie blowout, toward which all previous Bacchanalian Ski movie blowouts has led, and from which all subsequent Bachanalian Ski movie blowouts have since proceeded. Backward, upside down and drunkenly spinning through the air between snow capped jumping off points, hitting theaters in early nineteen eighty four, at the ascending peak of post
Porky's teen sex comedy mania. Oh Boy, hot Dog's protagonists may not have been in high school or college, but the movie's ski lodge setting and r rated raunch landed it squarely in the cannon of high eighties adolescent anarchy farces.
Let me just keep us So this is like a bias, a biography of the movie more than a synopsis.
I'm under real this is a movie about skiing. Why is it called hot Dog the movie? Wait? Hang on, I'm getting pissed off. I'm getting pissed off. Let's google where? Yeah, when is when the hot dogs coming?
Are the skiers?
Like?
Are the wait?
It's about? The film stars Patrick Hawser as Harken Banks, a young and ambitious freestyle skier from Bonners Ferry, Idaho, who's determined to prove himself in the freestyle skiing competition at Squaw Valley. Along the way, he teams with a there's no hot dogs in this movie.
Yeah, it's just about it's a teen sex comedy about freestyle skiers.
Well, that has nothing to do with hot dogs, And I'm pissed. Apparently this movie made it budget back eleven times. Not that he has ever heard of it, and hopefully that's what will happen to the movie we're discussing as today as well, Sausage Party. Caitlin Doranday, what's her history with this movie?
I did not see it in theaters, but I did see it shortly after it came out, because there was a lot of buzz about this movie. Not only was it a box office hit, it was critically well received.
It has eighty two percent on Rotten Tomatoes, which is unexplained that the male I remember being shocked by that at the time too, because this was shortly before the Bechdel Cast began. Yeah, this came out the summer before mm hm.
So I saw it sometime later in twenty sixteen, and remember thinking, and this was before I was like, like you said, this was before we started the Bechdel Cast. So even though like representation was on my mind when I was watching movies, you know, we didn't have quite the nuanced takes that we do now.
But you don't need a nuanced view of cinema to realize that.
I would say that this is one of the worst movies I've ever seen from a storytelling point of view and from a representation point of view, It's just abysmal in every imaginable way.
It's a really And it's interesting to read back the good reviews of this movie because there is sort of a lot of like and I do think it has to do with how beloved seth Rogen is by pop culture and by the general culture in general, and general culture in general, Jae come on, and I'm like, we're not knocking Seth Rogen fans, Like I've enjoyed a lot of Seth Rogen over the years, although I did used to say I would deport them to Canada, which was not nice of me, but no, I mean it's like
I've I've enjoyed a lot of Seth Rogen's work. This is just really not I don't know. I felt a sort of like in reading a lot of reviews, a lot of bending over backwards to make this movie okay because Seth Rogan made it and like all these beloved comedians of this era made it. And I do wonder what how this movie would be received if it came
out now. And also like reading about the ostensible like intentions that the writers had, like where they were like, it's this is something that we'll get into it but it just like never ever, ever, ever, ever works when someone's like, this movie is equal opportunity offensive, no one is safe from my pen and it's just like, well, that completely ignores any dynamics of like privilege or who gets to make most movies, So that does not work.
And it's just like I was reading in the reviews of this that I don't know, like the closest I could say to something positive about this movie is that it's attempting to say something about faith. I don't think it successfully does. I understand that it's attempting to. But everything else is just like presenting very broad stereotypes in a way that is not presenting the I was not seeing.
The commentary that was implied in some of these reviews is I'm like commenting on what exactly exactly what does Bill Hayter playing a native character in the most broadly offensive way possible on multiple levels? What does that comment anything?
Yeah, the critical consensus on Rotten Tomatoes.
Is which, again, Rotten Tomatoes is like a shitty metric, but.
So people consult it like I go on Rotten Tomatoes to be like should I see this movie?
I don't know sure?
But the critic consensus is Sausage Party is definitely offensive. I agree with that, but backs up its enthusiastic profanity with an impressively high laugh to gag Ratio. I do not agree with that because I did not laugh fucking once.
No, it's all puns.
Yeah, like, it's all bad, and I love a pun, but none of these puns are good.
I don't.
And then then the final part of this is so it's you know, it backs up the enthusiastic profanity with an impressively high laugh to gag Ratio and a surprisingly thought provoking storyline.
Also, no, I like truly the no no like this is I went to a letterboxed on this one as well, just to get a fe I love letterbox reviews a lot. Oh they're great. The top review is I'm only four minutes into this, but I think this is the most evil movie I've ever seen. And I hard agree with that. And this is why we need better movies about hot dogs. And I would I I'm you know, I'm not even throwing my hat in the ring. I am the fucking ring. I'm gonna make a hot dog movie that doesn't suck ass.
This is my history with this movie is that I saw it similar shortly after it came out, because but I remember like seeing it with a friend that we were watching it again. We hadn't started the Betel cast. But it doesn't mean we weren't feminists or like didn't have a brain that like. I saw it because I thought I would be a like really upset and annoyed by it, and so we watched it kind of as like a joke. Yeah, and you know, sure enough, I fucking hated it. I may have written about it at
the time. This was back when I was doing a lot of like writing. I mean, I was like a full time writer on various websites. Wow brag, thank you. But yeah, I'm pretty sure I wrote an essay about it for Paste at the time, not about Sausage Party in particular, but like this like manchild comedy that I think has since this is kind of like as far as I can tell, at least in the hugely popular sense kind of the tail end of it. Yeah, and
it had a fucking run. I would say that this like style of broadly offensive humor that employs all of these fucking tropes that says it saying something, but it's not. And it's pretty fucking evil, is they. It had a good, like decade long kind of choke hold on comedy in.
Movies, and it was like the Judd Apatow era.
Well, it's like yeah, and it's like that's the thing that's fascinating, frustrating whatever about it is like even Judd Apatow and Seth Rogan don't do shit like this anymore because I don't think that they can get away with it.
Yeah, and I know Seth has Seth Rogan not been like, oops, I made some stuff back in the day that I can't really vouch for anymore. Did that happen, Yes, definitely, Yeah, he did so.
Yeah. I think it is kind of interesting that in the last two years, it appears this like started in twenty twenty one, Seth Rogan has attempted to sort of address past offensive both like content in movies and treatment of people, if not from him specifically by a production that he was involved whether or in charge of. So. Examples would include i'ma Watson and this is the end Catherine Heigel in Knocked Up, and I'm also seeing an incident regarding a child actor in Good Boys, a movie
I did not see having their skin darkened. Oh yeah, So there was this sort of I don't want to be too reductive and say apology tour like, but a series of like this is such a I don't know, but they're okay in any case. My opinion is that Sausage Party is too recent to be doing but it does feel like this all that to say, Sausage Party feels like arriving at the tail end of this style of comedy being extremely mainstream popular.
Yeah, and it still has a long way to go, but there was kind of like a cultural turning point, like right around this time where media and especially comedy wasn't so reliant on reductive stereotypes and tropes and punching down humor, which we've talked about many times on the show. That became way less popular right around this time.
Yes, and this it's because the Bechtel no kidding.
Yeah, no, we fixed the world. You're welcome, everybody, no of it.
I do think it like has I mean whatever, We're not historians or anthropologists, but this comes out, you know, the summer before the twenty sixteen election, which I feel like was a marked kind of a huge shift in demanding better representation for sure in movies. Was that successful still TBD, working on it, work in progress. But I do take a little bit of comfort in watching this movie that was a hit in twenty sixteen and feeling pretty confident that it probably couldn't even get green lid
here right now. So that makes me feel a little better. But yeah, I saw this movie as a joke. I have not thought of it since really, I mean to the point where I literally wrote a book about hot dogs and didn't even think to include it. Right.
Yeah, it has no lasting legacy, which is comforting.
No, and I don't think I think, especially because of the style of humor being so broad and I think evil, as well as the labor issues that sort of stuck to this movie for several years. I know that there's been interest in a sequel from Seth Rogan, but I just personally I don't see it happening. However, Caitlin. In October twenty twenty two, Sausage Party Food Topia, a sequel series based on the film, was greenlt from Amazon Studios. So too, well, you know, uh, look at look at God,
which is what this movie says it's about, but it's not. Yeah, should we get into. This movie really is viscerally upset. Yeah, and it's there's so many like I mean, this is true of a lot of the there's like a lot of performers I genuinely enjoy in this movie.
And there's so many people that are too good for the Why is Selma Hike in this?
Oh God? I mean we'll get into I mean, I I at very least hope that people were well some I don't. I don't even know. I don't know, I don't know. I'm so like, oh, I don't know, Yeah, why did they? I just feel deflated?
Same. Well, let's take a quick break and regroup. Yes, and then we'll come back for a recap that will just upset us again. Great, So we'll be right back.
And we're back, all right. Can I just quickly read off the cast for this movie? Please? Okay? It really is all okay, seth Rogen, Michael Sarah Kristen Wick, Edward Norton, question Mark, David Crumb, Holds h betrayal, Salma Hayak, Bill Hayter. I think comes out the worst, yeah, out of the whole cast. And that's saying something. Craig Robinson, Nick Kroll, James Franco, Jonah Haill, Andrews Home, Danny McBride, how dare he?
Paul Rudd, It's just come on, come on, yeah, all of you, all of you, shame on you, except for I would say Salama hyak, everyone else, shame on you. Yeah.
But also her character. We'll get there, Okay.
I don't know. So I don't know. I hope they paid her a lot of money. But also, oh my god, we didn't what they probably didn't. Why would you do this? How I can't imagine outside of money, you know. I just don't know. I just don't know. I was thinking about this the other day when I was watching a video of Bill nigh he O King, who describes walking around the set of Pirates of the Caribbean when he was playing Davy Jones, just saying the money, the money,
the money. I was like, I hope, oh wow, oh he's the best of him.
Okay, okay.
Sausage party. So most of the movie.
Takes place at a grocery store called Shop Wells. We meet a few hot dogs in a pack. Frank voiced by Seth Rogen.
As a hot dog. He's Frank hilarious. I'm laughing already. Wait, but do the buns have tits? This is so upset gender essentialism with hot dogs, like oh oh oh, that's nasty. There's a whole spiel I have that's fucking filthy.
Another hot dog is Carl voiced by Jonah Hill and Barry voiced by Michael Sarah. These hot dogs, along with all of the other food and condiments and household products in this grocery store, are sentient, and their goal is to be selected by people who the food thinks are gods.
Okay, so quick energ I'm gonna try to try my best to enjoy this episode more by interjecting with hot dog facts. I love please that dogs are now sentient. Yes, no, I will say that there is not that. I think that anyone who was writing this movie was thinking a thought the entire time. Correct, But there is a weird precedent for like picturing like hot dogs specifically, but also a lot of food of just like anthropomortiizing food in a way that is like begging you to eat it
in a way that's kind of nasty. And there's one particular hot dog statue that is I've seen it across the country. I want I don't know. I didn't. This was not an international project, so I can only speak to the US. If you're a listener outside of the US that has seen this hot dog statue, please let me know. It's so gross. It is a It's first of all, it's huge, It's like six feet tall, and it's it sort of is anthropomorphized in the Mickey Mouse
way that that these hot dogs are. They got the white gloves, they got the little legs, whatever, you gotta make them look like something. And I feel like the Mickey Mouse method is most common. But this hot dog is slouching over. He's holding I say he because it seems like that's what again, the gender is antalism of hot dogs.
People love to gender hot dogs as men and more specifically.
Horny man heenuses, okay, whatever, but the hot dog is louched over. He's also got teeth hat that yeah, I mean, so does Frank. And you're like, well, it like you could have a whole thing that There's this amazing video from this YouTuber named Mike's Mike where he breaks down everything about the movie Cars that is like body horror, and you could have a very similar video about this.
But the hot talk statues holding ketch him in one hand, mustard and another squeezing it all over on himself and licking his teeth like he's dressing himself to be eaten by you. But he also looks like he's kind of in pain. Oh No, it's disgusting and it's so big. And then I looked it up online. It costs like twelve hundred dollars. I'm like, why would you buy this? Why would this be in your house? So this is they wanted to put that on the cover of my
book and I was like, you can't. You can't do that. You can't do that. I'm gonna send you a picture please. It's so nasty.
So this is like just a piece of like decorative art question mark that you can buy and have in your house.
No, so it's used mostly. I mean I guess you could, but it's used mostly in hot dog restaurants. Oh, I see, but true. I mean, this thing is being sold for two thousand dollars on eBay and it's disgusting. It's so gross. And then in Chicago, what is more common practice is they will break off the arm holding the ketchup bottle.
Oh, because Chicago hot dogs are all about mustard.
They're all no there, it's well, they're they they're all about a lot of things, but they're more about like, no ketchup. I see Okay, are you seeing this? Oh my god, it's it's thank you.
It's even worse than I was picturing in my head. The face is really troubling.
It's perverse. Also, he's like wearing sneakers and socks and has teeth, and I'm just like, this is too far.
Wait, I'm just the one I'm seeing. He's like licking his lips. Yes, so it has a tongue.
Yes, I've seen variants that have teeth. There's a few different variants on this. But and then there's also one that's wrapped in an American flag, because this is so you know, the hot dog is so tied into American jingoism, even though it's not an American dish. It's fucking Greek and Polish. But whatever, al right, sorry, sausage party.
So yeah, we meet all these hot dogs. Also, these hot dogs are not being refrigerated. They're just on a regular ass shelf, nasty next to buns.
I would rather they refrigerate the buns.
That's fine, Yeah, right, you can do that, you can. Yeah, they last longer probably, but yeah, no, there's just like room temperature hot dogs and we're supposed to be rooting for them. Yeah right, Okay, So the whole thing is that all the food revers humans as gods and they want to be taken out of the store to the quote unquote Great Beyond. Because the food does not know
that its purpose is to be eaten. They think that they're going to be taken out of the store and it's going to be this wonderful paradise because the movie is an allegory for religion, and the food believes this dogma about the Great Beyond basically being heaven all this stuff.
Yes, this is like the beginning of this movie's attempt to make comment on faith, right, I feel was not very well done, but you can tell they're attempting it, yes, right, Yeah, So.
The main thing with the hot dogs, who again are coded as men, and we'll talk all about the coding and the gender essentralism of all of this, but the hot dogs who are men are excited. The main thing that they're excited about is that they will be put inside the hot dog buns who are coded as women.
And also coded as sentient vaginas. Right, and well, here's what happens is that the here's the thing for me, this is complicated stuff.
The hot dogs being put inside hot dog buns is this very nuanced, subtle metaphor for heterosex. You probably didn't know that until I explained it, because it's just so subtle or.
Really subtle, and it's like, let's yeah, let's it's it's really a hetero. And it's also very uh, everything in this on this shelf is uh sis hetero. I'm like, correct, they're fucking hot dogs.
Stop it, stop it? What? Uh yeah? The SCENTI and I will say that the design, I mean whatever, animation wise, the character design of the hot dogs. I'm not super upset. I don't love to see teeth inside of a hot dog, but I guess it's scarier if there's no teeth, if
we're anthrop whatever. The buns, Oh no, inexcusable, bad, bad, bad, They're all because I feel like there's all these jokes that have ablest coding to them of like a smooshed bun, or like a hot dog that isn't like the correct quote unquote shape or size or whatever, which is not just ablest coded, very very clearly. It's also like, but the regular buns don't look like hot dog buns because regular hot dog buns don't have todays and a big old butt like we talk, and like hot dog bus
are not like famously curvy, like what are you talking about? More? And I hate the sideways. Oh they don't have that's so okay. Why does seth Rogen hot dog have teeth? Christm wigbun no teeth, Sideway's mouth, no teeth.
The character design in this movie is just I hate it.
Yeah, but the vagina buns I have, really I have, it's so hard to look at. Yeah, so, and you're just like, but vaginas are literally beautiful, Wow, why would you do that? And also it's like I don't like it's just all like the fact that I mean, we've talked about this in animation before, where anything remotely woman coded, and like we've been talking about this since the Ghostbusters episode where it's like male coded animated characters can look
like anything. Women have to have a fucking huge like iftimes, like distinct boobs and butt, which is obviously like not knocking anyone who has boobs and butt? Like, whatever, how dare you so? I have boobs and butt? What do you say? I have a butt? I technically have boobs. It's fine, Like it's fine, it's body. But like, you know, we can't look like anything.
Right, we It's it's a very specific like western beauty standards body shape and size that is ascribed to female characters in animation.
But Kaitlyn, why why for.
A hot dog bun?
The hot dog is, well, the hot dog, but even by this movie's logic, the hot dog is clearly supposed to be penis coated. Right, it's a sentient thick and it's horny, because that's how we essentialize male sexuality. Right. The bun is vagina, But vaginas don't have boobs. It's kind of if that would mean you're so sick if that was happening. I just don't know, Like I just don't, like, yeah, vaginas don't have butt.
They don't have an ass, they don't they don't have titties.
Not to be a woman in stem but they don't. But it's like it's so perverse to me that like even just making the character a sentient vagina was not horny. Enough, they also had to give the vagina. Yeah, boobs and a butt. It doesn't make sense and it looks horrible.
It looks like shit.
It's so cross not knocking the animators. I'm sure that the creatives insisted on this.
Yeah, the animators aren't designing the characters. No, So whoever was responsible for character design really needs to.
Really, I this movie is like truly chaotic evil on every level, and these things are sort of like occurring to me as we go, like, Wow, they really put boobs and a butt on a vagina. Yes, that is correct. We're never gonna be any free. This is just like a nightmare. Yeah, okay.
So the main bun character who we meet and follow throughout the movie is Brenda voiced by Kristin Wig. She is Frank's girlfriend love Kristin Wig same and the following day is the fourth of July, which means that it's pretty likely that the hot dogs and buns will be taken out of the store to the Great Beyond and
Frank Brenda will finally get to have sex. Yeah, sure enough, Frank's pack of hot dogs and Brenda's pack of buns are selected from the shelf and put into a cart by one of the quote unquote gods aka a woman.
But before this happens, they have some sort of sexual contact. They have touched tips, yeah, which is later used. And I saw reviews at this movie that were like, this is the commentary on Christian values, and you're like, shut up, they're like that they touch tips, They touch fingertips, right, but it's like a sexually coated like yeah, whatever, touch tips fine, which is then used for the rest when
things go wrong in the movie. As time goes on, Brenda thinks that this is because she had any sort of pre marital or like pre whatever.
Yeah.
She thinks she's being punished by the gods for having pre marital sexual contact with Frank.
Which I guess you could argue comes around in the end, but not in a very satisfying way. And it and also just like the way that they're and again I know that this was argued as commentary, but it just it didn't argue with me. Were at the beginning, the hot dogs are just like, we want to fucking fucking fuck, and then the bun ladies are like, we want to be loved.
Me and we went to I wrote it down, it's we went to love and hug and feel and share me via because women be having emotions and men only want to have sex.
Ha ha ha. I mean I want to love and feel and share too, but people of all genders want to love and feel in chair and also people, what the fuck? This movie is so essential as it's so boring. I hate it.
It sucks.
Sorry.
Okay, So Frank and Brenda have been put in a cart. Yeah, but there's this jar of honey mustard that had been purchased by mistake and gets returned to the store. So he went out into the quote unquote Great Beyond or the like unknown area beyond the store, write how could you? And then the honey mustard ends up in this woman's cart with Frank and Brenda, and the honey mustard tells everyone what he has discovered about what actually happens in
the Great Beyond. It is a hellscape where food is eaten. So chaos ensues upon hearing this news, and a bunch of food goes flying out of the cart, including Frank and Brenda because they've gotten loose from their packaging. The store closes shortly thereafter, and Frank and Brenda, who are
now just sort of like loose in the store. They set off to find other packages that they can sneak into in the hopes that they will still be chosen and taken to the great beyond, although Frank is now skeptical and once more information because what if the honey mustard was right and.
The honey mustard tells him to go see a bottle of firewater? Yes? And also we haven't brought up because I don't know why this is like truly writing wise, even if we're just looking at this as writers, I don't know why the character of Douche, that's right, Oh, the big bat of this movie is called Douche. I don't know why there's like randomly a villain, Like it's not even necessary to the shitty story that's being told for there to be this villain, right, Like the crisis
of faith in the Quest is enough. You don't need. Yeah, the villain of the movie's named Douche.
Yes, yeah, and you're never gonna he's about to come.
Up, which I'm like, do they even sell those at the grocery store? I don't know.
But also it's such a clear indication that this movie was written by men, and all the major creative makers of this movie were men. Because like, and not to make sweeping generalizations here, but I have never known a person who has a vagina to ever use a douche in my entire life. And maybe that's just something that people tend to keep private, but also like me and my friends talk about this stuff all the time, and like you learn at an early age if you have a vagina that.
Douching is not good for you.
It's like it cause yeast infections, and like my mom, yeah, like that's something you learn early on and it's like advised that you don't do it. And so no one I know with a vagina has ever used so a douche. But the guys who wrote this movie were like, oh, what's a product that a woman would buy?
A douche? I have. Unfortunately, I do have some information on this from what is health dot Gov about dushing, So douching is not necessarily uncommon. I will agree with you. I have no I've ever known. I've never I mean I've never used one, and I don't know anyone who has because my mom told me when I was young that it is like you're saying, like, Okay, here's some information on douching. Yes, so everyone knows this is from
the government. Can we trust them? Duching is washing or cleaning out the vagina with water or other mixtures of fluids. In the United States, almost one in five women fifteen to forty four years old. Again, the definition of a woman being very narrow there because it's the fucking government, but almost one in five fifteen to forty four years old douche. Doctors recommend that you do not douche. Douching can lead to many health problems, including problems getting pregnant.
Douching is also linked to vaginal infections and sexually transmitted infections. So and maybe it's a generational thing where it's like they just people in our generation sort of learned that it was not healthy. But again it's like seth broken
is like ten years old, Like it's just it. It is like a lazy and the way that the character it's so clear why they name that, because douche is also like shorthand for an asshole, which is you know, it happens all the time where anything vaguely feminine, Like why is it like Michael Sarah says this at one point because he's in this movie where it's like, you know, if you're you're anything like feminine coded, there's like a strong meaning too. That's why I'm very pro asshole. It
always works as an insult. You mean, yes, yes, it's a great equalizer.
I've replaced almost everything with like asshole or shithead or something just like very.
Neutral because poo poo, and that's why we're so sophisticated. But there's like Michael Sarah's Michael Sarah's character refers to himself as a pussy at one point, which is a classic example of like, you know, a vagina being weak. You're like sure, but the same with like douche equals bad because reasons. And the Nick Carl character is like a Jim bro who I think, like you know, would have this, would have douche attributed to him basically right. But it's just like, I mean, not that the rest
of this movie. I thought that that was like especially not just like more lazy like whatever, but also just like weird writing because I don't think this movie even needs a villain. I don't get it right.
Also, I did not even know what that was supposed to be until the douche identifies himself as a douche because I thought, like, douches aren't packaged that way. So I was like, is that like a toilet brush and it's like toilet brush container. That's what I thought it was at first, because like, I like, I don't think their package douches are packaged that way. Even it's in like a Summer's Eve box and it's discreet anyway, So I'm about, yeah, I'm about to introduce the douche character.
But before that, Brenda and Frank, who again are just like loose and roaming through the store, team up with a few other items that also flew out of the cart, a levache named Kareem Abdullah Lavash voiced by David Crumholts aka Bernard the Elf from the Santa Claus.
Another massive betrayal. Huge and this is again I'm like, I didn't find any information on why this choice was made. I don't know if you did. But the fact that like David Crumholt is playing a character who is definitely coded as being Middle Eastern and Muslim, which David Crumholts is not. But David Crumholt is a Jewish Man.
But the Jewish character aka Sammy Bagel Junior, who is a Bagel Jewish by Edward Norton, like doing a Woody Allen impression the whole time. And if you're wondering if heinous stereotypes are employed here, oh.
Yeah, yeah, it's I mean it's it's truly. From what I can tell is that the hot dogs are kind of coded as Protestant Christian Christian white guys. Yeah, and the buns are presented as Christian white girls. And then everyone everyone else in the movie is I guess, with the exception of Douche, is like pretty heavily stereotyped, like a heavily stereotyped culture.
Right, So yeah, basically, I mean, and we'll get to this in more detail, but the movie codes most of the food in particular ways, often ascribing a particular race, ethnicity, and or religion to several different food items. And with that comes this just a whole slew of reductive and harmful portrayals of marginalized communities. So that's what we're working with.
Yes, I mean, that is most of what the movie relies on. And we again, it's like Kaylin and I discussed this before we started recording, where it's like we will make note of like where these characters appear, but I don't even like, we don't even really want to harp on how deeply offense because it's like because.
To describe the ways in which the offensive things are happening is just like upsetting to do, and I don't even want to like repeat it.
So it's a yeah, it's a it's a waste of air, but it is worth mentioning what is being done because this was a successful movie fairly recently. It's such a bummer.
Yeah, okay, So they team up with these couple other characters, and then meanwhile, a douche voiced by Nick Kroll becomes a villain because he wants revenge against Frank and Brenda for getting him thrown away and damaged after that chart disaster. So there's this random villain. Frank, Brenda and the others
make their way through the store. They pass through the liquor aisle because Frank wants to talk to this Bottle of Firewater, who is an indigenous coded character voiced by Bill Hayter Yikes, who seems to know things about the Great Beyond and how it might not be all that it's cracked up to. Be Yes and Firewater tells Frank that he and a few other non perishable items in the store.
Who don't worry, are also all wildly stereotyped.
For sure, they invented the idea of the Great Beyond in order to keep the food happy and unaware of their impending doom. However, they note that it's been distorted along the way, but if Frank wants proof of this, he should go to the arc Aisle be on the ice. Meanwhile, Brenda and the others get tricked by a bottle of tequila who is trying to lead them to the Douche, but a hard taco shell Teresa del Taco voiced by Salma Hayek saves them. The douche is trying to like
attack them, but Brenda and the others get away. Then this is this.
Movie is so evil. This movie is horrid, so evil. There was a really good I thought piece in Salon by Nico Lang when this movie first came out that unpacked in particular, how infuriating it is that Salama Hiak's character is written the way she is, not only because it's I mean, because it's like racism and cultural stereotypes on top of sexism, like it's just like a two bunch, And Salmahayak has been so historically outspoken about how frustrating it is to be a Latin actor and be treated
like this repeatedly. I mean, Samahaiak, a Oscar nominated actor for playing Freda that has to take parts like this, And so I just wanted to share a quick quote from Salamahayak. Yeah, because I love Samahaik and I just really she says, I had things said to me that you would not believe. A studio executive once informed Hayak that she would be a much bigger star had she been born in the United States. He allegedly told her the moment you open your mouth, you remind everyone of
their maid. And there was another time. I mean, it's and she's been again. She's been very outspoken about this over the years and still has to take fucking parts like this, which I think is a systemic failure for sure. Another example she gave over the years was when she was almost in and it wasn't specific about what movie, but she was almost the lead in a sci fi
film that was being directed by a white guy. But then the executive overruled her casting and forced uh the director to drop Samahayak because they said a Mexican in space. Then another movie that like isn't even good that you remember that movie grown ups, it's like an Adam Sandler movie.
Oh yeah, I didn't see it either, but yeah, I know of it.
It's very an Adam Stanley movie. But Smahaiak, I guess plays his wife in that movie, and he had to fight for her to get that part. Like it's just like she's Oscar nominated, Like it's she's unbelievably talented, Like there's no need us to tell you how Hyak is fucking awesome, but like, yeah, the way she's treated it in particular, where I'm just like this is just fucking unacceptable. And also Samahayak is a good like comedic actor too, like if they but they're just like, ah, I hate it.
I hate it. And she's one of the few actors who is cast as like her own race, where there's many where.
That is not the case because it's mostly white actors voicing non white coded characters.
I think, with the exception of Craig Robinson and Samahayak, that is the case. Bill Hayter as Firewaters. It felt like it was pulling from like the animated Peter Pan from the nineteen fifties portrayal of Indigenous Americans for sure, voiced by a white guy.
Bill Hayter also voices Tequila and Elguaco, which are Mexican coded characters.
Yeah, and also coded as being predatory. Yeah. And in addition to this, is also pointed out in Nico Leang's article that we will link is casting the only Indigenous coded character as Firewater.
As a bottle of liquor.
Yeah, it's like, I think, pretty clearly mocking alcoholism and indigenous can munities, which is a topic we've discussed in other episodes. And like it's just cruel, Like it's just I it is. It truly blows my mind that any of this was argued as commentary, like that is you're just doing the thing.
It's such punching down humor dialed up.
In a way that is like worse than the nineteen fifties. Like what there, it's it's a lot, I mean, yeah, it just really yeah, all right, so back to the movie.
We then cut to the other hot dogs who remained in the package and went home with that like Woman's Shopper, and at the woman's house, Barry watches in horror as food is peeled and chopped up and boiled and melted and eaten. Carl is sliced in half, but Barry survives and escapes. Back in the store, Brenda and the others link back up with Frank, but none of them want to go with him to the Dark Isle because they still believe in the Great Beyond, so Frank has to
head to the Dark Isle alone. Back outside of the store, Burry the hot Dog manages to stow away in some dude's car. He thinks he's headed back to shop Wells, but they end up at this guy's apartment where this guy proceeds to do bath salts.
I think this is the James Franco character. Yes, and also bad I mean no, not, But like this movie is already so dated where it's like, god, I don't know, like bath salts no longer really a subject of discussion, right.
It really puts this movie in a particular time in history.
The two outside of just being straight up offensive, the two things that felt the most dated to me were the references to bat and also like the Jim bro humor, which is I think it was just like done to death and people are fucking tired of it and know it like because that's every everything that comes out of Douche's mouth is like, don't fucking leave it, bro, And you're like, right.
God know if that's just because I'm swiping left on hundreds of men who seem to fit this description on bumble and shit like that, but I feel like that caricature of a of a man is still very much a thing. It didn't that didn't even feel that dated to me, so I decay, Yeah, yeah, it's worse than we feared.
Anyway.
Because this dude is on bath salts, he and Barry can understand each other because the drugs enable him to like see if this fourth dimension where he can see the sentient food, And so they talk and the guy promises to return Barry to the grocery store. Back at the store, Brenda, Sammy, and Ravash finally make it to
their respective ales and part ways. Meanwhile, Frank reaches the dark isle, which is full of knives and cookwar and a cookbook that shows all of these recipes for preparing food, which is proof that people eat food and that the Great Beyond is a myth. But when Frank shows this to all the other food in the store over a video monitor and loud speaker, he's like, here's the truth,
and if you don't believe it, you're a fool. And the food feels insulted, and they're like, this sounds like another theory, and I choose to believe the more pleasant thing. So none of the other food gets on board with him.
Right, which is another sort of like I don't know, I guess if you're listening, you feel however you wanted. But I was like, this is like sort of another like swipe that is at all religions so broadly as to mean nothing, and also in kind of a way that feels very I can't like it's still like twenty sixteen was a little too late to still be attempting this, but like suggesting like atheism is the only method, the only way to like to freedom of your mind, which
just feels a little right. What's his name? Bill? Who's the guy?
Hmmm?
Oh my god, Bill, Bill, Bill fucking the guy on TV. I'll science guy. No, I don't. I think he's respectful of other people's religions. I hope. No, I'm thinking of Bill, not Bill NYI. And that's what comes from pole him all the time. He's on HBO Bill Maher, Bill, Oh my god, Bill Mahers, who's just like a kind of like fucking asshole who has contempt for anyone that has
any sort of faith. That's not to say that faith, that religion cannot be extremely repressive, obviously we know that, but it's like it just feels like this and again just a very overly simplistic like, well, if you didn't believe in anything, maybe your life wouldn't suck so much. You're like, well that feels a little a little broad to me.
Definitely, Yes, this film. It's almost as if this film lacks nuance.
I know, I know. I'm just like we're wasting our time, Like, yeah, what are we even doing by Jamie's book? But ya, he's by my book. Please buy my book. It's nothing like this. Oh my god.
No, there's there's lots more to discuss and the movie is almost over, so yes, Barry shows up after Frank has tried to give this speech about what everyone should believe or should not believe, and Barry's like, no, you can't tell people that they're fools. If they don't believe you, we have to do it a different way. So then they shoot all of the people in the store with toothpicks covered in bath salts. And because bath salts allow the people and food to understand each other, the.
People like it's the bath salt like a metaphor for like empathy. I don't think they thought about it that hard. I don't know, you're right, you're right here.
But because the people are on bath salts, they start freaking out and destroying the food, which allows the food to see how evil and vicious the humans are that they thought were gods, but they realize are actually monsters, and they realized that Frank was right. So the food fights back against the people. But this is when the douche shows back up and puts himself up a store employees butt and is like puppeting the store employee around while he's holding a gun and trying to shoot the food.
But I've been so checked out by this point, as like sure, I was watching it at like two times speed by this point, and I feel like I missed some stuff because I was like, I just need this to end as quickly as possible.
I watched it twice to prepare, but yeah, the second time I watched it on one point seventy five because I'm just like this. It doesn't make a difference. It's not like I'm ignoring something.
There's nothing to take no anyway. Okay, So the villains are trying to kill the food, but Frank and Brenda and Barry defeat the bad guys and they save the food in the store, and then the movie ends with an orgy where all the food is having sex with each other, and then there's another final beat where the bottle of five water is like, by the way, none of us are real, We're a cartoon invented by Seth Rogan.
So it tries to have this like clever meta ending, but it also falls completely flat and sucks the end.
And it's also weird that the only they're like which yeah, which is like a very easy way to be like, yeah, it was about nothing, right, it was about nothing because it was like even with the ending again just like shitty writing, where like the ending being like, oh now everyone's like having this big food or a gee and it's like not the rigid hetero like but it's still
like anytime there's queer sex, it's heavily commented on. And then they even make Brenda Bunson feminist icon, you know, sit next to Frank the hot Dog after and say like, well, some like basically say that the queer sexual experience is We're okay, but the best sex was with Frank the
hot Dog. Like you're just playing a hot dog? Did you pick that up on that though, where like we do get it, Like again, this is a victory for nobody because again with Samaha playing a taco, that is yeah, both racist and sexist vaginas have certainly been referred to as tacos. And it's all like you don't need me to explain this to you in the world, but like, but at the end they do have. Okay, let's start there, let's start. Let's start there. Yes, let's take first and
then will be right back. Please buy Raw Dog. Okay, and we're back, and we're back. Seth Rogen says Raw Dog. And I was like, this is bad press, that's blasphemy. I've we've reclaimed brad Dog, We've taken it away from him. It's not it's not for the hot Dog anymore. But let's start with the story between Brenda and what is Sama Hayek's character's.
Name, Teresa, And just just to contextualize this a bit more before we dive in, which we've already mostly done, but just to make it clear that, like, the hot dogs are all coded as men and more specifically penises, because there's all these jokes and even like a whole storyline about how Bury the hot dog like feels insecure because he's not as long as the other hot dogs
but he is gurthy and like all this stuff. And then the hot dog buns are coded as women slash vaginas, but again, like the vagina buns also have boobs.
The point is it's very.
Gender essentialist and reductive, and it's basically just saying like, and.
Brenda Bunsen says, I'm so tight, and like it's just like.
Right, all these like attempts at jokes of how hahaha, bond equals vagina, hot dog equals penis, which is like the easiest and most unoriginal joke in the world, And yet the whole movie hinges on this very lazy, obvious joke as if it's some brilliant bit of comedy that no one's ever thought of before and.
Then on top of that, penis equals ma always man, Ye, vagina equals always went like, it's very sis normative as well, and it's right.
So not only is it reducing people to their genitals in a way that means, oh, like men have dicks and because of that, they're so fucking horny and all they want to do is fuck all the time, and reduces women to vaginas, and also like they have feelings because they have vaginas, and it's very transphobic. And yeah, just like reducing people to genitals and saying that only you know, to be a man means you have this genitalia.
To be a woman means you have this genitalia. There's no room for anyone on the gender or like intersex spectrum. Just like it's just so rigid and binary.
And unfortunately, it's really difficult to discuss this movie without that constantly being the case. So we apologize if if we sound like we it's just really it's really hard to talk about this movie without feeling like you're aligning with that. Obviously that is not how we align, but this is just like the interior logic of the movie is so fucked and assumes so much that it's it's
just like it's very difficult to have this right conversation. Yes, please buy rod Dog, but okay, so we have Teresa del Taco, Yes, okay, Del Taco is. You know, if you live in the US, you probably know an American fast food chain. American, but it's like americanized Mexican food, so already yeah lazy. But Teresa is I mean, she's a queer character who is immediately interested in Brenda, and like it's like implied that that's why Teresa helps the
gang is because she has a thing for Brenda. We see a lot of very like again, you're like, what are we doing here? From Teresa's perspective, we see her constantly looking at Brenda's but like objectifying her. I feel like this movie. And then there is like a scene where again it's just like not like Brenda is I think like a queer character because she says when she and Teresa go their separate ways, like basically says like I'm interested, but but.
This religion we believe in.
It would be against god right to have, which I think think is like again, the attempt that this movie is making to be like religion is so oppressive. And then at the end it comes around and everyone has a big orgy and you know, Teresa and Brent dadu have sex, or it's implied that everyone kind of has sex with everyone. But I do think and like, the way that queerness is treated in this movie is obviously bad, oh for sure. Okay, well to the point where there's
a broad stereotype that isn't even like current. I'm like, how old are you? People? Like, we're very but like the entire fruit section of the grocery store is queer coded and mostly queer coded as men, yeah, gay men and yeah. So just again, because this movie is so gender essentialist, there is no real in between in terms of the gender spectrum, and we see queer men even though it's I feel like this was a time where it was like, well, any representation, you should be thrilled
that we included this. I'm acknowledging, can you exist?
And that's good enough.
Where there's already I mean, it's so unshocking that they were working on this movie since two thousand and eight, because this feels more twenty eight than twenty sixteen, for sure, but that was when it was released, so you know, fuck you, but the like there's a fair amount of
no homoing oh between hot dogs so much. But then when there are queer men, they're treated differently from queer women, which I know, again is essentialist, but it's something we've talked about before, where when they're queer women, it's very like ooh, this is sexy, this is leering, this is blah blah blah, and then when it's queer men, it's like funny and like it's I don't even I don't even really know what word to describe how because at
the end, Sammy Bagel Junior and Kareem Abdul Levache hilarious by the way, I have sex, the Bagel says he has a boner. I'm like, well, I understand why you haven't attempted to show it, because what does that even mean?
What does that mean? What that look like? Yeah, doesn't make sense, but those characters are so offensive and like, okay, so anyways, I thought it was interesting that Brenda and Teresa are like acknowledged to be queer by the plot, but like it's just so everything is so halfway because even like their interest in each other is still treated in a clearly written by straight men perspective.
Lazy, yeah, mostly played as a joke, nothing interesting or meaningful being done with it. Yeah, so yeah, which is also what happens with uh. And again we touched on this, and it's not worth going into the details the specific examples because they're so upsetting, but just the racism, xenophobia, anti Islam, anti Semitic also like and it's so.
Well that and yeah, that's that's the one. We talked about this a little bit as well, where that's I think the one. I'm curious what are our Jewish listeners think, but they're like, that feels like the only the only subject on which this group of writers has any leeway on because the story and the original like concept of this movie is by Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, and Jonah Hill,
who are all Jewish writers. And you know, I still think this movie sucks no matter what, but I do want to acknowledge that there is a pretty well storied history of Jewish writers poking at tropes surrounding Jewish characters and also surrounding Nazism, which this movie also does. There is president for that. It's obviously done way better by artists like mel Brooks and like, I but I that's the only where I I don't know where to land on that because I'm not Jewish and I don't want to.
I mean, we talked about this on the Borat episode as well. Yes, yes, on the is that a Matreon episode? Gosh, I've lost all track of what is where?
Yes, I think that it was when we covered Borat on the Matreon where it is like we did that. I can't I mean feminist masterpiece, it was said. But in any case, I, uh, yeah, I don't want to, you know, come down on the side of like Jewish writers cannot make any commentary on Jewish history in the
form of a comedy. There's plenty of it. I just personally don't think anything is well done in this movie, right, But that's the one thing that I'm like, well, I don't really feel qualified to have a take on on that. I feel the same, however, we would be curious to know what our Jewish listeners think. I mean, it's just like, I just can't believe anyone liked this movie. It's so confusing to me. I wanted to quote a Lindy West piece that's also mentioned in this Nico Lang piece. You
gotta love Lindy West. She said this back in twenty twelve, where basically in the press tour for this movie, as we've alluded to, the writers would say like, oh, this is equal opportunity, like offensiveness, Like we know that it's broad stereotypes, like, but it's with everyone. I think that that and that's sort of where they're poking at Jewish stereotypes come in, where they're like, we're doing it to ourselves.
Too cool if we do it to everybody. So that is sort of the acknowledged ethos of how this movie was put together. It's like we're not exempt, so you're not exempt. So this is from a Lindy West essay
for Jezebel in twenty twelve. She says, quote, the problem is that all people are not equal in positions of power, which is true because it's like these guys are making the movie like they're There is is one listed producer who is a woman, Megan Allison, who is, if I were to guess what, is probably involved mostly in the in the animated portion because she works at Annapurna where the animation took place, which we'll get to in a second. It doesn't seem like there were any women that had
any say in you know, how this was made. Nor were there any Muslim writers, nor were there any Mexican writers, nor were their indigenous writers, nor were their black writers, and on and on and on and on and on. It was just these guys. So that logic does not it doesn't hold.
Up, does it doesn't work work? And and if they were actually like poking fun at everyone, because these these filmmakers are only poking fun at already marginalized people and not like commenting on fucking billionaires and racists and like people who should actually be which which is like criticized for their behavior, and.
Not that that's the duty of any like of all movies. You can have movies that are not like you know, explicitly anti capitalist and all this stuff. And this movie is trying to say something about religion, but it's just yeah, like as far as the stereotypes are deployed, it seems like just for shock value, Like definitely it has nothing to really do with the larger plot, which is like
basically incoherent to me. It's just like it's mean, and it's lazy, and it's and it's it's a bit evil, definitely, and I read god, I read, I read an example again, read an example that so Evan Goldberg and seth Rogen also said that they consulted friends to make sure their
equal opportunity offensiveness wasn't just plain offensive. Carmichael, who is not in this movie, but he's in neighbors another seth Rogen joint of this area, Drod Carmichael, told BuzzFeed that Goldberg would come to him to vet the movies more
problematic content. Is this racist? Goldberg inquired on more than one occasion, and then Nico Lang says, in an industry where people of color continued to be stereotyped and shut out, it seems that if Goldberg had to ask, he already knew the answer, which I think is an excellent point and it probably very true. I don't even want to say what it was going to be. But the Craig Robinson character, who is called mister Grits, which Jesus Christ,
was originally going to be even more offensive. And the original version of the Craig Robinson character, which was just explicitly anti black like, tested very very poorly, and there was at the movie's original premiere someone I guess confronted Zeth Rogan about it and was like, you can't fucking do this, dude, Like this is disgusting. But that's the only change that I saw an example of being changed.
Everything else stayed as is, which again it's like what if someone hadn't said something, and it's.
Like and and that would just be out in the world.
I mean, not that what is out, not that mystery, but Ris is doing anything, Like.
It's just mean Levache, Like all of the every character fucking fire every I mean, it's like, there's no there's no like except for this character, which makes a ton of sense, Like no, no, pinous because you brought up Lyndy West, who is an activist against fat shaming and fat phobia.
And so just famously one of my favorite writers.
Oh she's terrific. It just reminded me of how much fat shaming there is in this movie, where like the other food characters are fat shaming. Brenda the Bun another character I forget who it is, but says that people like humans are to blame for getting fat because of all the all the food they consume. Just like all this like horrible fat phobic rhetoric.
Yeah, it's just bullshit like everything, like basically every word and this movie is bullshit and all and also like it upholds obviously, it upholds all of like all of everything, but even in a way that like I don't understand because it's it's like, this is a movie written by Jewish writers who are going with their ethos of what
they say they're doing. We're not exempt either, but the main character seems like he's coded as like a white Christian, so it's like, right, so it seems like, oh, well, the white Christian hero fucking cis hot dog guy is still the most curious of everyone and like finds the truth and unites every culture. And it's like that's like, what is what are you doing? That's all movies like, that's like fucking I I I don't, I don't know, I like it. Obviously this movie makes no sense.
Uh. Well, to piggyback on that, there's there's classic sexism happening with that too, because again, Frank is this character who's like, wait a minute, I'm a skeptic. Now I have to seek the truth, you literally, Bill Maher. Yeah, he sets out to make the documentary religulous, you know, and he's like, what's going on? But Brenda, his girlfriend, refuses to listen to Frank about the possibility that the
great Beyond might not be real. And yes, he is being very condescending and patronizing while he talks about it. But one of the few female characters in the movie is presented as being irrational and overly driven by her emotions. And again, he's interested in seeking the truth. She's just like, I'm gonna, you know, blindly follow what I already believe. I'm not going to interrogate anything. And then she tries
to like make him jealous. When he's like, well, I can't even have a rational conversation with you, She's like, oh, yeah, well I'm gonna go fuck a pickle.
And it's just like, well, it's like also that there. This is like because they're like still in their package that's supposed to be this really like sophisticated metaphor for Virginia purity, but it's still more like so but you know, by the hot dog, but blah blah blah, like it's still more emphasized in the female coded uh, Like it's more important that the buns are never been used than the hot dogs. Which is ridiculous.
Yeah, yeah, it is gross. Also there's all this like male gaze ye animation slash cinematography again, Oh my god.
The shot where dude's just talking about like I can't wait to get inside this woman. Guarantee, these writers do not know how any of this would actually go. But there's this like leering shot of like a cartoon while vagina, and you're like, why, yeah, why why why why we already have like oh, in case the vagina buns that also have boobs and butts weren't enough for you, like got you, got you? Yeah?
Yeah, So that's gross. Uh. I want to talk about the production and animation, Yes, specifically the way that animators were treated on this movie. I'm pulling from a couple of different sources. One is a Washington Post piece, one is a screen Rent piece. So there was this Q and a published on an animation news website called.
Cartoon Brew cartoon ber Rocks.
And so there's a Q and a with the two directors of this movie, Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon, And the comments section of this Q and a basically turned in who the animators commenting anonymously complaining about the working conditions on the movie, and so like that's kind of how this information came to be a public information. So the animators complained about director Greg Tiernan, who runs the animation company Nitrogen, who handled the animation for Sausage Party.
He runs it with his wife Nicole Stin.
Also, unfortunately, we do have to claim that Sausage Party is Shrekian in that Conrad Vernon, one of the co directors on feminist masterpiece Shrek two.
Wow, Yeah, really quite Shrekian.
Sorry to interrupt your very important discussion of labor rights, but no, it's it's It's.
Also true it's important to know when a show.
When Shrek's when Shreks go wrong. Okay, but this is a very fascinating thing that has can I feel like it's a more popular discussion now, this seems like a more early example of it.
Yes, So the animators were complaining that mister Greg would have enraged outbursts. There was a lot of micromanagement of the animators and most despicably, a lot of labor that went unpaid because animators were forced to work overtime and would not be paid for it. Yes, I'll quote an excerpt from the Washington post piece. The production costs were kept low because Greg would demand people work overtime for free.
If you wouldn't work late for free, your work would be assigned to someone who would stay late or come in on the weekend. Some artists were even threatened with termination and for not staying late to hit a deadline. So basically, animators, if they wanted to keep their job, were forced to work over time for free. If they refused,
they would potentially be fired. Many animators who worked on the movie were not credited as having worked on the movie because many of them quit because of the horrible working conditions before the movie was finished, and anyone who quit was not credited even though they worked on the
movie for like over a year. Also, when animators tried to quit and like put in their notice, executives at Nitrogen would threaten to damage their reputations, which like is a pretty big deal because like getting blacklisted in this industry is a real concern. Like if you get blacklisted, like it is really hard to.
Fuck your career and they know that permanently.
Yes, Like yeah, So the animators were just like treated horribly and because the animation was happening in Vancouver, and Nitrogen is a Vancouver based company, which is like outside of the jurisdiction and protections of the Animation Guild in the US, they like weren't protected. I did read that. Eventually, when Annapurna, which was like the production company that financed the movie, learned about all of this like labor mistreatment,
they stepped in. They made sure the animators were paid for their overtime, and they were like they made sure that the animators were being fed because a lot of them had to work these late hours in an area that was like difficult to get food, and so they like unless they brought their own food, they would have to work with like.
No access to food.
And like it's pretty standard for like especially on like film sets, for the production of the movie, to feed the cast and crew. Like it's not people's responsibility who work on a on a production to feed themselves.
So this is so, like, this is I've I'm very i'mried. I don't because you said you remember hearing about this time at the time. I didn't know about this at the time, just because I love I mean, I work
in animation. I love animation, and this is so this is like so I mean labor disputes are typical across entertainment, across everywhere, but like in animation specifically, it is like improved so little over the years that I'm glad that there was a settlement, but I'm also like, there's no excuse for someone as powerful as this group of filmmakers to accept making this a non union project like that
is absolutely unacceptable. You can't treat your workers that way, and the reason you do is to save money and to mistreat them because like you're saying, like this, this happens, this, this has happened on animation shows that I've worked on, and I've only ever worked as a writer. But even so, it's like there's just still such an issue with how
animation is treated within entertainment. Not that there aren't major labor issues in live action as well, but the unions in live action tend to be a little stronger where you have SAG that represents uh animation performers as well, but not as often the WGA, who are it seems about to strike and I'm very thrilled, but the WGA still doesn't recognize most animation writers as writers that deserve
union protections, like ridiculous it blows. Like I love to fucking run my mouth about this, but I've worked on six television shows, but I'm not in the WGA because I write in animation. It's ridiculous and like some are fucking high budget, Like why does writing on Star Trek
not qualify you for the WGA. It's fucking ridiculous, and it's there is very in animators, especially, I mean this goes back to like Walt Disney union busting animators, like during the production of like Pinocchio, Like this has been going back.
This has been going on in animation forever, getting back to the Pinocchio Wars.
Sorry, oh my god, I still have PTSD from the Pinocchio Wars. But like there there's you know, animators have had to repeatedly strike and still have I would say, generally less protections than their live action counterparts, which is ridiculous, especially because animation has grown only more popular and more widely like every audience. It's it's like it was like, oh, you make Kitty TV, like you don't do it, which is also ridiculous. But now it's like there's animation across
the board. There's no reason that they shouldn't be treated equally. It pisses me off, and I'm glad that they got a settlement, but it's just like it's so transparent where and this we like sort of talked about this a little earlier, but how I think that like a similar dispute that you see right now is going on with the effects workers who work on Marvel movies, where there's only so many production houses that do this. They're desperate to stay in the good favor of Disney and Marvel.
It's always fucking Disney with this stuff. They want to stay in the good graces of these huge contracts, and so they'll work people to death and then like there this was an issue with a director I generally like, but Taiko yit when the last I didn't see it. When his last Marvel movie came out, he was like making fun of how the effects looked in interviews, which prompted employees to be like, you didn't like, Marvel did not give us the money or the time to finish
this fucking movie. How dare you like? It's ridiculous? He sucked thor Love and Thunder was like, I didn't see it. I mean, I guess it's like I was like Oh, well, you can't always trust rotten tomatoes. But I did trust Rotten Tomatoes on that one. Then I didn't see it. Yeah,
but yeah, it's just animation and effects. Workers are historically treated like shit, and it's so like there's no there's no excuse for anyone to do it, but particularly people who are this powerful and have have access to the resources. It's not like we're an indie company and like we can only give you this much, which isn't acceptable either,
but at least there's some context for it. There's no reason that this that a production of this level needed to mistreat their workers so much, and that sucks because then everyone had to work on sausage party like Okay, Well, if you want to read more about labor rights in the meat packing industry and also then you should pick up a new book. It's out now. It's called Raw Dog. I learned a lot about how meat packing employees as well as animals are soverely mistreated in the process. Where
most grocery store hot dogs like frank are made. Also do some discussion of vegan hot dogs of kosher hot dogs. They're so the world of hot dogs is expansive. It's fast, fast, and vast and much, you might even say, and much like the animation workers' rights have not improved by very much over the last one hundred years. So that's fucking sick. We love that. We love that.
Do you have anything else you want to say about sausage Party?
No, me either, it passes, it passes the vectl as but it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter. And the way women interact with each other, which is not often because again there's only really two there's one major female character in Brenda, and then there's a more minor character in Teresa. Other than that, any female coded characters have like maybe a line or two, and even that's rare, So most of the characters we meet are male coded, so there's really very little interaction
between women. Although Brenda and Theresa do pass the Bechdel test because they talk about their sexual urges for each other.
So right, and sure it counts, I count.
But but but the way that women or like female coded characters interact with each other outside of that is like a lot of like the buns will be calling each other disparaging like sexist words like oh you bitch, oh you skank, stuff like that.
Yeah, and then we referenced this. But I guess the only other thing I have to say is the ableism that's present in the Michael Sarah character, and also that they suggest that he is disabled in some way and that the only way that he could find a partner is to find another disabled partner, which how that plays out in the end, which is just I mean, like it feels worth me. I don't even want to get into it really because it's just so fucked and ugly.
And this this movie is I agree with letterboxed. This movie is is evil. Yeah, I don't I don't want to say another word about this movie. No nipples, don't you know.
I would say negative five nipples and it's like a special lea their negative five.
This movie is evil.
The last thing I'll say about it is it's especially frustrating to me when there there's a movie that's attempting to make commentary on some kind of like societal or cultural thing, because it is attempting to say things like having blind faith in a deity can be dangerous, or which sure, attaching shame to sexuality and making people feel shame if they have sex, like quote unquote out of wedlock, or if they have sexual feelings toward someone of their
same gender, the way that a lot of religions do you know, saying that that's wrong, or taking a religious text and distorting it to push your own agenda of prejudice and oppression, that's bad. Yeah, I agree with those things, but for the movie to try to make those claims and then turn around and put every reductive trope in existence into the movie and punch down to so many groups of marginalized people. Do you even hear yourself sausage party?
Anyway? This movie sucks.
I hate it. Negative five nipples and buy Jamie's book.
Please buy my book Raw Dog. By changing lattist we're gonna put we'll put the link for where you can buy it. I prefer to use bookshop dot org. That will automatically link you to the closest independent bookstore that you can order it from and habit shipped from that is carrying the book. And please tell your friends. It's
really helpful and I'm very proud of it. And also if you live in the cities, let's see if I remember of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Austin, Portland, Oregon, Boston, Brooklyn, Chicago, Chicago, and somewhere in Connecticut called the Mark Twain House. Those are the eighth places I will be going to promote the book. There will be events and we will link tickets as well because I will be leaving this week, so please please come.
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