Summer movies are not known for their excellent quality. In fact, you could say that they are known for being the worst releases of the year. Seth Rogen's animated feature-length creation, Sausage Party, is far from an exception. Offensive and obscene, from its adult film-sounding title to the unspeakable final minutes (putting a new meaning to the term "food porn"), it's complete trash. And that's why in the PC-focused world that we are evolving into, Sausage Party is a godsend.
Millennials are one of the most well-educated generations, but still emotionally-sensitive and naive compared to our elders. Triggers are not an uncommon phenomenon, and free speech has gone to the gutter as of late so that no one has to be "offended". Sausage Party tries to drill into the brick walls of the "safe spaces" created by millennials, making purposely-offensive laughs about topics like the Israel-Arab conflict, dwarfism, masculinity, homosexuality, and most potently, deism. While I can't say it has succeeded, it has definitely brought forward a major point in the debate over political correctness.
What I see in this never-ending controversy over words and divisions is that these offensive statements can be divided by two factors into several ways: whether the offense is intentional or not, and whether it is malicious, well-intended, or neither. The insulting jokes in Sausage Party and many other controversial comedies are certainly intentional, but more often than not aren't meant maliciously. The most malicious aspect of the joke probably would be the paradoxical guilt we feel after laughing at them, knowing that we should know better than to laugh at something not politically correct.
There's certainly a problem in simultaneous malicious and intentional offense, but that's a separate issue. When the nature of the insult isn't malicious, especially if it's meant in good fun (like in Sausage Party), we shouldn't be overreacting and taking things out of context like we often do today. If we're taking offense to a stupid garbage cartoon, and we still recognize that it's smut and only meant for laughs, maybe we're just being sticks in the mud.
In a world where Ellen DeGeneres of all people is accused of being racist for simply making a joke about Usain Bolt's speed (and not even mentioning his skin color), Sausage Party reminds us that there is still a place in the world for garbage humor, and it's more than fine to have it around if it's not maliciously-intended. So while Sausage Party may not win an Oscar this winter (or anything for that matter, given that it's still a pretty bad movie), it emphasizes that political correctness is simply a guideline that we have a choice to follow, not a requisite for everyone.
