Little Shop of Philosophy
It seems as if the only similarity between Audrey II and philosophy is that they both eat at people. However, if you look deeper into the kooky, spooky comic-horror musical Little Shop of Horrors, it “plants” more “food for thought” than you’d expect.
A common misconception promoted by many films is that there is either good or evil, right or wrong, and people who think Les Miserables is the greatest musical ever or people who don’t have good taste (to read more about my Les Mis obsession, read The Real Protagonist of Les Miserables. Yes, I just shamelessly promoted another one of my articles in the middle of this article. Classy!). However, by using multiple antagonists, Orin Scrivello (the dentist, played by an over-the-top Steve Martin) and Audrey II (the murderous plant, boomingly voiced by Levi Stubbs), Little Shop portrays 50 shades of evil. Audrey II eating Orin Scrivello signifies that conflict isn’t two-sided and that there tends to be more to characters than the oversimplified labels of “bad” and “good.”
The addiction of serving the plant eats away at Seymour and his true love — literally. However, Seymour is displayed as lovable rather than villainous because, despite his grim actions, the film uses the external metaphor of Audrey II to symbolize his “fall.” Seymour’s psychological dependency on Audrey II is parallel to Orin Scrivello’s addiction to causing pain, demonstrating how Seymour is becoming who he hates. This shines light on the hypocrisy of how what irritates us about others is what irritates us about ourselves. This demonstrates a twist in fate, positive effects transforming into monstrosities, like a face treatment in which a washed-up movie star tries to become better looking, but ruins their beauty by doing so.
The film never takes itself too seriously, mimicking our own self-awareness. By accepting that we are in a science fiction musical comedy, we are plunged into Skid Row without questioning the events that occur, like how you wouldn’t question seeing a talking frog on The Muppets or a racist conspiracy theory on FOX News. This consciousness benefits the film’s tone and enjoyability, but is also a statement on how no one should take themselves too seriously; the story could have been gruesome and disturbing, but the irreverent way the film treats its material makes it lighthearted and fun. Simply put, the tone embodies the positive yet candid mindset the film endorses.
From the 50 shades in the moral gray area between good and evil it explores to the allegorical plummet into addiction, Little Shop of Horrors is surprisingly thoughtful while being joyful and scrappy, managing to be both satisfying while leaving the audience “hungry” for more. We can only hope that Hollywood will “feed” us more offbeat funfests with such gleeful charm.
