The latest rage at our house: Little Shop of Horrors

Seymour with Audrey II
Kieran's doing a dance to a "Little Shop of Horrors" song at his Saturday afternoon dance class with the Oregon Children's Theatre, so I got the bright idea of getting the DVD out from the library. Kieran was delighted when it arrived, and before I knew it, Kieran and Nicholas had watched it and were going around singing songs from the movie.

I hadn't intended for Nick to watch it, because it is quite scary (unless you know it's satire)...but it's one of those "Mike-let-3-year-old-Kieran-watch-the-Wizard-of-Oz-when-he-was-3" types of things. He claims that it's not scary, but it does have "shit," "goddamn," and "tough titties" in it, not to mention the word "sadist" and "I'm just a mean green mother from outer space." Lovely.
Seymour and Audrey
If you get past all that (yes, we are horrible parents--the shame!), it's a wonderful, campy, musical satire. I recalled that my college friend Kristin made me a cassette tape of the soundtrack and sent it to me while I was in Japan (thanks, Kristin!), so I remembered ALL the songs! The film came out in 1986.

One could conclude that the film has racist undertones (see commentary arguing against that) and you can certainly see major sexist undertones (Audrey is beaten up by her first boyfriend and miraculously saved by Seymour)...if it weren't a satire. Bottom line...it's got extremely catchy music, and great cameos by Steve Martin (sadist dentist), Bill Murray (masochist patient), and Jim Belushi. I would love to have this lovely trio of singers following me around serenading my every moment, wouldn't you?


Nicholas has been wearing his (fake) leather jacket around, claiming to be a dentist. I think he could have found a better role model, don't you?

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