Blake Hobbs is a legendary freshman from Fredericksburg, Virginia, making his Utah debut as a student at Utah State University. He is the second oldest of three boys and one girl, and he loves his family more than you love yours. Hobbs loves music in general and musical theatre (see essay). Hobbs is currently working part-time and going to school full-time. He wants to major in Information Systems with an emphasis in Cybersecurity. 

This essay was composed in December 2022 and uses MLA documentation.

THE MUSICAL LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS is a campy dark-comedy based on a 1960 movie of the same name directed by Roger Corman. The musical version of Little Shop of Horrors “satirizes many things; science fiction, ‘B’ Movies, musical comedy itself, and even the Faust myth” (Menken). It’s been off-Broadway and revived multiple times. It’s also a hit among high school and regional theaters. It’s clear that this witty play has gotten popular through the years, yet its themes are rarely discussed. What are the themes of Little Shop of Horrors, and is it time for theater companies to pick up another script from the Menken discography?

Here’s a quick run-down of the plot. Seymour Krelborn, “our insecure, naive, put upon, florist’s clerk hero” (Menken), works in a failing flower shop on Skid Row, a poor neighborhood, in a “decade not too long before our very own” (Menken), often identified as sometime in the early 1960s. “Although he is a wholly remarkable person with little hope for a better future, Seymour somehow produces an amazing talking plant, Audrey II, that develops an appetite for human flesh” (Jensen). What are the themes of Little Shop of Horrors, and is it time for theater companies to pick up another script from the Menken discography? The plant offers Seymour fame and fortune and Seymour’s ditzy but sweet coworker, Audrey. The only catch is that Seymour has to kill people to feed the plant. Throughout the show, Seymour obliges, and the plant attracts business for the shop. Seymour indirectly kills Audrey’s abusive boyfriend and his boss Mr. Mushnik. Meanwhile, business executives from uptown offer Seymour contracts and deals. Seymour and Audrey become an item, and Seymour stops feeding the plant, deciding to leave Skid Row with Audrey by his side. However, the plant is still hungry and mortally wounds Audrey. Audrey tells Seymour to feed her to the plant as her dying wish, so the plant can “live and bring you [Seymour] all of the wonderful things you deserve” (Menken). Seymour honors her dying wish, but then he lashes out at the plant after discovering the plant wants to take over the world. Seymour pledges to kill the plant from the inside. He jumps inside Audrey II and is killed immediately. The business executives come back and take cuttings of the plant to sell all over America. The plants subsequently take over America, and the cast all return to deliver a final message to the audience, warning them not to feed the plants.

Freudian Interpretations: Id, Superego, and Ego

One theme to consider is that the characters in Little Shop can represent the three parts of the human mind, a concept created by Sigmund Freud. The three parts of the mind are the id, the superego, and the ego. The id is part of the mind that doesn’t care about anyone or anything besides itself. The superego is the idea of unattainable perfection that forces people to make moral decisions, and the ego is the middle ground of the first two parts. Audrey II represents the id, Audrey represents the superego, and Seymour represents the ego. Seymour makes choices throughout the show to help Audrey II or Audrey. “Seymour is beguiled by Audrey II into destroying everything he cares about, that is human life in general and Audrey in specific – in pursuit of fame, respect, wealth, and a feeling of belonging” (PopMatters). This shows that one can never escape the darkest parts of their mind.  

Social Commentaries: Faustian Deals, Monster Movies, and Capitalism

That idea of how people can never escape their sinister desires parallels the archetype of the Faust myth, a famous German legend from the sixteenth century. The Faust myth revolves around the antihero Faust, Seymour in this case, who makes a deal with an evil demon named Mephistopheles. Faust trades away his soul and humanity for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures.  

There have been many reincarnations of the Faust myth over the centuries. A few examples are The Little Mermaid, Rasputin from the 1997 movie Anastasia, and arguably the Queen song “Bohemian Rhapsody.” “It’s almost de rigueur for artists throughout history to develop their own version of the myth and put their own spin on it. As a result, each Faust is often a reflection of the artists’ values, and therefore of the artists’ era” (Lockman). Since Little Shop of Horrors is set in the 1960s, according to this quote, the musical reflects the values of that era. This means that Little Shop can be a commentary on the 1960s shown through the medium of a classic monster movie.  

Little Shop critiques capitalism, specifically how it filters through gender (Lockman). This is a subversion to the horror films and tropes of the 1950s and 60s Little Shop satirizes. To further understand this perspective, one must understand the purpose of the horror genre, and more specifically, monster movies. “Monster films, and horror as a genre in particular, derive from and help shape more unconscious and inchoate fears in its audience” (McDowell). “Since its invention, the monster movie genre has been used to articulate deeply rooted societal fears. Embodying the subject of fear as a physical manifestation on the screen, the movie’s action serves as metaphor or allegory” (Jensen).

Some monster movies are about the fear of new science, such as Frankenstein (1931) and The Mummy (1932). New discoveries inspired both of these films in the scientific world. The writer of the novel (1818), Mary Shelley, attended science lectures and based the character of Doctor Frankenstein on Luigi Guivani, an 18th-century scientist who experimented with electricity and found it could make a “dead frog’s leg twitch” (McDowell). Similarly, The Mummy (1932) was inspired by the newly discovered tomb of King Tutankhamun. These scientific ideas were reflected in the film versions of both movies.  

While some monster movies capitalize on the fear and fascination of the latest scientific innovations, others may be inspired by social events. For example, horror movies in the 1950s and ’60s captured the paranoia of the Red Scare and the fear of Communism. (Drambles)  

A lot of movies at the time were about some silent invasion. For example, the 1958 movie The Blob is about an evil red, jelly-like slime invading a small Pennsylvania town. Some people speculated that the movie was about the threat of Communism. The movie’s producer, Jack Harris, denounced these interpretations as “hogwash’’. He stated, “Then again, maybe that’s why it never played in Russia” (Mancini). This shows that even if the creator doesn’t necessarily support specific interpretations of media, they can still ingrain specific ideas in the audience, and they are important in the discussion of themes in a piece as a whole.  

With that in mind, Little Shop can be seen as a critique of capitalism. Little Shop can be seen as a critique of capitalism. It is also a commentary on the social expectations for both men and women in the era. These two themes go hand-in-hand. The setting of the play is Skid Row, a poor neighborhood that is hard to “get out of” where it is hard for people to “better themselves” (Menken). Skid Row can be both the setting of the play and represent the poverty that plagues the people living there. Seymour and Audrey are part of the lower class and dream of leaving Skid Row. Seymour and Audrey are affected by traditional gender roles, and they face the struggle of capitalism. “Seymour wants the vision of success that our culture tells him he should want as a man, and Audrey wants the life our culture tells her she should want as a woman” (Lockman).  

During the 1960s, gender roles and expectations were different than today. Men were expected to be masculine and able to provide for a family. In the song “The Meek Shall Inherit,” Seymour is visited by three business executives from “uptown” where the wealthy and elite live, and they offer him opportunities because of his recent success. Seymour feels conflicted and questions whether or not he should continue feeding the plant. In a monologue, he sings, “[T]hen there’s Audrey…if life were tawdry and impoverished as before, she might not like me, she might not want me, without my plant she might not love me anymore!” (Menken). These lines reveal that he thinks Audrey will leave him if he can’t make enough money. Also, if Seymour stopped feeding the plant, the shop would surely go out of business. Eventually, Seymour gives in to the business executives’ desires. If Seymour wasn’t caught in this complicated web of poverty, traditional gender roles, and possibly genuine love for Audrey, he probably wouldn’t have fed the plant in the first place.  

In the song “Feed Me (Git it),” Seymour tells the plant that he would love a fancy car and a chance with Audrey. He then exclaims that he likes “[m]aking all the guys on the corner turn green!” (Menken). This proves that Seymour wants to be rich primarily to flaunt his riches in the faces of other men in an attempt to make himself seem desirable and to conform to the gender roles at the time. “The trouble is that Seymour is too insecure that he is convinced to pursue this vision of masculinity at any cost” (Lockman). Like Faust, Seymour trades away innocence by almost remorselessly doing Audrey II’s dirty work for a chance with Audrey and getting rich and famous. All of the characters that Seymour feeds to Audrey II “stand as obstacles to Seymour’s happiness or social mobility, and by giving into Audrey II’s urging, Seymour is actually expressing his own greed” (Jensen).  

Incessantly feeding the plant can represent that for someone to succeed in capitalism, some people may be treated unfairly. The Balance writes that “[c]apitalism’s priorities of growth, profits, and the discovery of new markets often come at the expense of other factors, such as worker quality of life and the environment” (Amadeo). The consequences of capitalism are most prominent at the end of the play when the Urchins tell the audience that the plants are taking over America, specifically cities like Cleveland and New York. The plants’ conquest rests specifically in the U.S., even though the plants want to take over the world. This could also be evidence that supports the capitalist perspective. Suddenly, in a cheesy B-movie way, the Urchins break the fourth wall by saying the plants take over “this theater!” (Menken). This makes sense because any person who bought a ticket or watched this show in any way is affected by capitalism.  

Audrey is equally affected by her class status and gender norms. In the 1960s, “Women who did not get married were depicted as unattractive, unfortunate spinsters, and those who asserted themselves were seen as nagging shrews” (History Central). Since this piece is a commentary of the era, and Audrey is one of the only female characters in the show, she can represent these traditional expectations for women. In the song “Somewhere That’s Green,” Audrey dreams of a place where she and a guy like Seymour can escape. That place is a “nice little suburb, on a nice little street, far away from urban Skid Row…all of the houses (there) are so neat and pretty, and they all look just alike” (Menken). Wanting a house that’s “just like” other houses in this nice neighborhood could represent how Audrey wants to be like other more “successful” women at the time. However, she is barred from reaching her version of the American Dream because of her financial status. She is barred from reaching her version of the American Dream because of her financial status. Her problems stem from how she sees herself as undesirable because of her unmarried status and age. She describes herself as a “December bride” and doesn’t deserve a sweet guy like Seymour. Because she doesn’t find herself worthy of love and feels like she has to rely on a man because of societal expectations, she settles for abusive men like Orin. She laments to Mr. Mushnik about Orin, saying, “You don’t meet nice boys when you live on Skid Row” (Menken). 

In a cut song, “The Worse He Treats Me,” found in early drafts of the show (later replaced by “Somewhere That’s Green”), Audrey sings about her relationship with Orin. She says, “The worse he treats me, the more he loves me, well that’s a fair exchange I guess. But I’m still prayin’ he won’t stop sluggin’, ‘Cause that would mean he loved me less” (Little Shop of Horrors 2003). When questioned about this song and how the delicate matter of domestic abuse is handled in the show, Howard Ashman says he wanted Audrey and Orin’s relationship to have a “Punch and Judy” quality. He then says if their relationship was played for slapstick instead of played realistically, “would it not be disturbing? Because if it’s too real, I don’t want to see it either, let alone see a woman sing about it afterwards” (Hoskinson). Although this song was cut, other moments in the show showcase Orin and Audrey’s relationship in a more light-hearted fashion. Jesse Herell, a long-time fan of the musical, writes that he “feels conflicted about these jokes,” and that he’s “grateful there is a tonal change in some sections about Orin’s abusive behavior” (Herell). Whether or not it’s “better” to portray this example of an abusive relationship comically or seriously is a director’s judgment.  

Social Commentaries: Race in Little Shop

We’ve discussed how Little Shop of Horrors is a subversion of classic themes in horror movies of the time period and how it could be a commentary on capitalism and gender roles. Still, another interpretation can be taken away from the piece. That theme can be white anxiety and race relations. This interpretation surrounds the casting of Audrey II and how the Black characters in the musical and film adaptations only propel forward the plot of the white characters.  

As I mentioned, horror movies and monster movies often express societal fears. For Little Shop, the “fear” described in the interpretation of race relations is the general fear of social change, specifically for people of color.  

In the original cast of Little Shop, Audrey II is played by a Black man. The defining feature of the plant is a large pair of red lips, and the songs the plant sings are R+B, as opposed to the 60s pop and Broadway-esque sounds also presented in the show. Even though the plant is green and not a person, it can be Black-coded because of casting and almost caricature-like puppet design. It also doesn’t help that there are no other Black main characters in the musical. The only other Black characters are the three Urchins, who serve as a Greek chorus and aren’t well-developed.  

In interviews with Frank Oz, the director of the 1986 film, he says that Levi Stubbs, the actor for Audrey II in the movie, was perfect for the role because he was “real black, real street” and that the script demanded that Audrey II should be Black. However, when designing the Audrey II puppet, he says that he tried to make the lips on the puppet smaller because he didn’t want people to think that the plant was meant to be Black. The two interviews contradict each other. “Oz’s almost indignant claim that the plant was not intended to look Black forms an interesting contrast to his description of selecting Stubbs’ voice based specifically on its black, ‘streetwise’ quality” (Jensen). These interviews come across as defensive. Whether the plant was intended to be Black or not, the plant’s racial identity is note-worthy because this piece is a commentary on the time period, and the 1960s was a time of radical social change for many different groups, including people of color.  

I don’t want to defend the creative choices of Frank Oz and Howard and Menken by saying the piece is a good commentary or satire of race relations. Frankly, as a white person, I thought commenting on it would be distasteful, as it is not my place to decide whether or not this portrayal of Blackness in the musical is controversial or not. One could argue that the problematic choice and implications of creating the role of Audrey II for a Black man in a musical where most characters are traditionally white set in the 1960s may be a good commentary on the perceived threat of social movements. However, this stance excuses the original casting choices and the implications of those casting choices. Whether or not Alan Menken and Howard Ashman had these racial undertones in mind, they should still be held accountable for them. Whether or not Alan Menken and Howard Ashman had these racial undertones in mind, they should still be held accountable for them. Patricia A. Turner, a folklorist who analyzes African American stories, wrote in an essay shortly after the 1986 version of the story was released, saying, “Perhaps the impulse to assign black characteristics to otherworldly creatures reflects a subconscious belief that (black people) are still intruders whose demands for equality have escalated into a desire for dominance” (Turner).  

Conclusions

These different perspectives are important in the conversation about whether or not Little Shop of Horrors should keep being retold. However, since the musical’s creators never really said that the play should be interpreted in a particular light, we cannot say that any theme is more valuable than another. Plus, opinions are subjective; one person, like myself, cannot conclude whether the play is good or bad.  

Although we cannot decide one universal meaning for the play and whether or not the play is worth telling, that does not mean that researching the various perspectives in the play was a wild goose chase. Even though these themes can’t be proven, people who direct Little Shop of Horrors should think more about what the story teaches their audience. Producers of this show should not be afraid to shake up the original casting and how the text is adapted for the stage. For example, in the 2019 Pasadena Playhouse production of the show, Audrey was played by Michaela Jaè Rodriguez, a trans woman of color. This production also played the abusive relationship between Orin and Audrey realistically, which is not done often. This version is one of many examples of how this play can be elevated for a new generation.  

Overall, artists should be careful of what messages they send to audiences in their pieces. Although I would like to know the true meaning of Little Shop of Horrors, I would rather not make a deal with Mephistopheles to find out. 

Works Cited

“7 Movie Monsters That Allegedly Represent Communism.” Mental Floss, 5 May 2014, https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/56433/7-movie-monsters-allegedly-represent-communism.

“Don’t Feed the Id: ‘Little Shop of Horrors’As a Psychological Fable, PopMatters.” PopMatters, 12 Apr. 2012, https://www.popmatters.com/154295-dont-feed-the-id-2495886924.html.

Herrell, Jesse. “Little Shop of Horrors: A Cynical Review of My Favorite Movie Musical.” Music, Movies, and Hoops, 14 Sept. 2021, https://musicmoviesandhoops.com/little-shop-of-horrors-a-cynical-review-of-my-favorite-movie -musica/.  

Little Shop of Horrors | Cut Song Medley | Alan Menken. www.youtube.com, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xboPDGheVAI. Accessed 12 Dec. 2022.  

Little Shop of Horrors: Critiquing Capitalism with Carnivorous Camp | Wholesome Halloween. www.youtube.com, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7rsCe_WJM8. Accessed 12 Dec. 2022.  

Little Shop of Horrors, The Faust Myth, and the American Dream – Video Essay. www.youtube.com, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2YdOXddFoQ. Accessed 12 Dec. 2022.  

Magazine, Smithsonian, and Jeanne Dorin McDowell. “The Science Behind Hollywood’s Movie Monsters.” Smithsonian Magazine, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/science-behind-hollywoods-movie-monsters-1809 73418/. Accessed 12 Dec. 2022.  

Marc Jensen. “‘Feed Me!’: Power Struggles and the Portrayal of Race in Little Shop of Horrors.” Cinema Journal, vol. 48, no. 1, 2008, pp. 51–67. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1353/cj.0.0064.

Menken, Alan, et al. Little Shop of Horrors: A New Musical; Based upon the Film by Roger Corman. Acting ed, Samuel French, Inc, 1985.  

Menken, Alan, et al. Little Shop of Horrors: A New Musical, Directed by Mike Donahue, performance by George Salazar and Michaela Jaè Rodriguez, Pasadena Playhouse, November 25th, 2019, Pasadena Playhouse.  

Hoskinson, The Story of “The Worse He Treats Me” | Episode #102. www.youtube.com, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHMesF_OCu0. Accessed 12 Dec. 2022.  

Turner, Patricia. “Reel Blacks: Blacks in Disguise.” Trotter Institute Review, vol. 1, no. 2, June 1987, https://scholarworks.umb.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1048&context=trotter_review.  

“What Is Capitalism?” The Balance, https://www.thebalancemoney.com/capitalism-characteristics-examples-pros-cons-3305588. Accessed 12 Dec. 2022.  

Women in the 60’s. https://www.historycentral.com/sixty/Americans/WOMEN.html. Accessed 12 Dec. 2022.