Malay Sweeney Todd Blog

   Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street challenges viewers to sympathize with and relate to Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett. How does Time Burton overcome moral revulsion and murder and cannibalism? No matter what iteration of the story one finds, cannibalism is always a central element. This element attempts"to make sense of the most atavistic of human impulses, emotions, desires, and destinies" (The Wonderful and Surprising History 69). See the article posted before doing the blog, so you can discuss cannibalism in relation to growth and urbanization of London.

  Cannibalism is taken to its literal and metaphorical meanings in Burton’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. 

Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett

  Literally, the customers of Mrs. Lovett’s pie shop are eating their fellow citizens because industrialization has forced the price of meat to skyrocket and why pay for meat when you can get it for free? Mrs. Lovett is a businesswoman working her way around the system, but she is also working around the fact that she wants Sweeney Todd for herself. She corrupts him and makes him go mad by telling him the story of what happened to his wife and daughter. Her version of the story makes Todd have sympathy for her for being kind to his wife, but in reality Mrs. Lovett treated Lucy terribly and kept her hid away from the rest of the world. 

  Also, and I am not too sure of this, but I believe she may have conspired with Judge Turpin in trying to get rid of Todd’s wife, but Lovett placed all the blame of Turpin to make herself look like the better person in Todd’s eyes. In this way Lovett and Turpin are metaphorically devouring Lucy by making her his and her object of attention. The metaphor of cannibalism also can be seen in how Turpin uses his position as judge to get what he wants. He “eats up” the people he does not like by giving them harsh sentences such as the scene when he sentences the little redhead boy to be hung until he dies.  He especially uses his power to get rid of Todd in order to have Lucy and Johanna for himself. 

  The urbanization of London is causing the people to become corrupt and “devour” each other, whether it is through power in the government or power in scamming the masses like Senior Pirelli does with his elixir. One thing to be noted about the film also is the lack of color. Everything seems dark and dreary from the clothes to the state of the buildings to the attitude of the people. Nothing seems happy and the smokestacks always looming in the background show how urbanization and capitalism cause the morale of people to become savage towards one another. The people are devouring each other so that way they have a better chance of being the person in control as opposed to being the controlled.