Coby- Fleet Street Demon Barber

Sweeney Todd , a musical drama by Tim Burton , presents a barber whose passion for cutting hair transformed into a passion for cutting throats. While the film depends on music to set the atmosphere and mood of different scenes, the cannibalistic nature of Mrs. Lovett is compounded with the growth and urbanization of London, which is the dominant aspect of the film . In the film , we see an enormous difference between social classes of London. We see poverty scattered across the setting , but we also see citizens with an overwhelming amount of wealth . With being said , lets look on how the cannibalism in Sweeny Todd was utilized to relay different points 
The monstrous but sly use of cannibalism dives a little into the urbanization of London . The overwhelming change that urbanization dragged rural occupants out of their humble abodes and forced them into a polluted socially separate environment  . Of course not every single one of the rural folk left, but the ones that did leave where probably never seen again, eaten by the city life .The meat pies are an escape from the ever so hard struggles that poor go through on a day to day basis. By them using the little change they have they are able to support a corrupt system that gives them a sense of happiness .Sweeny and Lovett  kill and kill to only  benefit of themselves no matter how fucked up selling ground human meat to the people of Londond . The article describes the film's doings as “exploitative structures of capitalism itself.”  The tale of Sweeny Todd utilizes cannibalism to help the audience understands the economic corruption that was going on at this time and how mass production and profits were more important than the well being of the individual .”   Todd is supposed to represent the ever growing and developing urban landscape of London, and Todd’s victims are supposed to represent the people who leave the comforts of their home in the rural areas of England. 

Williams-It's Man Eats Man World

     Sweeney Todd effectively makes the viewer stop and think about the logistics of cannibalism and forces the viewer to feel agree with Lovett's and Todd's choice of revenge. I feel like Burton helps the audience overcome people's moral disgust by giving Todd a truly tragic back story. His wife and daughter was stolen from him and he falsely accused and sent to prison for 16 years. He is justified to want revenge.
      London is the perfect example of the industrial revolution during the victorian era, and how people moved from the country to the city to get a better a living. In the end, a reverse situation happens. The city becomes overpopulated and the country becomes a sign of wealth and leisure. The city is overwrought with men and women trying to climb their way to the top no matter the cost to others or themselves. London has become as Sweeney states "a hole in the world like a great black pit and the vermin of the world inhabit it, and its morals aren't worth what a pin can spit." It seems like all the bad and the ugly of the world has congregated in London, and it would be fair if Todd and Lovett got rid of them. They take it upon themselves to rid the broken even if themselves are mentally deranged.          
    However as the movie goes along, it is not until the end most viewers feel the need to morally wrong with Todd's approach for cleansing London. I mean,"it's man devouring man,and who are [they] to deny it in" their shop?. There logic is technically valid. People tear others down, they cheat, they lie, and they kill. Why is it so bad that they give what the people actually do in the streets into their meat pies. This is why this musical is so effective. Burton makes you questions your morals in the case of justice and vengeance. 

Ten Tigers - Seals - Sweeney Todd

This movie was dark as hell.  I couldn't get rid of the sense of feeling claustrophic in that grey room, in that grey clustered building, in that grey dirty city filled with corruption…woah alliteration..  What the judge did to Sweeney was messed up, and what Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett did to their victims was more messed up, but kind of cool none the less.  (Don't worry I'm not going to kill people because I don't entirely agree with society's ways.) 

Here we have another movie where Burton plays with death, only this time it revolves around cannibalism.  People resolved to cannibalism for survival, but would also use it as a way to consume power through their victims flesh.  In this film we have Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett using cannibalism in a beautiful way- to destroy power, to eventually destroy society.  Sweeney decides to take the violent path after loosing his family.  If I were him I'd probably just crawl up in a ball in a dark corner somewhere, so I respect the dude's spirit.  Throughout the film the fact that he is killing half the city and cooking them is overlooked.  Each death that occurs brings Sweeney one step closer towards getting his revenge on the judge.  We all know revenge is not the right path to walk down, but the viewer wants him to get it on the judge, which surely distracts you from feeling sorry for the other victims.  Burton's humor towards death, as mentioned before, distracts the viewers from pitying the victims as well.  Each murder scene was predictable and ridiculously grotesque with spewing blood everywhere and funny facial expressed.    These citizens were cooked down into meals.  I mean that really showed how 

equally low Sweeney, Mrs. Lovett and Burton viewed them.  They were all the same.  Burton didn't find any uniqueness in suburbia growing up, and portrayed that feeling in this ancient London.  Sit, cream, cut, dump, cook, distribute, bring in the bacon.  If these people were really that important, I'm sure there would be more people suspicious of their vanishment than just the crazy homeless lady.  So, the audience rides a roller coaster of emotions throughout the film, or at least I did.    I didn't know whether to feel bad for Sweeney at the end of the film when he ends up killing his wife or be angry at him.  Like I said- it was dark as hell, with cannibalism being the main issue.  I'm so tired.  Goodnight.                            

        

    

Eljumaily-Sweeney Todd

Tim Burton’s film Sweeney Todd takes the very vile, disgusting act of cannibalism and puts a very plausible, emotional reason behind it. Viewers find themselves sympathizing with Mrs. Lovett and Mr. Todd, all while they are slaughtering people like cattle and serving them to others. This cannibalism is a symbol for the way humans saw each other and treated one another in mid-nineteenth century London. Sweeney Todd plays off the idea that it’s a “dog eat dog” (man eat man) world out there.

            The first initial scene where Mrs. Lovett and Mr. Todd convince themselves that cannibalism can be justified is when Sweeney kills Parelli and Mrs. Lovett makes the suggestion that they just use the meat from the body to make pies. They sing about their menu, and how they will “serve anyone, to anyone”. They make commentary on the different tastes of people, how some are worse, like lawyers, and how priests are a bit too fat. They also bring up the idea that “those who serve will serve those up above”, meaning that society will be flipped over and those at the bottom will rise to the top.

            This is exactly how times were in London around the mid-nineteenth century. People were starving, the government was corrupt, creating a huge gap between the wealthy and the poor. The average man who got miniscule pay compared to those officials up above also heavily fueled London’s industry. This made for a very hateful relationship between the rich and the poor. Sweeney takes this matter into his own hands and begins eliminating the problem, one by one. Todd, however, kills everyone, showing that the real problem in the world of man is man.

            Sweeney’s initial idea of ridding the world of man is to merely kill every last one of them until he gets to the judge, but Mrs. Lovett takes it to the next level by suggesting that they serve the dead to the living. This symbolizes how all the conflict and corruption in London at that time was causing the population to implode and eat themselves. Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett were merely helping the cause out, by taking two wrongs and creating a right in their own mind. This is how Burton’s film takes the most disgusting of primal human cruelties in cannibalism and backs it up with an innocent reason.

            The reason for Todd’s carnage was obvious in the fact that he had been sentenced to hard labor overseas for a crime he didn’t commit and had lost his beautiful wife and child in the process. The scene that shows Barker with his perfectly happy family is a very bright, picturesque scenario in which Benjamin has a very optimistic, sunny view of life. Life when he returns, however, is dark, dreary, and obviously seen through a completely different view by the newly-named Todd.

            This new, horrible view of life represents the measures that civilians in London were pushed to at this time. Food was scarce, innocent men women and children were being hung, and the streets were dirty with blood and corruption. This is where mankind turns on itself and it becomes a man eat man world. Overall, Burton’s film Sweeney Todd shows the carnage and vileness that society pushed people to in mid-nineteenth century London.

Garcia-Ruiz, Sweeney Todd

Even though the movie seems to be pretty dark and gruesome because of all the murder, Tim Burton tries to connect the audience with the characters. Before Sweeney Todd became “The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” he had a happy life with his wife and baby girl. That all went away when he was sent off by the orders of the judge. It wasn’t until Todd came back in search for revenge that things went downhill. Mrs. Lovett is not too right in her mind… and she has this eccentric look and her restaurant is basically out of business. When she meets Sweeney Todd, both of them become accomplices in murder but Todd gets revenge and Mrs. Lovett’s pie shop goes back in business. It’s not a great thing to be happy about since they are killing people to do this but the audience feels sympathy towards them because of their past. There are also moments where you can tell that Mrs. Lovett in a way does feel guilty for all of the murder but she still continues to do it. The people that they kill are not supposed to be people to feel sorry for. When Todd and Mrs. Lovett sing that song about killing different men and cooking them into pies, they basically say that no matter their status, they’re all the same and some of them deserve to die. Throughout the film this mass murder goes on but no one seems to realize it...or they have just accepted the fact that it goes on and there's nothing to do about it. 

Lake - Sweeney Todd

In Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Tim Burton makes viewers relate to and sympathize with both Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett, even though they are the driving force and ultimate cause of many murders and mass cannibalism.  Sweeney Todd has a very dark and depressing past, a past in which was completely out of his control and forced upon him by a corrupt Judge and Mrs. Lovett is a mysterious character that draws the audience in because of her intriguing but twisted persona.  Also, very typical of a Tim Burton film, Burton shows death in a comedic light and this further helps the audience accept both characters and the crimes they’re committing.  Death being viewed in a humorous lens allows the audience to continue to feel sorry for Todd and back him in is quest for vengeance instead of feeling sorry for the people getting brutally murdered and stuffed into a meat pie.  The audience is led believe that every person who is murdered is not important and that all victims are the same.  This is shown in Mrs. Lovett’s store when Todd and Lovett come to the conclusion that it would be a waste to discard the bodies with how expensive meat is and how profitable it would to do so.  They then go on to sing a song that claims all people are the same and deserve to die; everyone just tastes a little different.  Also, in the scene where Sweeny Todd kills 10+ people in a row, it shows that these people weren’t truly cared for and that is what allowed such a mass amount of people to people murdered so quickly.  The urbanization of London and Cannibalism go hand and hand.  It is “man eating man” and Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett just helped materialize and externalize the way in which people were treating one another.  Many people were forced to move to London in order to survive and support themselves and families and were quickly eaten up by the city and in extreme circumstance other desperate people in the city.  An industrialized city will consume its inhabitants and make people conform to customs and ways of life that are foul.  It’s very interesting to see this twisted but very real perspective by Tim Burton of the ways of life in a city like London and how it truly can change people and his or her moral compass.

Johnston - Sweeney Todd

     Before Sweeney Todd came to be the man we see him as in the film, he was Benjamin Barker, a barber on Fleet Street with a wife and young child. Judge Turpin sent Barker away on false charges and Barker has now returned to take revenge on the Judge, using the false identity of Sweeney Todd to hide who he really is.
     In the beginning, his only goal was to kill Judge Turpin. A street barber, Adolfo Pirelli recognizes Sweeney as being Benjamin Barker when Sweeney challenges him to a shaving contest. Pirelli later comes to Sweeney's barber shop above Mrs. Lovett's pie shop and threatens to reveal who Sweeney Todd really is, so Todd kills him. It is at this moment when Todd's goal changes from killing only Judge Turpin into killing all the powerful people in London. When Mrs. Lovett discovers that Sweeney killed Pirelli she gives him the idea that they could use him as meat in Mrs. Lovett's meat pies.
     In the song "A Little Priest" Todd and Lovett sing about all the people they could use in their meat pies, such as a priest or a royal marine. These people are all of high social and political power in London, so by eating them it will truly be, as the song says, "those up above serving those down below." They also say that they would not want the poet in one of their pies. This is because the poet has no power in London. This relates to the social and economic status of England at the time. Rural areas were being "devoured" by the large, expanding cities. People living in these rural areas were plucked out of their countryside homes and planted into the city. In this sense, it was "man devouring man." There was no more care for the individual. The focus was now put on the urbanization and expansion of cities and those who were not able to keep up were chewed up and spit up. There is also the sense of "you are what you eat" because Sweeney Todd becomes just like one of the people he has killed because he is murdered in the same way by his own razor. This film includes both literal cannibalism, by using the victims of Sweeney Todd in Mrs. Lovett's meat pies, and metaphorical cannibalism, by the powerful people and the urbanization in London devouring the rural areas and the people with in them.

Suarez-Sweeney Todd

Tim Burton overcomes moral revulsion about murder and cannibalism by getting the viewers to sympathize with Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett, and also by making the protagonists more morally corrupt. Sweeney Todd is a man who has lived through a lot of pain and loss, all at the hands of another man; he was imprisoned for a crime he did not commit just because another man of higher power found his wife beautiful and wanted her for his own, taking Todd’s daughter away as well. Mrs. Lovett, at least for me, is much more difficult to sympathize with. In fact, I do not sympathize with her at all, I can see slightly how an audience would though. She is displayed in contrast with another character who is abusive towards a child, where she is, in contrast, very nice to motherly towards this child. Her kindness to an orphan child is something of a speculation because all other people surrounding her have no second thoughts about anyone else but themselves. After Todd kills this boy’s “care-taker”, Mrs. Lovett takes him in as a helper rather than letting him go back to the workhouse. Although the two never eat the meat pies that Mrs. Lovett makes, they serve them to the masses of London, giving them a upper hand on them. Both Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett are near the bottom of the economic food chain, neither one of them making much money or being of royal decent; they are the one’s with the “boot in their face”, not the one wearing the boot. By feeding the boot wearers the meat of other people unknowingly, they are taking the upper hand. British Colonizers would colonize these nations that were already inhabited by natives, and their only upper hand was their weaponry; this was their power. These colonizers weren’t as powerful as they liked to display, they had a weakness, which was their fear of the Other. The Other is a person who is completely different from you; different practices, beliefs, etc., and because of this, you do not understand them and tend to fear them. The solution is to understand the Other.  

Wadsworth- Sweeney Todd

 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 about 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.

Tim Burton always seems make the abnormal things in his movie just seem so normal. In Sweeney Todd, Burton makes us sympathize and relate with two murderers/ cannibalists. We see two people in this movie killing people for their gain to sell as food to make money. If we ever saw this or heard about this in the news we would all freak out. I remeber whenever we heard about the man who was eating someones face off everyone knew something had to be seriously wrong with this guy. We did later find out he was on some funky drugs that caused him to act this way, but the point being is that if we saw this happening in society we would all freak out. In Burton's film though, it makes it almost seem okay that they Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett are doing what they are doing. 

One reason that we feel sympathy for Sweeney Todd is because he has lost his wife and daughter. But there are many people in the world who have lost family members and don't go on killing rampages. Burton uses this as one way for us to sympathize with Sweeney Todd. Todd starts off wanting to kill the one person that out him into the predicament he is in, but then this exceeds just this into killing ordinary people. Burton makes the characters make it seem like this is okay,so that is one reason we believe it is okay. 


While in the Victorian ages many people did find it normal to eat each other alive. And they may not have done so literally, they did so figuratively. 



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An eye for an eye, and a meat pie for you!

What happens when a demon barber, lost love, manipulating shop owner, and an evil judge are all stuck together in one dark, dirty, overpopulated city? Tim Burton answers this in his film Sweeney Todd with cannibalism. Burton is known for embracing the unusual and conveying this theme of acceptance of abnormality in his films. However, what makes Sweeney Todd different is that it directly challenges and conflicts with what we as a society have come to ultimately and universally accept as what is sacred: human life. Ironically enough we, as an audience, find ourselves sympathizing with Sweeney Todd throughout his murderous rampage despite the fact that we are so consumed with contemporary crime TV shows that demonize criminals and murderers. So why does Sweeney Todd serve as an exception? Burton portrays Sweeney Todd as the outsider of the film. He was forcefully exiled from London by the symbol of corrupt justice, Judge Turpin and as a result, returns more than a decade later to find that everything that was taken away from him (his wife and daughter) is now virtually irretrievable. This on its own creates an immense sense of sympathy for the character of Sweeney Todd. The colorful and bright flashbacks to his former life as Benjamin Barker where he was a happy and successful barber in London contrast greatly with the dark, gray color scheme of the London that he returns to as Sweeney Todd. This emphasis on the past and present explains why Sweeney Todd is so sure that he will get the vengeance that he so passionately and, arguably, manically desires. He takes this hunger for revenge to another level, though when he sings, "We all deserve to die." Sweeney Todd is now the outsider as he is struggling with coming to terms with the fact that those around him have what he cannot possess. Because of the overpopulated, gothic, urban setting he is in such close quarters with those that have more than he does that he is unable to have any sense of faith in justice or fairness of any kind given his tormenting past. He truly believes that everyone, including himself deserves to die. It is for this reason that murder and cannibalism become options. He is assuming a powerful role under the radar; indirectly and silently challenging Judge Turpin's power within the city as he murders more and more people and sends them down to be grinded into the meat that their fellow neighbors will eat. We witness this progression throughout the film and also see that Mrs. Lovett manipulates him through each step of the way. So although the themes of murder and cannibalism that Burton explicitly portrays are grotesque and extremely taboo, we are still able to sympathize with the outsider as we have seen in Burton's other works.

Buzaid- Sweeney Todd

                       In Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd, viewers watch as an emotionally damaged character transforms into a chaotic revenge killing barber. When Benjamin Barker returns to London after being accused for committing a crime he didn’t do, he reappears in search of retribution by a new name: Sweeney Todd. He goes back to his beginning, living over the loft of Ms. Lovett restaurant. When he murders his first victim, he continues to go on a bit of a killing rampage. His first order of business was to only kill the Judge as payback. But, in turn, Ms. Lovett becomes involved, using Sweeney Todd’s brutality to build up her business. That is when the cannibalism comes into play. The human meat has its appeal because it is fresh and free. Although, Ms. Lovett ties in the idea of the cannibalism and turns it into a bigger meaning. It can been understood as a political statement, when “man eats man.” This demonstrates, from a social aspect, people eating people of higher standing, and then turning into what they eat. Almost like a human food chain, they gain authority by killing those of high order and feel empowerment as a group. This indication is attractive to Sweeney Todd because it screws with the urbanization of the people in London. By this I mean that one’s living in poverty are the ones falling at the knees to the upper class. With cannibalism Sweeney Todd and Ms. Lovett can have a certain kind of twisted control.

In London there was once growth and urbanization that created two different distinct classes of humans -“the one staying put in his proper place and the one with his foot in the other one's face." This statement is a reflection of how the working class became devoured. People were losing their individuality, their belongings, their rights and their lives.  Capitalism had a huge impact on London and Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett are representation of the rebellion. Therefore, the idea of cannibalism can be seen in a more gruesome light because consumers do not seem to care where “meat” comes from as long as it satisfies.

Esteva - Sweeney Todd

 At the beginning of Tim Burton's film Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street one can see the protagonist of the movie telling his story about how he lost everything that he loved in the world, his wife and daughter, to the hands of Judge Turpin, a corrupt man with much more power than he should have. Since this event the audience immediately sympathizes with Sweeney Todd and his life full of darkness and grief. When Todd arrived to London his only goal was to take revenge from those who caused him harm. Nevertheless, when he gets to his old barbershop he finds Mrs. Lovett, a peculiar woman with questionable morals, now owns the place and in it's first floor has a meat pie bakery, with also questionable sanitary measures.
      As she learns Sweeney Todd's plan of revenge she decides to make something of it for both of them. She persuades Todd that only killing people is a waste and it would also be very hard to dispose of all the bodies correctly so no one finds out of what he is actually doing, hence she tells him that using the meat of the people he kills to make pies is the best way to get rid of them, and also it benefits her in every single way. After this agreement she manages to get Sweeney Todd a little carried away and convinces him to kill every single client that he has in his barbershop so she can have sufficient meat for all her pies. Obviously this is a horrible form of cannibalism and I consider even worse the fact the people that buy the meat pies are being cannibals without having any clue.
      Even though Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett are committing these awful doings Tim Burton still manages to get the audience to completely sympathize with the main characters by not giving any importance to the people that is being killed. When the two of them are singing and talking about prospective clients, or victims for the pies they are just seen as pieces of meat, that can be good or worse depending mostly on the amount of power they posses.
      Another aspect of the film that represents cannibalism in a more implicit way is what Sweeney Todd says in one of the songs, in London corruption and over powered people created the culture of "man eats man." Powerful people take advantage of the rest of the working population for their own good, until they arrive to certain point where they practically eat the less powerful up and leave them completely vulnerable and drained.

O'Doherty-Dangerously Delicious Meat Pies

Although Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett are dark, mysterious, creepy murders, viewers tend to sympathize with them instead of their victims. It may sound scary, but viewers actually relate more to Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett than they do with the rest of the characters. Because even though they kill people, they see the world for what it truly is...The story takes place in London during the Victorian Ages. The story takes place in a high urbanized area-- complete with violence, crime, corrupt leaders, and inhumane working conditions.  
With that said, it is easy for Sweeney to overcome moral revulsion about murder and cannibalism because he sees "man devouring man" on the daily. There is always chaos and crime in the streets, the government officials and people in other high level positions who are supposed to serve the people are actually thieves who use their power solely to benefit themselves, and even the people who are of middle and lower class tend to live by the motto "every man for himself." Everyone takes what they can and they give nothing back. Nobody really gives a rat's behind about one another. 
Another factor that allows Sweeney (and Tim Burton) to justify the murder of relatively innocent people is the fact that London is a highly industrialized city and all the people who live in it are a product of industrialization. Thus everyone is the same...so it does not matter if a couple people are killed here and there. The people Sweeney killed did not have any unique gifts or significant qualities, talents, ideas, etc. to offer to the world. They lacked passion, creativity, and imagination. And everyone who did have any of those things they condemned. Thus the world had not lose anything when they died. In fact one may argue that the world actually benefitted from their deaths. One obvious reason people benefitted was because the bodies supplied people with a good source of protein (meat was very expensive in those days after all). But another reason the world may have benefitted was because many of the people that were killed were powerful, corrupt, selfish, and just plain evil. In fact, Sweeney believed that they were getting exactly what they deserved.
Although cannibalism does not happen often in real life, cannibalism is an important element in this film. In real life, people harm and figuratively "devour" fellow human beings, but we usually do not think of it that way. Perhaps this is why Sweeney's story is so disturbing-- it present to us, what we do unconsciously every day in a literal manner.          

Bogle - Sweeney Todd

     Tim Burton took on a challenge by directing Sweeney Todd, a challenge only he would succeed in. The challenge was to somehow have the audience get past the fact that Sweeney Todd is a murderer and helps Mrs. Lovett make her human meat pies, in order to feel sympathy for him. There have been many different versions of the story of Sweeney Todd. In a couple of versions Sweeney was just a serial killer who had no reason to kill. It was just for twisted pleasure. Tim Burton's version of Sweeney Todd went with the musical's version, Sweeney was killing for revenge. The beginning of the film is what mostly gives the audience a sense of sympathy for Sweeney. In the beginning we see Benjamin Barker, a barber who has a wonderful, beautiful, happy family. In the background, there is Judge Turpin. Judge Turpin ruins Benjamin's life in a few swift steps. The Judge sends Benjamin off for a crime he did not commit, rapes his wife, and steals Benjamin and his wife's baby daughter.
     Years later, a man is seen sailing into the harbor of London. This man arrives at Mrs. Lovett's meat pie shop. Here, we find that the man in Benjamin Barker. He asks Mrs. Lovett where his wife and his daughter are. She explains that his wife took poison after the rape by Judge Turpin, and after that Judge Turpin adopted Benjamin's daughter, Johanna. After this news, we see the transition of Benjamin Barker to Sweeney Todd. He is now out to save Johanna, and to kill Judge Turpin. Sweeney does at kill a couple of men, but he first says this is "practice". Judge Turpin finally arrives to have a clean shave. As Sweeney is about to slit the Judge's throat, the sailor who plans to kidnap Johanna runs in, talking of his plans. The Judge runs out of the barbershop in a fit of rage. This is the moment where Sweeney truly becomes a monster.

     Sweeney goes from seeking out Judge Turpin, to killing every man who comes into his shop. This is partly done due to Mrs. Lovett's influence. Mrs. Lovett infers to Sweeney that she can use the meat of the men he kills, and they both come to the conclusion that it does not matter to kill city dwellers. This is because the city makes everyone alike, and if they are all alike, what is their life really worth? Cannibalism from the meat pies Mrs. Lovett sells represents how the city takes an individual and not only kills their individuality, but also their spirit. The meat pies are consumed by the wealthy, just like the poor people's work went straight to the wealthy. There was not a sense of fairness in work, the poor worked for the wealthy, and eventually worked themselves to death. No one received a fair amount of compensation for his or her work, instead, they were taken advantage of and destroyed. This is just what Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett do.

     Although Sweeney is morally a monster, the way the city destroyed him makes the audience feel sympathy towards him. Eventually he does kill Judge Turpin, but finds out he also has killed his wife. The tragic ending of the film, with its story and even its cinematography creates even more sympathy for Sweeney.