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.
Natasha Martinez-
ReplyDeleteThe idea of a political food chain being disrupted by an actual act of eating is quite comical. Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett rob the people in the high rankings from society from their political powers as the "top of the food chain" and turning them into meat pies, typically only eaten by poor people. They in turn, become the bottom of the food chain with the human meat pie production. What Mrs. Lovett and Sweeney Todd do is interesting because in their own way they are using the mass production system which was used at this time to corrupt the very society that is being corrupted by mass production itself.
I like how you stated that todd and lovett have some type of twisted control with cannibalism, i did not follow well though. Todd and Lovett are rebellious, they are the rioters of their time. Not many people went against the book back then but they really pushed the bar with feeding humans to unaware minds. i love it!
ReplyDelete-jackie
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ReplyDeleteI really liked your point about how cannibalism makes Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett feel like they have some sort of control, as twisted as it may be. I think by making their customers unknowingly eat other humans and unknowingly participate in cannibalism, Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett feel as though they have power over those people. This film not only contains literal cannibalism, but also metaphorical cannibalism with the fact that the urbanization and mass production that is happening in London at this time is, in a way, chewing up and spitting out those people of lower social status. I agree with Natasha and believe that by turning these politically and socially powerful people into meat pies that Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett are literally making (as the song says) those up above serve those down below. I also thought that it was really clever of Burton (or whoever wrote the original musical) to include the idea of “you are what you eat” by having Sweeney die by his own razor and in the same way that he killed others.
ReplyDelete-Melissa Johnston