Jump - Sweeney Todd

It is truly amazing that Tim Burton is capable of making a movie about a murderous barber who bakes his victims into meat pies and sells them to the public a box office hit. Today's society is already greatly exposed to violence and murder by television and films, but cannibalism is usually a rather taboo topic that is less often portrayed in films and TV shows. One may ask how Burton stomachs these topics enough to create a movie with such revolting topics as main elements. Death is a common theme in Burton's films, and he always lightens the mood with humor. We see this in Beetlejuice and Mars Attack, and we see this in Sweeney Todd as well. The song "A Little Priest" is a song sung through puns and dancing by Mrs. Lovett and Sweeney Todd while they discuss who they are going to kill and serve as pies. The song is catchy, upbeat and at first you may not even realize it is a song about cannibalism. "A Little Priest" has underlying meanings and relations to the overall themes of the films as well. As they look out the window looking for victims, Todd tells Mrs. Lovett "It's man devouring man, my dear," and while in these circumstance it is literal, he is referring to the rapid growth and corruption of London. As the city was becoming more and more crowded, more and more people were becoming poor and homeless. These feelings of desperation often left people willing to do whatever they needed to survive: theft, murder, rape, etc. Sweeney Todd is a symbol of this. He was arrested and exiled for having too beautiful of a wife, and he returns ready to do whatever he must to get revenge. He was first a victim of the corruption and selfishness filling the streets of London which then pushed him to join the madness. At first Todd only wished to kill the judge, but then he decides to broaden his goals. He tells Mrs. Lovett “we all deserve to die,” and he says that no man is better than the next and they all deserve to be punished. This leads me to another way Burton overcomes the ideas of murder and cannibalism. Burton uses his films to express issues in society to his audience, and in this case he wanted to point out the utter ruthless and revulsion of London during that period. London was polluted, over populated, many were homeless, and the government was corrupt. It was a time of desperate competition, everyone needed to have as much as the next person and they would do anything to have it. Burton obviously does not agree with cannibalism, but he uses it to point out the bigger picture: people are selfish and they are the reasons monsters like Sweeney Todd come along.