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.