#benjamin barker

[disregardcanon]

finally got to see sweeney todd live (seen the movie and a few boots) and i have some Thoughts about utilizing sexism in your setting without the writing itself being sexist. because sweeney todd is SO good at it.

if you haven't seen sweeney todd, uh, both spoilers and trigger warnings for sexual assault, murder, cannibalism etc?

in sweeney todd we have three critical female characters

the entirety of sweeney todd happens because a man with wealth and power decides that he wants to rape benjamin barker's wife. he makes up a sham crime to get benjamin out of the picture and ships the man off to australia. this leaves young lucy as a single mother in victorian london.

he horrificly and publicly rapes her in a setting where other people jeer and laugh during the act. eventually she tries to poison herself, and the combination of poverty and cruelty is left to fend for herself on the streets, slowly losing her grip on reality due to the past trauma, ongoing trauma, and presumably brain damage from the poisoning.

when her husband, now calling himself sweeney todd, returns to their street, she is quite literally still there. he's cruel to her even before he "learns" from mrs. lovett that lucy died. the absolute revulsion he experienced towards her due to her being a homeless woman blinded him to even the possibility that this person who is in the right location could be his wife, even before she's "confirmed" as dead. she's just his beautiful, lost ideal. (but she isn't. she's there she's suffering she's insightful and caring and she's THERE-)

sweeney and lucy's daughter, joanna, has been stolen and locked away by the very judge that sent him to australia and raped her mother. she's spent all sixteen of her years confined to a single room, and the moment she catches the attentions of our young hero, the man she calls FATHER decides that he must marry her.

forcefully.

when she presents resistance and tries to run off with her young man, her captor forces her into an asylum where she will wait until she decides to become his wife the way that he is "owed".

sweeney never once acts to save her, despite both mrs. lovett and our hero's prompting. she, again, is the lost ideal. she would remind him too much of his lost love! oh no, however could he stand it! she is just something to mourn, even though she is here. breathing. singing frantically longing for freedom making connections with others and clever choices-

and then we have mrs. lovett, his wonderful, conniving soulmate. she's hilarious! she's far more clever than anyone gives her credit for, because she's just a silly woman after all! she snorts! she tells bad jokes! she's kind to children!

the dynamic between her and tobias only works so well because she's a woman. even if mr. todd was kind to him in a very similar manner, little boys don't show their affection for grown men with I Must Protect This Person. that is a way that little boys are taught to show their affection for the older women in their lives. because their grans and mums and aunts and older sisters, why, they're just so delicate! so kind! grandpas and dads and uncles and older brothers might need help and deference, but their favorite women need protection.

they can't be aware of the terrible things that are happening, or god forbid, a PARTICIPANT! that's just my auntie nelly! she's not capable of such a thing. she says things like "poor thing" and tells silly, bad jokes, and flutters around after the man she has an unrequited crush on.

surely she can't be in on this dastardly plot! she can't be its true author! the one that takes an angry, short-sighted man and gives him a purpose. that would be absurd!

sweeney never suspects her until seconds before he kills her. toby never suspects her at all. she's just a silly little cook with a crush that needs protection after all.

[jobrker]

to kill for love is such a thrill... (inspo.)

[little-lovett]

there is SO much depth and beauty in the stories we hear in sweeney todd. a murderer who was once a doting father, so blind with hatred and anger towards the world that he couldn’t even see his own wife and daughter, staring him right in the face. a woman down on her luck and in love, trying so desperately to make a connection with a deeply broken and disturbed human. an unfortunately innocent and unknowing boy who ended up being the one who could sense the dark truth. a love at first sight that refused to die, even when torn apart by the disgusting perversion of a greedy abuser. sweeney todd is about all of these people, doing absolutely horrible things, all out of some form of love. that’s the beauty of sweeney todd. sweeney killed for a father and husband’s love. lovett baked real people with real lives into pies to maintain a shallow, lustful relationship she impossibly dreamed would bloom into true romance. turpin destroyed an innocent family because he could not contain his ‘love’ for a pretty woman and her daughter. toby slit a throat because his mother figure was all he had, and he loved her, simply and purely, as an innocent child loves a mother. their love is the purest of all in the story.

but my point is — yes, sweeney todd is about a murderer and his accomplice who cannibalizes and sells his victims. but it’s not. sweeney todd is about love. how love is even stronger and more dangerous than the deepest hate. it’s about how love can destroy people. this show is so beautifully, deeply, disgustingly human. and this dark, telling tale is somehow warped into some of the most gorgeous music to ever be written and made hilarious, lovable, and entertaining. musical theatre is truly magic. human nature is love and filth and greed. sweeney todd perfectly embodies both of these ideas.

[robiberon]

do it for her (your wife you havent seen in 15years, from whom you were violently taken because a corrupt judge wanted to rape her, who tried to kill herself and was driven mad by the poison, the first person you see when you set foot back in the accursed city where it all happened but both of you were so changed by your respective horrific experiences that you fail to recognize her and are cruel towards her. the wife who haunts ever part of your story though you do not see her for who she is. who could be if not saved at least helped if you bothered to actually look at her. the wife you mourn the death of even though she is still alive and right there in front of you. the mother of the child you neglect because you are afraid she will look too much like her. the wife who, in your blind search for revenge, you murder. the wife you murder to get at the judge who destroyed you both beyond recognition. the wife you murder in front of your daughter, though you are all unaware that you are all the family you all have been looking for for 15 years, that for a moment you were all together in the same room it all began. the wife you only recognize all to late. when you are no longer human. when you successfully get revenge and are left empty. you do it for her. you do it for yourself.)

[lunarhobbits]

so i saw sweeney todd the other day and it's consuming my thoughts

+ bonus meta meme

[johnnyvalance]

haha noo don’t get so obsessed with the prospect of revenge that it clouds your judgement and makes you lose sight of your original purpose to the point you can’t even recognize the people you’re trying to avenge you’re so sexyyyy aha

[nerointhecorner]

shitty mspaint doodle

[susandsnell]

A spooky season treat for the Sweeneyheads: an incredible audio of the first preview of the Final Scene of Sweeney Todd, featuring the massive, massive tearjerker that is Sweeney reprising Not While I'm Around to Lucy's body in the place of The Barber and His Wife. Lordy.

[arthurscarnival]

Sometimes I’ll be talking to my friends, and they’ll say “Yeah I feel you”

Then my brain will just go;

“I FEEEEEEEEL YOUUUUUU JOHAAAAANNNNAAAAAAAAA”

Sweeney Todd rlly just loved in my head rent free rn …

[atimburtonfan]

[lou-iz-stat]

I think I just really like stories where a couple is killing people together. For example-

Interview with the Vampire, Heathers, Lisa Frankenstein, Sweeney Todd, Santa Clarita Diet etc…

I just realized this after seeing Lisa Frankenstein and loving it.

[itsgrapes-exe]

sweeney todd against humanity

[little-lovett]

yes i’m fine sorry i was just zoning out but right before sweeney kills lucy he says “the judge… i have no time!” and mrs. lovett represents the virtue of patience in the show and she had sang a whole song telling him to wait and take things slow and relax and think through his decisions.

the thing that destroys everyone in this show is impatience. if anthony had waited before intruding on sweeney and the judge, if sweeney had stopped obsessing when and where and how he could kill the beadle and judge, if sweeney hadn’t felt suffocated by the crushing, endless force of time and looked his own little girl and his wife in the eye and really thought and reached into the soul that was still in him, sweeney todd wouldn’t be the tragedy that it is. human nature bitches human nature

[robiberon]

guess who just reawatched sweeney todd

[yourfavoritebutler]

benjamin x lucy barker fans EAT CRUMBS AND IM ONE OF THEM

art style don’t really fit them but I DON’T CARE 🗣️

for @jobrker as a little surprise cause i love their ST work (and cause i couldn’t put it in the ask box 😔)

edit: FORGOT LUCY’S FRECKLES 😭

[johnnyvalance]

sometimes one forgets that the entire world doesn’t like the musicals you like. it turns out that you can’t just search up “pretty women” on tumblr expecting results related to the song. it actually turns out quite bad. why are there naked women on my screen i wanted appreciation for the duet in sweeney todd