Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (theatre)/Fridge

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Fridge Brilliance

• Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a lot more interesting when you consider that Sweeney and Anthony are actually foils of each other beyond the simple fact that one is older and broken and more worldly and the other is younger and more optimistic. Going deeper, they are exact opposites in how they react to wrongs committed against themselves and the ones they love. Sweeney discovers how his wife was raped and his daughter was unhappily trapped within the Judge's house, and all he does is go on a long plot to kill the Judge. Even though he knows Johanna is alive and scared and miserable, he makes no effort to save her, unless it contributes to his plan to kill Turpin. His plan, while done in the name of his wife, still only help himself and add to the misery and bloodshed. Anthony, on the other hand, knows of Johanna's plight and spends the play trying to rescue her. Even though he knows how the Judge is mistreating her, he chooses to try to fix her situation and rescue her instead of get revenge on the Judge. This is perhaps best shown when Johanna is being sent to the asylum and Anthony threatens to kill Turpin. At that moment, Anthony could choose between killing the Judge (an act of revenge) or chasing after the carriage (directly helping Johanna). He, of course, chooses the latter. And at the end, that's why he and Johanna survive and escape while Sweeney becomes so horribly broken that he lets himself die. Anthony is really the more heroic of the two!
  • Punctuated by the film scene when Sweeney goes to his shop for the first time in years. He sadly examines at the abandoned cradle of his daughter, but seems to quickly forget it when Lovett finds his knives.
  • No kidding Anthony is more heroic? Sweeney Todd isn't heroic at all. A Villain Protagonist with a Freudian Excuse is not a hero. Even if one regarded killing Adolfo Pirelli, Beadle Bamford and Judge Turpin as justified (huge stretch) he murders a lot of people who just happen to wander in to get a shave (as seen in the "Johanna (reprise/quartet)" number). Anthony would be more heroic than Sweeney even if he never tried to help Johanna, by virtue of not being a mass murderer. The fact that he helps Sweeney Todd prior to the play's beginning, shows more compassion for Lucy Barker than anyone else, and saves Johanna is really just icing on the cake compared to the "not a serial killer" thing.

Fridge Horror

• Look at that poster hopefully still on the main page. Look at how Sweeney Todd is holding that razor. Now think about gravity and momentum and how it could affect the blade.
  • Actually possible Fridge Brilliance; the razor is directly above his eye, and it's a revenge plot...
• Sweeney's song that marks his descent into madness, "Epiphany", is bad enough on its own. That you remember that "epiphany" used to mean "a realisation of divine truth". That's right, Sweeney may well have been visited by God. And what does God have to tell him? "We all deserve to die".