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.
