Brad is a bad person and a part of the patriarchy who hurt Dawn and it's okay to accept that as a part of his character
Idk how to word it but! It's fine to hate/dislike him because he's still terrible. I do see where he is coming from of course (as the biggest Brad defender ever) but theres just some actions of his that u cannot defend and I don't think people see it frequently because of how pitiful he is LOL.
warning! this post will contain mentions and discussions of sexual abuse, cocsa, sexual exploitation, and related subjects. all of these are matters brought up/implied in teeth, but proceed with caution.
Brad: "So [Dawn and I] both took our swimsuits down... and I was scared to let touch mine down there, so I told her she had to let me touch hers down there first..." (page 23).
Dawn: "So I asked [Brad] if I could touch it, but I was scared to touch it too, so when he asked me if he could touch me first, I said okay" (page 104).
Very early in the show, we learn about this event. We see it first through Brad's view, and it's clear that regardless of how it manifests, he is deeply disturbed by the event, even saying that he "used to feel the pain in [his] finger whenever Dawn came near", but was able to "suppress" it.
Brad is reclusive, easy to anger, and is averse to touch, Dawn's specifically.
Brad shrinks from her touch and exits, disgusted (page 20).
@hourly-brad made a post about how Brad displays signs of sexual trauma, which I deeply recommend.
The last thing I'll note about Brad right now, is the scene in the Playwright Horizons run before A Real Man. Godfather is describing a sexual act between a man and a woman, and Brad is unable to listen to him, and gets upset.
Brad: "I can't! I can't, I can't!"
When him and the Truthseekers move to a more private space, he asks "How could I let Dawn do this to me?"
There's something to be said about this scene and its version in the New World Stages run, especially in how the Truthseekers and Godfather pressure Brad into sexual acts that he isn't comfortable with.
After A Real Man, the shows stage directions read,
Pastor stands, exhausted from beating Brad, almost as if in a sexual afterglow. Brad lies shaking on the floor (page 46).
This is not to say that Pastor was sexually abusing Brad, but the imagery and symbolism is very present, and I doubt that it was unintentional.
My next point is Ryan.
Born Again contains the lyrics,
"I just can't resist getting naked with the cam'ras rolling
"And posting my ass for strangers on the internet"
Later, during Dentata,
Dentata: "Stick it in me, big boy."
Ryan: "I can't believe that used to be my line" (page 116).
If Dawn is sixteen and Brad seventeen, Ryan is likely in the same age range as them. If this is the case, his lyrics in Born Again would imply that he was exploitated as a minor, and that content is available on the internet.
He says that he's made porn in the past, and that's likely material that's available online, and he can't undo it. Later, he records him and Dawn in a sexual position as well. He rationalizes that decision, and even expects Dawn to thank him. This is behavior that is normal to him, and behavior that he repeats to Dawn later.
Lastly, Dawn. Oh, Dawn.
There isn't a man in this show who doesn't assault Dawn, or who respects her, or who sees her as a whole human being. Let's go through that.
From the start of the show, Brad hates Dawn. He's physically violent with her, often grabbing her or throwing her around during their interactions. Verbally, he's cruel, pushing her away and attempting to upset her. By the end of the show, he's reduced her to "a vaginal black that's just a body with no soul".
Tobey is introduced as a kind and respectful boyfriend. But he disrespects Dawn during When She Gave Birth, and doesn't respect her when she tells him to stop, or when she expresses hesitation toward what they're doing. Even when she's saying, "I feel like I'm gonna pass out", he doesn't stop. She outright says, "stop", he doesn't listen. She says that he's hurting her, he doesn't listen.
In Playwright Horizons, after Teeth, we see Dawn and Ryan talking. She's hyperventilating, unable to form complete sentences coherently, is incredibly upset by what's happened. She says,
Dawn: "It didn't feel right, and I didn't know how to tell him to- but then I told him to stop-"
A few moments later,
Ryan: It sounds like... it sounds like Tobey raped you.
Dawn: It wasn't rape, Ryan, he was my husband. I'm the guilty one.
Dawn doesn't identify the situation as what it was- assault. Whether this is because she doesn't have the words to process it as that, or because she doesn't want to believe that that's what it was, she blames herself for what happened.
Purity culture is a big theme during the show, and purity culture often teaches women that it's their responsibility to look out for men, it's their responsibility to be pure. If they tempt a man, it's their fault. Dawn is displaying the results of that belief here.
Even in the New World Stages run, where the line has been softened- "Okay. Yes. But even if that's true..." Dawn is still resistant to consider what happened rape. She allows the possibility, but doesn't seem to agree with how Ryan sees it.
I don't think that Pastor is sexually abusing Dawn, but when Brad says that Pastor is just trying to protect Dawn so he can get in her pants, I don't think he's incorrect. I made a post about that, which can be read here. Pastor does not see Dawn as a person, rather as someone to be idolized and seen as perfect. The opposite of Kim.
After Brad is kicked out of their house, Dawn makes her way to Doctor Godfrey's. There, she uses Amy Sue's name, showing that she's still struggling with the shame in her body, unable to use her own name in relation to what's happened to her. Like the other men in the show, Doctor Godfrey violates her, and pays by losing an arm. Ryan calls this a violation, and tells Dawn that the teeth were protecting her.
Last thing I'll say in this section is about Ryan- I've talked about him in the section above, but it is important to note that during I'm Your Guy, Dawn is genuinely enjoying herself. This is an experience that she is enjoying and gaining pleasure from. An interesting difference from Brad- in Playwrights, he doesn't seem to think that he can gain pleasure from sex after what happened with Dawn, but Dawn is able to still experience pleasure after she's experienced it in (what she believes to be) a safe environment.
Last thing is that the word "rape" is used specifically to describe what happens to men during Dentata. Pastor, Patriarch #1, and Patriarch #2 are described as being raped. Dentata isn't above committing sexual violence of her own.
Dentata's possession of Dawn and HERO's possession of Brad can also be seen as similar to sexual abuse, or as similar narratively to what they've been through. Dawn and Brad have had control over their bodies taken away before, and by the end of the show, they have been taken over by entities beyond their control. The final act of violation done to them, their bodies forcefully taken away and used to continue the cycle.
haunting revelation (no pun intended) about brad. a bit wordy because of context, but it'll be worth it i promise!(?)
so i read somewhere in the bojack horseman fandom that sarah lynn is implied to be sexually abused (SA) when she was a child. i was not surprised at first given how it was basically common knowledge anyway when you watched the show.
but when the user listed down the evidences on how it was hinted, one of it was when sarah lynn burned down bojack's ottoman early on in season 1.
i initially thought to myself, "how does that connect to that?"
then the user reasoned that there's some correlation between SA victims and people who commit arson...i was like, "nah, that's some horseshit logic, right?"
and so i searched it on google if there's some truth to it. and the answer's kinda yes, but mainly kinda no?
most articles that pop up are the correlation of people who commit sex crimes and them doing arson. not the victims.
and even if the victims do commit arson to some degree, main reasons for that are either their already troubling behavior, or as a result of childhood abuse or domestic violence (idk man, take my "horseshit research" with a grain of salt).
so it's very interesting if this "implication" is applied to brad. it's undeniable that he suffered childhood abuse. and i guess him being an CSA victim as well can be applied(?) (i'm sorry, i still don't have a definite stance whether to consider him as an SA victim because of his unique circumstance, and i'm mainly focusing the "playwrights horizons" more for now.)
but with the experience he's been through, who's not to say that his tendency to burn the pastor and the church doesn't have anything to do with it? just the infliction of physical, verbal, and psychological abuse unto him by the pastor is enough trigger for him to light shit on fire.
headcannoning brad as a pyromaniac? why not, you know? his fascination towards fire would be so cool for his character!
also happy new year guys! yey! will continue to make teeth analysis post in 2026 of course! still WIP on the "take me down, pt.1" segment analysis yes.
"it's probably a ploy to get in your pants, dawn, i hope you can see that... you've probably been dreaming about it since you first laid eyes on her."
this line is endlessly fascinating to me. it's clearly said during a tense, emotional moment, for dawn and brad both, but i can't help but feel like there is some truth to it.
we know that brad knows things that dawn doesn't, that pastor tells him things that he doesn't tell dawn. "maybe he never told you, but he told me a couple of beatings ago."
while i don't know if pastor would go as far as to tell brad about these sorts of things, i don't find it a strange leap for him to make. pastor says that dawn was a way to "fix" brad bring born- "i thank father god for bringing dawn into my life to correct that mistake". he puts her up on a pedestal, and idolizes her.
since pastor does nothing of the same for brad, he can see his favoritism. with the truthseekers radicalizing him, and the beliefs he's taken on, he sees any affection toward dawn and reads it as attraction to her.
pastor and dawn have a strange relationship. he clearly favors her over brad, he refuses to see her as doing any wrong, etc. with brad getting the opposite treatment, and utter hatred, he probably assumed that dawn was getting the inverse of his experience.
added onto how the pastor calls dawn "baby"? while not necessarily something of note, in this case, it likely only raised his suspicions.
to elaborate- i'm thinking specifically of dissociative amnesia. dissociative amnesia refers to not being able to recall information about yourself, beyond the extent of simply forgetting. this is usually in response to traumatic events.
dawn shows localized amnesia (inability to remember a specific event or period of tine), first in response to the incident with brad when she was five or six.
brad: "will you admit what you did to me when we were kids now?"
dawn: "i swear, i swear i don't remember."
we know from dentata's emergence that the event scared her, and it isn't a far stretch to assume that she would repress the memory. the act itself, and then seeing brad bleeding wouldn't have been easy for a child to process, especially when she was already scared to begin with.
"he was screaming, and i was screaming, and there was blood in the water and then pastor started screaming at brad."
this is not to blame brad for this- they were both affected differently by this, and they carry it differently. neither of them were at fault.
with localized amnesia, events can be remembered, which we also see with dawn. she repressed the event for about ten years, but eventually, she does remember it. this type of amnesia can last for minutes, hours, or years. in dawn's case, it was years.
"brad told me i bit him on his finger down there when we were little. i thought he was talking crazy, but it all came flooding back to me on my bike ride over here."
just wanted to elaborate on this, because i love talking about her!
we don't talk much about tobey. lemme change that a bit.
tobey's basketball team being named "cross bearers" is so fucking funny. another cool bible reference.
his player number on his sports wear being number 7? that divine number in bible appears several times, and it means "perfection" and "completion". interesting choice, and such irony as well.
his full name. tobey zacharias akin. zacharias sounds like a Hebrew name. i checked and it actually means "God has remembered." that's a fun fact. and his surname akin, according to the wiki, means "The brave one, warrior, valor, valiant one, the hero." another level of irony. he sure didn't fulfill that. the surname could also just mean "oak". reminds me of the garden of eden.
ryan having a rainbow motif during the "born again" segment is so cool and layered in a way.
the rainbow in ryan's case can both be associated to his apparent homosexuality/queerness, and what rainbow is associated in the bible.
in the bible, god flooded the earth for more than half a year(?) and killed all life with it for all the people living back then were all full of sin. the only ones who were saved by god's wrath were the living people and creatures inside noah's ark. when the flood ended, a rainbow then shows up, a physical sign of god's promise to the earth to never destroy life again.
(cool, water, sin, and death motifs are present in that story as well.)
the rainbow can also signify redemption, hope, and salvation. how it signals a fresh start. kinda like ryan's desire for his own life, wanting to "leave his gay crap totally behind and be a real man finally" (his own words).
bonus points for the jesus symbolism of it as well (the robe he's wearing, the cross leveling down to his body, him doing the crucifixion pose along with it, and the jesus' cross lightings in the background). the very symbol of redemption and salvation; washing away people's sin.
another motif i noticed in ryan is the sparkliness. his iridescent white robe and the small streamers in the tambourines (but small crosses in the nws version). his performance is dazzling; bright and colorful lighting. it shows his desire to attract and to impress the people around him, wanting to claim himself as a real man to dawn and everyone to witness.
when i saw dawn wearing brown uggs when she goes to the gynecologist, i headcannon that it was pkg rachael's uggs since she also wore the same shoes in the scene where they're all sharing their ideas of their future husbands.
in fact, i headcannon that the pkg would share their clothing and shoes to one another. but then again, that's like every female group in general. girls sharing stuff to each other is such a common occurrence, it's believable for the pkg to do it also.
why does no one in the o'keefe family KNOCKS in their house!?! they really just barge inside the room without notifying the person inside first. like their sense of privacy in there is little to none, almost violating in a way. symbolism!
then again, it's not like any of the other characters are any better. ryan and tobey just enter the room as well without knocking on some scenes.
or maybe i'm just thinking too much about it idk...
really love the exact kind of technology teeth the musical used by brad and the truthseekers in order to reach godfather's teachings to them. it's so underrated.
a vr headset out of all things. not a phone, a tablet, an ipad, a laptop, or a computer. it's genius and such an original concept (to me, at least)! let me elaborate:
first, vr headsets are very immersive. it literally replaces your sight, and hearing (if it has a built in headphones along with it) of your current reality. if you have worn one, you would probably agree that it feels like you're in an another world entirely. with wearing that, brad's eyes have been opened to the world of men blaming the suckiness of their lives to the feminocracy. and brad thinks he fits the criteria, so he then joins the group.
a technology that can be worn on your head or on your face can be so intimate and invasive. it's almost as if it's a part of you now. so close to your mind, and influence you with anything it has the ability to. how that impactful lens can heavily alter how you view your reality.
second, it's such a clever way to conceal the identities of the truthseekers. eyes are windows to the soul after all. their individualities remain anonymous throughout the whole musical because of them wearing the vr headset. a collective faceless group, just another pawns to spread the teachings of their godfather, like they're brainwashed.
third, cool way for the male actors to have double roles without having so many unnecessary people in the cast. it's convincing enough that you can think that these characters are different people from the main cast.
lastly, it doesn't sacrifice the main set design. (sorry deh, but the set design for that musical is sooo ugly to me. so many screens, it feels overwhelming and glaring to the eyes, unless that's their goal then cool.) i already like the simple church/house aesthetic (especially in the version of playwrights horizons), like a doll's house of sorts.
comparing it to other musicals where technology is either present or central to the plot (deh, bmc, rtc), i love the teeth's version where the technology part isn't quite the main focus, but is still relevant to the story. the light choreography and the echoey voice of the godfather is enough to convey the usage of the vr headset technology.
also i think it's the first musical i watched that uses vr headsets as one of the main props, so that's pretty neat! let me know if there are other musicals out there that also uses that. as far as i know, teeth the musical is the first.
would make a complete detailed analysis post of "take me down, pt.1" segment someday. that 2 minute scene is so packed with details to me, i just need a little time to organize my thoughts on it.
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