How+Movies+Can+Relate+to+Society

=__Cognitive Dissonance Applied to Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.__=

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__**About The Movie**__
 The film Sweeny Todd the Demon Barber is about a barber, Benjamin Barker, who was sent away to prison by the Judge Turpin. The Judge wrongfully sends Mr. Barker away just so that he can try to take Mr. Barkers wife. Once Mr. Barker finishes his time in jail he comes back to England with a new persona and calls himself Sweeny Todd. In his return, with his new persona, he seeks revenge against the judge trepan. He makes it back to London with the help of a young lad who runs across Mr. Todd’s daughter and ends up falling in love with her. Along the way Todd runs in to a few obstacles that end up with him becoming a serial killer so that he can reach his goal of revenge. With the help of misses Lovett he learns how to hide the bodies of all those he has slain. Meanwhile the Judge hides Joanna, Mr. Todd’s daughter, in an attempt to keep her from her love the young lad that saved Sweeny from the sea. However, Mr. Todd knows how to help the young lad in rescuing Johanna from where the judge has hidden her. Then is the exciting ending in which Mr. Todd gets his revenge and ends up killing His wife who he thought was already dead. Throughout this movie there are many successful cases of cognitive dissonance with the killer Mr. Todd, by him and the others that live around him.

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__**What is Cognitive Dissonance?**__
Cognitive Dissonance Theory is from Leon Festinger. Leon Festinger was an American social psychologist who is responsible for not only the Cognitive dissonance theory but also the Social comparison theory. Festinger Earned a Bachelor of Science from the City College of New York in 1939. He then pursued a master’s degree from the University of Iowa in 1942, where he studied with Kurt Lewin, who is another pioneer in social psychology. Festinger was a faculty member in the University of Iowa, the University of Rochester, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Minnesota, the University of Michigan, Stanford University, and the New School for Social Research. Festinger also became an assistant professor of a Research Center for Group Dynamics at MIT which was created by Kurt Lewin. Once Lewin died Festinger moved on to become an associate professor of the University of Michigan.

Cognitive dissonance is the “The distressing mental state cause by inconsistency between a person’s two beliefs or a belief and an action.” Part of this theory deals with the idea that Humans also need to deal with the dissonance in some way or the other. People often say things to justify the action that is causing the dissonance. For example, say you’re trying to eat healthy and you decide that you want a burger from a fast food joint. You may try telling yourself that you have gone up and beyond what you normally would do at work and that you deserve it, or perhaps that you have had a rough day. There is also the part of the theory of post decision dissonance which is “Strong doubts experience after making an important, close-call decision that is difficult to reverse.”

__**Application of the Theory.**__
There are several scenes in the movie Sweeney Todd that can show this theory. The first of which is when Mr. Pirelli goes to visit Mr. Todd after their shaving contest in which Mr. Todd wins. Pirelli goes to meet with Todd to black mail him in to paying him a portion of his profits. The black mail in this case is that Pirelli knows Todd’s true identity, Benjamin Barker. Pirelli makes the mistake of taunting Todd more than needed and he ends up killing Pirelli with a tea pot. Todd ends up hiding Pirelli in a chest in his barber shop just in time for Pirelli’s young assistant, Toby, to run in looking for Pirelli to make sure that he meets his tailor on time. Todd tells Toby that if he goes down stairs to Miss. Lovett and asks for a glass of gin so that he doesn’t have to worry about the boy finding Pirelli’s body, because of this Miss. Lovett goes up stairs to see when Pirelli is going to come back. At this point Todd says that Pirelli isn’t coming back and Miss. Lovett says “Oh Mr. T you didn’…. Are you barking mad!?!?” Todd then explains that Pirelli was going to black mail him. This is cognitive dissonance because Miss. Lovett is feeling stress from Todd’s action and Todd seeks to quell this stress by justifying why he did it. Later on Todd and Miss. Lovett reduce this stress in Todd killing people by claiming its waste to just burry the bodies but to use them in her meat pies.

Throughout the movie you see an old homeless woman roaming the streets. At one point in this movie the homeless woman thinks that something evil is going on in the house because of the stench that comes from the house at night when they are cooking the meat pies. Also one of the other sub characters, Toby, start to think that Mr. Todd is evil because of how shifty he is and how malice he seems. There is also a point in the movie were Judge Turpin convicts someone one with the penalty of death. When he is walking out of the court he asks Beadle Bamford if the person he convicted if he was guilty and beadle say “Even if he hadn’t he has bound to do something else that is bound to warrant being hanged.” To that Judge Turpin replies “what man in this wide world has not?” This not only clears the dissonance that was create from possible convicting the possible innocent boy that was given the penalty but it could technically be seen as clearing the Judges mind of sending Mr. Barker away to prison.

__**Post-Decision Dissonance**__
A great example of post-decision dissonance is at the end of the movie. Mr. Todd ends on getting his revenge and kills the Judge Turpin. This does not cause any dissonance because, the action was already justified in Todd’s mind because the judge had sent him to prison and had raped his wife. What does cause the post-decision is that he ends up killing the homeless woman because the starts to investigate the barber shop after Todd kills the judge. Right before he kills the homeless woman she says “Don’t I know you?” and drops the body down a trap door. Then Miss. Lovett screams because the Judge Turpin was still alive. At this Todd runs down to see what the matter is and finishes off the judge. At the same time he sees the face of the homeless woman, who happens to be his wife, Lucy. At that very moment he says “My god, what have I done?” This phrase shows that he is now showing dissonance with the decision that he made to kill all of those people. However it gives him justification to kill Miss. Lovett because he feels like she lied to him about what happened to his wife.

With cognitive dissonance in mind looking back at the move the director may have been trying to convey many messages. Such as everyone seeks to justify their actions, and that we are all human. However it seems that the main message was that justifying your actions may not be the right decision at the time until you have the whole picture and are able to make and educated decision instead of trying to make yourself believe that your conclusion is right.

In closing I think that Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a prime example of Cognitive Dissonance Theory because, of the many decisions that are made that are contrary to the individuals beliefs yet they justify themselves in their actions to make the dissonance go away. Although it’s a rather long quote it is a perfect example of an attempt to dissipate this dissonance.

“ //They all deserve to die. Tell you why, Mrs. Lovett, tell you why! Because in all of the whole human race, Mrs. Lovett, there are two kinds of men and only two. There's the one staying put in his proper place and one with his foot in the other one's face. Look at me, Mrs Lovett! Look at you! No, we all deserve to die... Even you, Mrs Lovett, even I! Because the lives of the wicked should be made brief. For the rest of us death will be a relief. We all deserve to die... And I'll never see Johanna, no I'll never hug my girl to me... FINISHED!” //

**__Referances __**

 * 1) Griffin, Em. __Communication Communication Communication 7th addition.__ McGraw-Hill Higher Education 2009
 * 2) Sondheim, Stephen. Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. 2007. Director Burton, Tim.
 * 3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Festinger