Lotney "Sloth" Fratelli (John Matuszak)

Character Analysis

Waiting for Superman

You've heard of Beauty and the Beast? Well, Sloth is both.

When you look at what little screen time Sloth actually has, you wouldn't think he'd be such a major player in this story of ours, but instead he's arguably the most memorable. Part of that could be the fact that his face is hard to look away from. Those lopsided eyes and wisp of hair sprouting from his cone-shaped head certainly stay with you.

But our enduring fascination with Sloth is much more than skin-and-hair-deep.

Right away, he subverts our expectations. When there's a creature chained in the basement, there's generally a reason it's chained there. But, as it turns out, the reason Sloth is chained to the wall is so that he doesn't hurt the other Fratellis—three very, very bad people. Even Sloth knows it:

SLOTH: Ma, you been bad.

The guy has a heart of gold, though, even making an attempt to forgive the mother who treated him so terribly all his life.

He responds to Chunk's simple act of kindness with an outpouring of love and friendship. He swoops in to rescue a number of individuals he's never even met before…simply because they're in trouble, and because his best friend Chunk cares about them:

SLOTH: Oh, I love you, Chunk.

CHUNK: I love you, Sloth

When he wants his brothers to feel intimidated, he tears off his shirt, revealing a Superman shirt underneath. This couldn't be more appropriate to Sloth's character arc—he's a big-hearted, larger-than-life superhero who comes out of nowhere to stop the bad guys and free the innocents, risking his own life in the process.

If that isn't Superman-esque, we don't know what is.