The Greatest Showman is the La La Land of 2018. It’s a feel-good, rags-to-riches musical that everyone can get behind. The stellar cast, up-beat soundtrack and heart-warming plot are bound to leave you practically skipping with glee out of the cinema. What is not to love about the story of a man who sees the good in everyone? As it turns out, quite a lot. In reality, all the features mentioned above act as a smoke screen with which to disguise the complete misrepresentation of the treatment of the disabled and disfigured in the past.
In the film, we are introduced to P. T. Barnum; the creator of the ‘circus’ as we know it today. He is depicted throughout the film as a hero – a humanitarian, egalitarian and entrepreneur who invests his life into showing the world the talents and beauty of the people who were usually shunned by society. His paternalism seems to be limitless as he accepts anyone and everyone into his care. By those he looks after, he is adored. How heart warming…
This is not the story of the real P. T. Barnum. Far from it, in fact. Barnum was actually a racist con-artist who made his money from exploiting said vulnerable people in society. As the creator of the ‘freak show’, his rags-to-riches story is actually built upon a foundation of prejudice. The case of Joice Heth can exemplify this point. Joice was a blind and partially paralysed slave who was bought by Barnum showcased as the 161-year-old slave of Thomas Jefferson. Regardless of Joice’s lack of consent, Barnum reportedly made $1500 per week from her suffering.
It is not surprising that the case of Joice Heth does not feature in The Greatest Showman, it would be too hard to put a Hollywood-spin on even her tale. However, even in those who do feature in the film I think it is clear to see how they are used only as another run in Barnum’s social climbing ladder. Barnum travels the world and makes his millions – but what about the people in his ‘care’? They are left behind when he no longer has a use for them. The cheesey reunion provides the story with a happy ending (albeit false), but I am left feeling uneasy about the fact upon leaving the cinema I can only recall the names of P. T. Barnum and Philip Carlyle. The Greatest Showman seems to perpetuate the marginalised depiction of the disabled that it is supposedly fighting against. Yet again, we see the struggles of the ‘other’ through the lens of a white, privileged male.
Whilst the film may not contain any Joice Heth’s, the characters that are featured in the film are illusions to the real members of Barnum’s crew. However, it shouldn’t come as a shock that their exploitation and never ending misery is airbrushed out to the blissful ignorance of the audience. Take the example of the ‘Little General’ (again, what was his name?). Upon being asked to join Barnum at aged 22, he willingly leaves his family – seeing an opportunity for self-betterment. However, in reality, a 4-year-old boy was sold by his desperate parents to Barnum, leaving the little boy with absolutely no control over or consent to his situation. Similarly, remember the ‘bearded lady’ with the beautiful voice? She was recruited to Barnum’s freak show as a 9-month old baby. The Greatest Showman spins a tale of uplift that is quite frankly false.
What rubs salt in the wound of misrepresentation even more is that the actors who play Barnum’s ‘oddities’ do not even have the conditions that they are projecting. Keala Settle, who plays the bearded lady, does not have Hirsutism. The old woman who hands Barnum an apple right at the start of the film does not have a facial disfigurement, it is added on with prosthetics. In a musical is supposedly promoting the talents of the otherwise discredited in society it is inherently contradictory that it can’t even reflect this in its own casting. Of course, some rare conditions would be hard to cast, but others? Not so much. The stark favouritism of able-bodied people in the acting industry is apparent even in the cast of a film that is supposed to fight against it.
You can’t knock The Greatest Showman completely. The songs and dance numbers are catchy (and perhaps even uplifting – see This Is Me); you will probably be humming them for weeks. At the end of the day, it is only trying to teach its audience a moral lesson of acceptance and love. Whilst this message is certainly important, it is equally as important not to re-write the past. P. T. Barnum was not the selfless, philanthropic hero that this musical suggests. Ultimately, The Greatest Showman is a romanticised, glamorized and false account of the treatment of minorities in the nineteenth century.