The Greatest Showman – what an incredible movie! An inspiring adventure, filled with beautiful lyrics and amazing music compositions. A romance, full of life lessons, dreams that come alive, and come true, and a story about reaching for the stars and following the impossible! It touches the places in the heart that never age, and who wouldn’t give a standing ovation to that?
In these times we live in we need stories like that, where dreams come true! We are also lucky to have advanced our knowledge further than the story it was inspired by.
The Greatest Showman was written by Jenny Bicks and Bill Condon and was a screen play inspired by the story of the real Phineas Taylor Barnum, who sadly exploited animals through his Barnum and Bailey Circuses, and people, known as ‘freaks’, in the PT Barnum’s Grand Travelling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan & Hippodrome.
I was sadden to see the animals in the movie (whether real or digitally enhanced), these images broke my heart! Because I know the process of putting animals on show, and making them do things that are not natural to their lives. I know and understand the abuse and torture they endure, the pain they live with, and the mental side effects that have long detrimental effects that are associated with this abuse!
Could the movie have left the animals out? I think so, especially knowing the outcry it could create. And, when a story is ‘inspired by’ it is a story that is changed to fit a certain outcome, a creative journey! This one beautifully ends with romance, new beginnings, dreams coming true, and reaching for the stars!
But it is darkened with the cloud of animal abuse that could have been left out!
Don’t get me wrong, I love the movie and the songs, and it even makes me want to sing again. The actors did an incredible job –
Hugh Jackman, Zac Effron, Michelle Williams, Rebecca Ferguson and Zendaya, plus the rest of the cast, I applaud you, well done!
There is also a small consolation knowing that PT Branum also did some good things in his career such as politics, philanthropy, and worked hard to improve many things in the 19th century. But… there is still that heart aching sadness for the animals that have, and are being, abused in the world. We have done eternal damage to nature and its inhabitants, and although we shouldn’t forget, we certainly need to improve!
Myra Christine
