Everyone loves a good musical movie. The only movie that can make me cry every time I watch it is Moulin Rouge. Greatest Showman's marketing strategy made me roll my eyes a few times when throughout the campaign the team's attempts focused on turning PT Barun into this sympathetic figure. I must admit that when I was sunk into many chairs I was reluctantly excited. The year has been full of ups and downs and so who doesn't want to get the smallest moment of escape in an upbeat song and dance that lasts 90 minutes? Five minutes into the film, the optimism I had turned to general confusion and disgust. Instead of committing to telling the story about the true and complex anti-hero, or simply swinging over the fences, the film; “The Greatest Showman” was committed to taking advantage of every opportunity. This led to the recreation of something like Kidz Bop Baz Luhrmann; a Disney Channel movie so focused on sanitizing reality with mediocre lyrics about aiming and reaching for the stars. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Go on to say that PT Barnum began his career as a showman. He literally bought an old slave named Joice Heth who was partially paralyzed and blind. She was recorded as saying she was 160 years old and had served as George Washington's nurse. He then went ahead to display her to the public eye until his death. It is completely understandable to me why you, as a director, would want to omit the bondage of an older woman in your film. However, the real stories of the portrayed characters that were decided to include in the film are no better and are so far from reality. In reality, Barnum began parading his bearded lady when he was actually nine months old as "the little girl Esau". Charles Stratton or better known as “General Tom Thumb” began to be drafted when he was only 4 years old. The film he not only went out of his way to completely ignore his racist nature but also his violent nature according to the true biography PT Barum was rightly known as a temperance speaker. He spent much of the 1850s touring the country and making money by preaching about the evils caused by alcohol. The life of the real Barnum was totally intriguing and complex enough to justify a remake of the film. The only major misstep the director makes with the fictional Barnum is when he gets involved in the attempt of gaining acceptance from the upper class The moment he is offered a path to mainstream success, he throws away the “monsters” that initially made him who he was. He presents himself to the viewer as someone who forgets about his true friends, the ones who taste success. This isn't even complexity. It's like the climax of a Hannah Montana movie. In my honest opinion, "The Greatest Showman" is a collection of sound conventional cinematic squareness. This is mostly due to the way the film struggles to turn PT Barnum's circus of human weirdness into a freak show of identity politics. The way they are made to stand up and claim their pride and dignity is a 21st century religious and emotional mistake. The film goes on to whitewash Barnum himself. It portrays someone who was an exploitative profiteer as an ideal smiling master with a dream. By the time of the 19th century, PT Barnum had already established himself as the most famous peddler of freak shows. The abuses that minorities, the ostracized, and the disabled have endured, all in the name of entertaining suspects with "oddities.", 1995.