Let the record show that I love Hugh Jackman and the cast of The Greatest Showman, but for class I had to analyse a little bit deeper into what kind of message movies are trying to sell, and that led to me doing a bit of research I wanted to share. Without further ado, here are 5 things I found out!
1. P.T Barnum did not care about 'misfits' nearly as much as we think.
While the movie shows P.T. Barnum singing uplifting songs and embracing people with uncommon or limiting features, he did not care about those in his show. An example is in the fact that he leased a slave woman and paraded her around the country as George Washington's wet nurse who was more than a hundred years old. When that woman died, Barnum hosted a live autopsy of her body and tricked people into further believing his lie.
2. Jenny Lind and P.T Barnum never had any kind of affair.
Jenny Lind was young and passionate about her career and wanted nothing to do with a relationship with anyone. Barnum was fond of Lind's talent, but after her first show, Lind was fighting off suitors like Hans Christian Andersen and Chopin and wouldn't take any of them, let alone Barnum. The scene where Lind kisses Barnum on stage, while dramatic, never happened.
3. Phillip Carlyle never existed.
Many believe that Zac Efron's character was based on a real person, some going as far as to say he was the other half of Barnum and Bailey. But, in fact, Carlyle is only a character to serve the purpose of showing racial tensions through his controversial relationship with trapeze artist Anne. The movie likely did not want to show racial tension the way it happened in reality, where blackface was used in the circus and African American people were not enslaved, but still treated as second-class citizens.
4. Barnum was not alone in the world.
After his father died in the movie, Barnum went around the country on the railroad and eventually worked up the courage to go and marry his wife, Charity, and rescue her from home. In reality, he had five siblings and all begged on the streets of Connecticut until they parted ways in adulthood or had passed away. Barnum started working at a newspaper and met his wife there.
5. Barnum was clever, but he did not just get away with everything.
Barnum was arrested three separate times for libel as a publisher of his newspaper and was often called out on his scams by the same critic who appears in the movie. When one trick was discovered, Barnum would come up with more. He was clever, like the movie suggested, but he was also a master businessman who knew what people would believe.
For further information, visit one of these sites!https://www.britannica.com/biography/P-T-Barnum
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/12/greatest-showman-hugh-jackman-p-t-barnum-jenny-lind
https://www.bustle.com/p/how-accurate-is-the-greatest-showman-pt-barnums-actual-story-is-even-wilder-than-the-movie-7665449
https://dailyreview.com.au/greatest-showman-greatest-kind-con-repugnant-film-full-lies/69588/
