If you are looking for a feel-good, entertaining movie with a great soundtrack, look no further than. “The Greatest Showman.” Released last month, the film depicts the life of one of the most well-known promotors and businessmen, P.T. Barnum of Barnum and Bailey. Directed by Michael Gracey, the movie is filled with a star-studded cast, including Hugh Jackman, who plays P.T. Barnum, Zac Efron, Zendaya and many others. It was nominated for three Golden Globes and won Best Original Song – Motion Picture for “This Is Me.” The movie has already had lots of success, including a 90 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Junior Hannah Beck said she loved the movie.
“It was probably the first movie that I had ever seen where when it first finished, I wanted to sit there and watch it again,” Beck said. “I would have gladly started it over. I thought it was awesome.”
With the success, there has also been questions and criticism. According to the “New Yorker,” the biggest questions surrounding the film’s accuracy is Barnum’s true character. Unfortunately, the Barnum that was depicted in the movie as being a loving man who cares about his attractions and their acceptance in society is not an accurate depiction of the real man.
Like today, there were many social prejudices in the 1800s, and Barnum used these prejudices to make a profit off of vulnerable people. According to “Vogue Magazine,” the real Barnum once paraded an elderly, blind, enslaved, African-American man as a 161-year-old nurse who once aided President George Washington. After his death, Barnum held a public autopsy to “prove” his age. Barnum could have been portrayed as a villain and con man, but that would not have made the film as encouraging.
Freshman Maxwell Ross, theater major, He himself has seen “The Greatest Showman” four times. Ross did not believe the historical inaccuracies of the movie took away from the movie’s main message of acceptance.
“The way Jenny Bicks wrote it, meant to display the overall feeling of acceptance and that it is okay to be different. And you know theater and the circus, there’s a home there. So, no I do not think at all that it took away any of the message because the show itself was written to convey that message.”
The movie inaccurately portrays Barnum’s past, his buying of the museum and some of his showpieces and adds other storylines to create a more entertaining and positive movie production. Even with the countless inaccuracies of the actual story, “The Greatest Showman” teaches us that there is nothing wrong with being different and does this in a very light-hearted, entertaining way.
