It shows PT Barnum as a poor kid and then a poor adult who can't even buy his daughter ballet shoes. But then, something happens. The most important thing in determining if someone deserves wealth: he comes up with An Idea. His idea is to take people who are "freaks" and sell tickets to see them.
It becomes a success and then it shows Barnum buying a massive mansion and he's clearly now super rich, which afaik is pretty close to the truth. What about the circus performers? Did they get wealthy too? Nope! Certainly not in real life but not even in this movie, either. In real life I doubt the performers even made much above a subsistence wage. But in the movie, money isn't important to them. No no, they only care about "coming out from the shadows". Barnum is the one who deserves riches because he had The Big Idea and he takes risks.
This movie is a good microcosm of understanding how Americans view wealth and business. Wealth is only "bad" if you're old money and you outwardly show that you think you're better than everyone else. But if you're an "entrepreneur" who comes up with an idea, it's really all about you and you deserve wealth. The people who actually make it all happen? Nah fuck 'em. It was the brave and noble entrepreneur who took ALL the risks and had the good idea that one time, he deserves unimaginable wealth.
real life PT Barnum is even worse than the movie portrayed.
I had to watch that movie when I was substitute teaching one day and it was pretty dumb. hated how all the Liberal Gays™ were frothing about that one song too.
that being said, I still think Hugh Jackman is hot, and so is Zendaya so at least it was nice eye candy.
the showtunes gays have dramatically relaxed their standards since hamilton
It's PT Barnum propaganda on the same level as what imperialists think DPRK propaganda is.
It's fun to watch when you're really high though.
Sounds like Barnum was part of the small business clergy who deserved to be thanked for exploiting vulnerable people for profit. You're welcome for his service.
Even other people who were famous like Jenny Lind get their characters assassinated, being reduced to mainly just wanting to fuck PT Barnum when she went on the tour specifically to raise money for charity.
Yeah, they didn't even have a scene where he dissected a black woman in front of a paying audience
Yup
He had an old black woman as a part of his sideshow, he said that she was a 180 years old and was actually George Washington's wet nurse
She wasn't actually that old, but in order to generate controversy and drive people to buy tickets to see her, he actually put out newspaper ads where he pretended to be a doctor saying that this outstandingly old woman was just whale skin stretched out with gears and stolen bones (I am not making this up)
So of course when the old woman died, as old woman tend to do, he offered to shut up his "critics" by dissecting her on stage to prove she was a flesh and blood person
He charged $5 a head to see someone taken apart
Barnum is a fucking monster
I believe some of the more famous sideshow performers were able to make a good living, and sold photographs of their likeness or made appearances aside from the sideshows to supplement their income. But that experience was far from universal, and certainly none were ever as wealthy as Barnum. Not a small number of sideshow performers were developmentally disabled or didn’t speak English and were blatantly being exploited.
I studied the history of circuses and sideshows in college, and it completely turned me off the circus. Maybe some small circuses treated their animals and employees better, but the industry itself was just the quintessential capitalist machine, churning through bodies for profit.
i saw the trailer in theaters and burst out laughing at the idea of this consummate American conman, brutal abuser of animals and people, being recast as a woke bae who, like, has read the body is not an apology
