Fun Fiction

Rating: 3/10 (19 January 2020)

My daughter saw this at a friend's house and convinced us to buy it. It is indeed a rousing good time with great musical numbers, but I can't get past the fact that the main character's name is P.T. Barnum. You see, P.T. Barnum got his start by purchasing an elderly slave woman (in the North) and telling people she had been George Washington's wet nurse. He pulled her teeth out. He charged people to see her for 10 years, until she died, and then he charged them to see her autopsy. That's just the beginning - his treatment of "freaks" was pure greed and exploitation. There's no origin story that will justify these acts.
I know, I know, I'm supposed to ignore all that and just have fun, but then Jackman should not have used the names of real people. If this film was presented as fiction, I'd still have some issues with the thin plot and anachronistic costumes and numbers, but I'd have given this an 8 for sheer fun. But I can't relax when I watch this film because I can't get past the whitewashing of P.T. Barnum's legacy (and I've lost a lot of respect for Jackman.) This is like making a saccharin musical about George Wallace, in which he high steps a line of adorable multiracial children into a Texas public school, as armed guards do backflips on either side. Would we consider that innocuous? Is it just too soon?