Other than fulfilling my childhood dreams of seeing Zac Efron sing again, The Greatest Showman is a fantastic movie for many reasons. First, it’s a movie that teaches us the importance of staying true to ourselves, and the consequences of when we start to let other people influence who we truly are.
As college students, it’s extremely important to know who you are. Since we’re constantly surrounded by other people who believe so many different things, it can be overwhelming to figure out who you want to be. In The Greatest Showman, P.T. Barnum, the main character, recruits several different types of people to be in his Circus, of all shapes and sizes.
Because P.T. Barnum doesn't come from a lot of wealth, he knows what it's like to be different in a world full of people who look down on him. The people who he's recruited essentially have felt the same way for all of their lives, causing the group to become a family of people who are trying to succeed in a world that doesn't know what do do with someone standing out, or doing something different.
The problem occurs when a writer starts to criticize the group in the newspaper, causing P.T. Barnum to feel ashamed of what he's created. He goes on tour with a singer who can make him lots of money, and get him ahead with the "in" crowd. While he's doing this, he leaves his family and the circus to travel, sacrificing what matters the most to him to fit in.
How many times have we done that? Do you have that one friend who you don't bring to your other friends because he or she might embarrass you? There's a scene in the movie where the circus is invited to the singer's first show, and P.T. Barnum seats all his "freaks" in the back, essentially where nobody can see them.
Then, during the after party of the performance, he doesn't let them come inside to celebrate with him in his ultimate success. We can sit back, look at P.T., and say "Wow, why would he do something like that?" What we don't ask, is "What would I have done in that situation?"
Honestly, most of us probably would have done the same thing. Then the song "This Is Me" by Keala Settle starts to play, and the group from the Circus starts to establish that they won't back down, even if P.T. Barnum is not with them. Although their leader lost sight of himself, they never forgot who they were.
Eventually, P.T. Barnum snaps out of his search for fame and fortune, because it all gets stripped away from him, and comes back to his family and the circus. If we take a deeper look, his ruin came from his desire to be famous and rich- everything that he was not when he was growing up. As college students, we should realize that we each have a desire, and if we're not careful, chasing it could be our downfall.
This year, let's be mindful of our actions and their consequences. If P.T. Barnum had taken a step back to gain some perspective on life and realized that his life was full of contentment, his troubles could have easily been avoided. As college students, let's get out of the little bubble of our problems and look around us to see who's still standing next to us. I promise you, life's a circus, but it's full of amazing acts.
