The Greatest Showman

The Greatest Showman - review

Tonight I watched The Greatest Showman, which I hadn't seen before and is currently available on All4 for a few more days.

I know it's a divisive film: some people love it and lots of people seem to loathe it.

While I found it reasonably entertaining, I have to say that it is a bad film. Not in the quality sense (and then again) but in the moral sense.

First the goods things: It looks good and the songs are pleasant and catchy. "It's Me" in particular should become a gay anthem. It's perfect for it.

Then the bad things (quality and moral): the storyline is not very good. it ends very abruptly and the songs don't blend very well within the narrative which give it a distracting stop and start quality (that word again!).

More importantly, though, and what makes this film ultimately reprehensible, is that it is another film about white male privilege. It's all about the two good-looking white blokes who just have to click their fingers to get the girls they want (and those they don't really want too).

All this in a film featuring "freaks". A film featuring "freaks that raises the question of their being exploited. While totally exploiting them. The "freaks" are just here to make the white blokes look good. They are given no story, nothing! And that's what's really bad about the film. Morally.

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