Headscratchers / The Greatest Showman

• Couldn't P.T. Barnum be able to afford at least a few security guards to ward off the hostile protesters if he could manage to hire that many trapeze artists and animal trainers? The angry "freak"-hating protesters met virtually no authority opposition in burning down Barnum's circus.
  • 1) Barnum believes that there's no such thing as bad publicity. The protesters were bringing them attention, thus more money. Security guards would drive them away, thus no publicity (the Streisand Effect). 2) Apart from one skirmish at night in a back alley, they were only protesting. Perhaps Barnum thought they wouldn't risk actually attacking the performers since said performers were basically celebrities at that point. 3) It's revealed that Barnum doesn't really care about his performers, just what money he can make off them. The real headscratcher is why Phillip, who is far more responsible and caring towards the performers, didn't hire any security.
• So... whose bar is that? I really am curious about P.T. Barnum's connection to the bar where he offered the partnership to Carlyle. In "The Other Side", the bartender clearly was able to dance and pour drinks at Phineas's cue, but not Phillip's (as he was frantically saving the drinks on the bar when Phillip climbs onto it). In "From Now On", the "freaks" correctly guessed where Barnum was, and there were a lot of photographs of Barnum, including (the presumably private) Barnum Family photo. I saw the name of the bar was "McCarthy's", so I believe that either (a) Barnum might have been a loyal patron of the bar, which didn't explain the photos and clippings of Barnum galore, or (b) Barnum owned the bar, which was never mentioned. Did I miss something?
  • A bar near the venue perhaps? Maybe the performers went there for drinks after shows?
  • But again, that doesn't explain the photos and clippings of Barnum, especially the private ones (like the family photo).
  • Judging by the differences in the photos along the wall between "The Other Side" (where the photos lining the back wall were more landscapes and unrelated photographs) and "From Now On" (where the photos have been replaced by clippings of Barnum and his circus), it's possible that Barnum bought the bar in the time between the two songs. It's likely that the bar was a hop, skip and a jump away from the old museum, and he possibly encouraged people to stop by there to have a drink or two before and after shows.
  • It's possible that it was a bar close to the circus so Barnum would end up going there a lot. This troper knows a lot of bars around that display pictures/news of their most loyal patrons and there are plenty of places even now where a picture (especially signed) to signify that whoever the picture is of is or has been a patron there is a huge part of their draw. It wouldn't exactly hurt the bar's business, for example, to prominently show that yes they are regularly visited by the P.T. Barnum whose famous circus is nearby...
• Why didn't the bearded lady shave if she was so ashamed? Maybe she grows stubble faster than the average woman but she doesn't need to let her beard grow several inches.
  • In real life, the bearded ladies Barnum employed–Annie Jones and Josephine Clofullia–had facial hair from infancy and were circus attractions from a young age. For a Watsonian explanation: shaving in the 1800s would have meant using a straight razor or having a barber do it for you. Even today, shaving can cause skin irritation and ingrown hairs. Maybe she was too embarrassed to get someone else to teach her or do it for her, or didn't bother because it irritated her skin?
• Why did Carlysle's character feel he's entitled to 50/50 at the end of the film? Aside from the fact that it was still not Carlysle's intellectual property, it doesn't make sense narratively either: If the film's final act was about realizing that the circus freaks had lifted up Barnum just as much as he lifted them, his act of generosity is about giving profits to the one guy in the circus who isn't a freak.
  • It's a Call-Back to "The Other Side" where they negotiated percentages of the profits. Carlyle has shown that he invests his money wisely, can manage the circus in a crisis, and most importantly treats the performers with respect. He's finally a full-on partner, rather than just the bankroller.
  • In real life, it was Charles Stratton (little General Tom) who bailed Barnum out, but presumably it wouldn't make much sense to show the performers having enough money to not need the circus and still give it to the non-freak White Male Lead.
  • Because Barnum is broke and the banks won't give him a loan. It's business.
• How did Zendaya and her brother get good at the trapeze if they never knew that someone like Barnum would come along and employ them for it. Surely they couldn't have trained in an actual circus and it would have been improbable they'd have such implements lying around, but even so why would they have practiced such long hours if they didn't think a circus would employ them?
  • It's not beyond the realms of possibility that they did learn in some sort of show and were just looking for work. Only Lettie and Charles are shown not to have been part of such shows before. Barnum revolutionized how circuses worked, but he didn't invent them.
  • We also don't know their history, so in this narrative where it is supposed to look like Barnum invented the circus, we can assume that they self-taught flips and tricks and may have done it to entertain themselves, eventually moving to greater acrobatic skills (after all, the trapeze came before the circus).
  • Acrobats weren't unusual prior to Barnum's day; however, they were mostly "filler" performers that kept audiences amused in between featured events. The idea that acrobats could be a starring act was a radical one, especially for acrobats of color.
• Where did the second rope in "Rewrite the Stars" appear from? Anne and Phillip are flying around on one together and then Anne just grabs another one from behind when it wasn't there before. She could have loosed it when she was in the stalls and it only just fluttered into the center of the ring, but it seems a bit implausible.

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