My general premise in writing this blog is that you can learn a ton about how to write well by looking at how others write well.
But we also learn from others' mistakes/things we don't like when we see them. I don't like to dig into all that too much, because making any kind of art whether good or bad is damn hard. And usually even in a film you don't like you can find some element that you do.
THE GREATEST SHOWMAN has great choreography and some tremendous performers. But watching it for the first time I just could not find much about the story that seemed to work for me. P.T. Barnum's storyline--poor guy promises his rich fiance everything, then chases after it way past what she needs and almost loses her in the end--is entirely familiar.
And at the same time the script repeatedly breaks both its own rules and some of the fundamental rules of storytelling. Barnum's wife Charity, who spends the whole film being there for him saying she's doesn't need more, she's happy with him, leaves him so fast when press photos show him kissing songstress Jenny Lind on stage there should be a cartoon puff of smoke behind her. She won't wait for an explanation, 100% trusts the press that has been tearing down her husband all along.
And then, of course, basically one long scene later--which we'll get to--she's back with him, the entire matter forgotten. It does a great disservice to her (very winning) character and shows the hand of the writer treating the characters like chess pieces.
Even worse is the treatment of the circus members. Having helped empower them at the start, Barnum then hides them in the back of the room during his "I'm super legit you guys, I brought this pretty British singer" concert. And as if that were not insulting enough, he then literally refuses to let them come to the reception, pushing them away from the door and shutting it behind them.
It is a seriously fucked up move, which should be a great thing storywise. We love it when a protagonist does something really terrible. Big, bad choices build the mountain the hero has to then climb to fix things.
Except that doesn't happen here. Barnum never has to pay for what he's done to his cast members. He suffers losses, yes, but they've got nothing to do with the specific terrible things he's done and said to his performers. Storytelling isn't math, but the burdens you put on a character still need to match to the choices they've made, or it all just seems random.
At what should be his moment of reckoning with those performers, rather than confront him for what he's done to them, the script asks them to encourage him to believe in himself again so that they can have their circus back. It not only ignores Barnum's prior acts, in other words, but creates another moment of humiliation for the marginalized, this time done to them by the writers. After slowly building out the idea that they are each beautiful people of their own, to be valued and loved, in the end they're just vehicles for the straight white dude's self-realization.
"The Qualo" is my term for the use of queer characters to redeem or save a straight one. A straight character can be absolutely monstrous or just off base, but if they've got a gay friend or queer/marginalized characters who accept them anyway it doesn't matter. The queer characters' Halo shines on them and so all is well.
It's a technique we see happening not just with queer characters but women and minorities. And it's deeply messed up, insofar as it involves taking communities who are historically marginalized and using them to solve the problems of the most privileged, thereby reinforcing the prejudices and hierarchies of those privileged people.
In the case of SHOWMAN, the problem that the queer-facing characters are asked to solve for Barnum is literally their own dehumanization by him. They're made by the writers to put aside what he's done to them without even getting to express a word of it to him. They have their big midpoint song empowering themselves--a high point of the film--but in terms of dealing with Barnam they're asked to simply adapt a wise beneficence--Oh honey, we've already seen it all, this is nothing. But that idea is itself a trope of the majority meant to teach its victims silence.
The musical has some great songs! It has a lot of fun dancing! It has Zendaya! But it also begs questions for us in our writing: What roles do I assign to minority characters and women in my scripts? Do they have stories of their own, or are they there to serve the straight/white/male characters?
More generally, do I let my protagonist solve their own problems, climb the mountain they made with their choices, or do I let them off the hook?
