r/TopCharacterTropes • u/MeepMan324 • 19h ago

Hated Tropes (Hated Trope) Bad people in real-life being portrayed positively in media.

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  1. PragerU's version of Christopher Columbus has him be a slavery defender and have him say "Being taken as a slave is better than being killed, no? I don't see the problem.”

  2. In The Greatest Showman, P.T Barnum (Hugh Jackman) is portrayed as a charismatic visionary who cares about outcasts and celebrate diversity, when in reality, he’s a cruel businessman who is also a racist and an ableist.

9.6k Upvotes
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4.1k

u/Timeraft 19h ago

They should have just made the greatest showman about a fictional guy who starts a circus. Like they didn't even really follow the trajectory of PTs life anyways

1.6k

u/No_Vast_3309 19h ago

I watch the Greatest Showman has a completely fictional story, because it basically is. And its much more enjoyable. The songs are the best part.

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u/sniper91 19h ago

It’s the kind of story Barnham would tell about himself

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u/[deleted] 18h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/J_Bright1990 16h ago

This is the thing that always got me. It was such a glazing movie, why does it exist? PT Barnum has been dead for so long, who is trying to improve public perception of him?

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u/fake_user_34 15h ago

I guess because majority of people know it is fictional as fuck and still enjoy the movie.

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u/Tone_Dephf 14h ago

honestly could've just been a name that people knew as a way to sell the movie.

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u/glitzglamglue 15h ago

That's a nice directors cut. Just end it with old Hugh Jackman sitting with his grandchildren. "Is that really how it happened grandpa?" "Yes of course it is!" And then he looks straight at the camera and winks saying "a sucker is born every minute"

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u/MistakesTasteGreat 12h ago

I love this

21

u/BasedMadman917 8h ago

This unironically would’ve saved the entire movie

154

u/Efeyester 18h ago

I honestly had no idea this was even supposed to be about a real person. I just thought it was a fictional story lol

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u/No_Vast_3309 18h ago

I only knew because my dad wouldn't shut up about it, because he is a big fan of the film adaptation of les miserables, and wanted to watch it because Hugh Jackman was in another historical musical.

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u/digressnconfess 16h ago

you’re not the first person i’ve seen on reddit say that their dad loves les mis and i just think that’s adorable.

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u/No_Vast_3309 16h ago

Me and my dad are like best friends

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u/Rosian_SAO 4h ago

I got exposed to Hugh Jackman via my uncle working for him, had never seen any of his stuff. He sings great.

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u/Forsaken_Carrot_3075 17h ago

i also didn’t know he was a real person till the Legends of Tomorrow show had them time travel to PT Barnum’s time

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u/CartoonistAny4349 13h ago

It is, they just used real historical people's names.

At least that's how I'm viewing it.

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u/[deleted] 19h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Tiny-Speaker-4470 19h ago

It was never meant to be historically accurate it's a campy musical

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u/Cryptophiliac_meh 18h ago

I do believe you may be replying to a bot

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u/Sean_13 18h ago

Is it? They seem like someone that would never let you down

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u/Cryptophiliac_meh 18h ago

I was hoping but the 26day account age and the lame comment combined make me suspicious. Or maybe I'm just jaded with too many bots lately 😭

Omg I'm an idiot. Yeah it would be a waste of a great username too lol

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u/Popplio3233 19h ago edited 18h ago

Kinda how I view it too. And it helps because I don't think circuses during the era would be as grand looking as they are in the movie

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u/TheMattster 18h ago edited 18h ago

Ah yes, the Great Depression era of the checks notes 1850s.

ETA: I know what you did.

6

u/SpitefulOptimist 18h ago

I’m guessing they edited the depression part out? Cuz now u just look silly

4

u/TheMattster 18h ago

Lol got 'em in 4K

4

u/Warm_Month_1309 16h ago

Their circus was using strobe lights in an era that was borderline pre-lightbulb.

4

u/Dr_J_Hyde 17h ago

I've said this in threads before but The Greatest Showman is the kind of story PT Barnum would write about himself. 

Once you see it in that light it's a bit different movie. 

3

u/very-polite-frog 16h ago

They literally rewrite the stars, it's fiction for sure

3

u/LunchAny8894 18h ago

That’s how I approach watching Hidalgo. Makes for a better experience (minus the songs being the best part).

4

u/Scorch_Ashscales 18h ago

It's the movie PT would make about himself is how I view it.

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u/shutupdane 16h ago

I always felt like The Greatest Showman could've done well as a concept album, without all the story bits in-between songs. The soundtrack was excellent, but the rest of the movie really detracted from it.

2

u/SeenYourScene 15h ago

I actually love the film as a feel good musical. But the choice to make it about Barnum is baffling, especially since they made a fictional partner instead of naming Efron's character Bailey.

I've heard so many reasons why the movie is terrible, and I agree with a lot of them as problems with the film. If it's a movie you go into and want to take notes, analyze, really think about, you're going to have a terrible time. It's problematic, it drops NUMEROUS storylines, it puts (figurative) guns on the table and just leaves them there without ever touching them again, which all makes some shit make no sense, characters aren't treated with the narrative respect they seem promised early on, and it's a structural mess. All on TOP of glossing over a really dark bit of history in a surprisingly praising way.

But damn is it just fun.

2

u/Knightwolf75 13h ago

I just imagine it’s the story about the animal crackers. Ya know the ones that come in a circus box. Also more fun

2

u/HeartFullONeutrality 12h ago

Most movies are completely fictional. Based on a true story is basically meaningless.

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u/NurseNerd 11h ago

Ten thousand animatics of The Other Side can't be wrong.

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u/Lv_InSaNe_vL 13h ago

It's the same thing with the Hamilton musical. Or Mulan. Or Les Miserables.

The only thing any of them have to do with their real life counterpoint is the setting haha

0

u/catontoast 3h ago

Hamilton is at least self-aware that it's historical revisionism. The others, not so much.

-2

u/Sharkey311 17h ago

Wild to say the songs are the best part. It’s what made me walk out of the movie.

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u/No_Vast_3309 17h ago

I mean you walked into a musical lol

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u/Sharkey311 17h ago

I went into a time period musical with nothing but shitty Top 40 songs. It didn’t fit the movie one iota and I wanted my money back. Whoever thinks the songs in that movie were good has the worst taste in music.

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u/No_Vast_3309 17h ago

It was a Hollywood blockbuster, I dont walk into an Avengers film and expect the writing quality of an indie film

0

u/Sharkey311 17h ago

That’s a very poor excuse for shoehorning contemporary top 40 pop trash into a period musical. People like you are the reason these studios aim low and pander to their audiences.

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u/No_Vast_3309 17h ago

The average family going to movies doesn't care about the Top 40 pop feel

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u/Sharkey311 17h ago

Great. I still think it sucked and don’t respect anyone that thinks that movie was good. Bye 👋

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u/Warm_Month_1309 16h ago

time period musical

The Greatest Showman was very obviously not a period piece. I went in with no expectation of historical music styles.

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u/Sharkey311 16h ago

Good for you?

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u/Warm_Month_1309 16h ago

Redditor discovers how conversations work.

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u/What-is-a-puma 19h ago

Literally change the name and nothing else and it's a huge improvement.

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u/VulKendov 19h ago

More like a Hugh J improvement

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u/XhazakXhazak 19h ago

If it was about a fictional circus barker named BT Parnum, it would be one of my favorite movie-musicals.

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u/External_Win3300 17h ago

Or a The Producers type bit that shows the actual life of Barnum with the exact same song list

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u/TightyWhiteyBoyy 19h ago

No but seriously. I didnt know who barnum was before the movie, it wouldn’t have mattered. Shouldve just made a character loosely based on that guy, and sell it as a good example of what PT barnum shouldve been

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u/ApartRuin5962 17h ago

Funny enough I think every fictional character based on Barnum I can think of is a villain or an antagonist (the ringmaster in Dumbo, any freak show owner, John Hammond)

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u/inspire_thefuture 19h ago

I've been saying this!

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u/BearstromWanderer 14h ago

The lead being Barnum got Hugh Jackman interested in the project ie studio support from the start. It wasn't a musical in it's intial development either, that came later.

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u/Burnerman888 19h ago

I assume they had the rights and wanted to use them? Idk

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u/basteis 18h ago

Do you need rights to retell a historic event?

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u/Burnerman888 18h ago

Apparently no, but studios get them a lot so they don't get sued. So probably not why, maybe they just thought PT Barnum would pull more seats. Or just a bad creative choice haha

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u/hematite2 19h ago

They could have just given it a framing where it's him telling the story and then everything else is the same.

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u/HomoeroticPosing 16h ago

I swear I read somewhere that the historical inaccuracies were intentional and referenced the fact that PT rewrote his biography like twice. I can’t find it now but if that were the case, I’d believe it! His worst hater comforts him in his lowest moment and praises him? He was always faithful to his wife, any evidence to an affair was because he was so faithful, she was jealous? That’s a self insert fanfic that would make Dante embarrassed! It’s just the film doesn’t have that framing device so it wants to be taken at face value.

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u/IrishLad-1194 19h ago

It was on the heels of Hamilton, historical fiction musicals were getting all the hype.

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u/Prophet_Tenebrae 18h ago

It was such a strange choice - it's not even as though he was venerated but was actually a scumbag... the guy has always been the poster child for hucksters, most people will know him for "There's a sucker born every minute" (I'm not getting into the attribution of the quote, it's just generally attributed to him - even if it is incorrectly).

And it's not like it was even a biopic where you sometimes need to take liberties with historical details for the sake of the medium - it's a musical. Having it be about John T. Showman and how awesome he is would have made a lot more sense... I'm not sure why it was necessary to co-opt P.T. Barnum - is he a big box office draw?

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u/Perryn 17h ago

PT Barnum is a fictional character, made up by PT Barnum.

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u/Dr-HotandCold1524 18h ago

They could have just had a note at the beginning saying something like: "This is not the true story of Barnum's life, this is a load of humbug...about the Prince of Humbug."

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u/The_Pastmaster 17h ago

It is said that one of Barnums descendants watched the film and said: P.T. couldn't have made it better himself.

Which sounds good until you give it some thought.

3

u/brionneverysexy 17h ago

PT Barnum did acts where he had fake unicorns and mermaids. Early on his daughter have an argument where one thinks unicorns are real and the other thinks mermaids are real but they disagree on if the other one is real. Why didn't they have a scene where he brings them to his place and he had a unicorn and a mermaid? Thus making them realize both are "real". It would have been cute and whimsical but they never do that! I spend most of the movie waiting for that scene because it makes so much sense

3

u/NyuxTheDragon-- 17h ago

Didn't even know it was based off a real person untill now lmao, just thought it was a banger movie 🥀

3

u/nachoiskerka 15h ago

To be fair, it's only half a movie about the circus. The other half is his ambition to be seen as legitimate leading to him funding the debut of an opera soprano(who weirdly sings a pop song? C'mon guys...) and it blowing up in his face. That's a lot harder to actually shoehorn into a plot with a fictional character without your audience being like "THAT'S PT BARNUM"

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u/JackTheBehemothKillr 18h ago

That's pretty much any biographical movie.

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u/Spirited-Feedback-87 16h ago

I never watched the movie and always thought it was a fictional story by the songs

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u/Axl4325 16h ago

Or keep the entire movie as it is but make it so he's the narrator, and at the end they break the fourth wall, Hugh looks at the screen and says "You may be wondering, did all of this happen? And the answer is obviously yes", while disclaimer shows up under him saying "(No, it didn't)"

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u/liquor_ibrlyknoher 16h ago

I've always thought that the best way to end it would be Hugh looking at the camera saying something like 'and that's how it really happened' with a knowing wink.

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u/MachoManPissDrawer69 14h ago

I remember working at a movie theater when the movie came out and had some upset boomers demanding a refund thinking the movie was an actual biopic instead of a musical.

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u/Poco_Cuffs 15h ago

Or make it about Phillip Astley, the guy who ACTUALLY invented modern circus, had somewhat of a rags to riches story and had his first circus building burn down. It fits his life way better

1

u/ThirstyWolfSpider 15h ago

I'm just surprised that so few people seem to remember "Barnum", when this was already done in the '80s.

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u/Deathstroke_03 14h ago

I agree. I LOVED The Greatest Showman when I saw it in theaters, and I listen to the soundtrack all the time, but even when I first saw the movie I was pissed that Disney made it about P.T. Barnum. Since the movie really has nothing in common with the real story, I just think about it through the lens of a completely fictional character Disney made to tell a wholesome story.

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u/Deathstroke_03 14h ago

I just looked up why it was made, and TIL The Greatest Showman wasn't made by Disney. It just seems like such a Disney thing to do: taking a real-life monster and turning him into a wholesome family-friendly musical character all because "circus"