Opinion: Red Pill Blue Pill why we love/hate The Greatest Showman The Last Jedi

In the Holiday season of 2017 two films were released which both became big hits but were polarizing to most audiences. A musical telling of the life of P.T. Barnum, The Greatest Showman, got mostly bad reviews but made huge profits at the box office and had fans singing its praises. Star Wars sequel The Last Jedi was loved by critics but divided fans, many of whom were unhappy with the direction the series took. However the film still became the highest grossing film of the year but didn’t reach the heights of some other Star Wars films.

Seeing these two films got me thinking about the sorts of issues within the films which people were responding to. I listened to those critical of each as well as those who loved them. There seemed to be little middle area in the appreciation of these films. Most either loved or hated the films with few feeling moderately. There also appeared to be some correlation in how many who loved one disliked the other. Of coarse there are always those who didn’t like either, didn’t care to see either, loved both, hated both or were ambivalent towards them. Outliers always exist. However there was undeniably a strong reaction to both films and I began to see patterns.

To use another film reference, the ideas put forth in both films reminded me of the red pill/blue pill conundrum from The Matrix.  The idea is you take one pill and you get to be lied to, you get comfortable lies which make you feel secure and content. You get to ignore the pain and difficulties of the world and feel uplifted. It’s all a sham but you feel great about it. You take the other pill and you get woken up. You face the harsh truths and struggle with the reality of that. It’s honest but painful. It’s uncomfortable.

In so many ways The Greatest Showman and The Last Jedi are those pills. Do we want the uplifting lie or do we want our fantasy deconstructed with a strong dose of reality?

The Greatest Showman is a lie. Literally. The story of P.T. Barnum is not the fairytale told in that movie. The man was a series of contradictions, not all very pleasant. But Hugh Jackman is a dream, the kind of man we all want to turn to and be loved by. So often movie biopics are romanticized versions of their subjects. This is no crime and is very common. But the actual man in this case is so problematic that his being the hero of a feel good musical is a questionable choice at best if not completely irresponsible and disrespectful to the legacy of the people affected by him.

But the film is more than just the story of one man, it is in its heart the story of and an argument for the “American Dream.” The idea of a (probably white, able-bodied straight) man struggling against adversity, making a success of himself through his individual sheer will, overcoming the elites who want to keep him down in his place, is seductive. It’s Ayn Rand. It’s a story told to us again and again and again to keep us believing it’s possible so we keep striving against all odds. The film doesn’t talk about the exploitation required to make that dream happen. To open that door is offensive. To acknowledge that struggle is sacrilege. Those wanting to believe in that dream need it to be okay, to be morally sound. They need to think it’s noble.  And introducing the fact that it might actually hurt people is too much to bear. So the morally problematic elements of that dream get swept under the rug so people can be okay with what they are doing and who they are.

That’s why there is such an unnecessary and egregious “scorned woman” subplot that doesn’t belong. It has a role in shaping how we see him. He is a noble man we have to admire so he can’t actually have an affair, but there needs to be the illusion of one. That way when he is being torn down, we can side with him against his accusers cause we know he is really a good guy, really. In this dream, philanderers are not good men and so he can’t be one. It needs to be presented to us as a lie so that we can feel good about dismissing the attacks on his character and feel good about buying into the story he is selling.

Then there is his white saviour complex.  Again, this is an essential piece of the American Dream. A nation built of stealing land requires a justification for the placement of white men over everyone else. Here it is built up in how kind he is to all those freaks around him. He gives them a chance. On the one hand we are to believe that he is a success of his own free will but non-white men need his graceful offering of a hand up. It’s that hand up that means they will never be his equals. They can’t do it for themselves but he can.  It will always hang over them that this is not their story, but his, not their success but his. Aren’t they lucky to be along for the ride? Shouldn’t they be grateful? And if they don’t show that gratitude properly isn’t there something wrong with them?

That’s why, at the centre of a story, which is supposedly empowering, there is the white man who does it all. He is the one who gets the glory. We all need to be celebrating him. When this circles back to the truth about who P.T. Barnum really was and the things he did, this becomes the lie that is the most dangerous. That the exploiter becomes the hero is a lie that has fuelled the American Dream for so long. P.T. Barnum was a human being and like all of us, complicated. I’m not saying he was an evil figure. But so much of his success is built of the backs of others. To then tell a story which make him their saviour is rather disgraceful. It is a disgraceful lie.

But it’s lovely isn’t it? Sing along with This is Me and how can you not feel inspired? It’s happy lyrics are so generically applicable to everyone that you cannot help but relate to its spirit of empowerment. See, all we have to do is believe and they can’t hurt us. But the truth is so much more difficult than that. They can hurts us. They often do. They kill so many of us. This is Me is another lie. It is a lie so many of us desperately need. I understand that need. It’s like “It gets better” and “that which does not kill us makes us stronger.” It sounds so good and sometimes is what we need to make it through. If it wasn’t for the problematic nature of The Greatest Showman’s subject matter I might give it a pass and just say it is the narcotic we sometimes need to get through the day. But if that narcotic is also slowly killing us, is it really the best choice?

The film is guilty of contradicting its own message of empowerment for anyone who isn’t Barnum and his family, or who don’t see themselves reflected in Barnum and his family. The film itself marginalizes it’s own freaks it is supposedly saving. Who gets to have romance in the film? Only the pretty people. The film pats itself on the back for telling (a completely fictitious) interracial love story. The bearded lady doesn’t get romance. The little people don’t get to be sexual adults. But the gorgeous white guy wins over the lovely black girl despite the harm it may cause her. And of coarse our hero, the great man himself gets his pure love story, the story of the dream American nuclear family. It’s the lie the film is selling us. It’s all part of how happy and secure we all want to feel in our lives, but only if we fit into certain categories. The rest are just lucky to be taken along by the generous hero.

I do feel The Greatest Showman is a dangerous lie but I understand why people are attracted to it. I see how these sorts of narratives can make living in a difficult world more bearable. But the danger comes in how these narratives can reinforce for those who are the exploiters feel good about their actions and that’s the kind of art I will often attempt to deconstruct. But these pills are everywhere. It is not just The Greatest Showman.

Then there is the jagged little pill that is The Last Jedi. Star Wars is fantasy, a fantasy that has told it’s own version of the heroic arc time and time again. The rise of Luke Skywalker to hero, plucked from his secret grand legacy has all the hallmarks of that same myth making The Greatest Showman is doing to P. T. Barnum. But Luke Skywalker isn’t a real person and we don’t have to reconcile the real person with who we see on screen. Skywalker is the myth we tell ourselves of who we want to believe in. Until writer director Rian Johnson comes along and says, wait a minute…

The Last Jedi takes so much of our popular mythmaking and asks us to question it. And Yoda laughs while it all burns around us. The Last Jedi holds up a mirror and says, you’ve been lied to. The day is often not saved when the hero steps up. Often people still die, often evil triumphs, often people are rewarded for doing bad things, for hurting others.

The Last Jedi is a story about failure, about dreams coming to an end, but it offers some inspiration regardless, finding its spark of hope in something different, something accessible to everyone. Instead of needing to tell us all we have to do is believe in ourselves, it tells us that we might survive and might live to face another challenge, and that it is those around us giving for each other, each of us, which is what can get at least some of us through. This is a difficult and uncomfortable piece of hope, and not at all as secure or reassuring as what The Greatest Showman offers.

Also different from the other film, The Last Jedi doesn’t tell us that there is a white male hero to worship. In fact it takes that idea away from us. Whether it is Luke’s struggles with all his failures and the failure of his religion or the way the resistance survives only in spite of the “heroic” actions of its cocky would be saviours, The Last Jedi isn’t a heroes’ journey. The Greatest Showman centres everything around the white man lead saving the day. The Last Jedi tears this down. It continually centres women and people of colour. It questions who we think are supposed to be our heroes. It sets up a potential “villain” in Laura Dern’s Holdo, paints her as strikingly feminine and reads her as the typical block the hero must overcome to achieve his greatness. Only that’s not how the story plays out. Our very typical movie going expectations are upended when it turns out she’s the real hero and the “hero” we thought of was standing in her way.

The film does something similar when Finn decides to sacrifice himself for the cause, another typical movie trope. This is spoiled when he is saved by Rose who sees things so much clearer, more real, than he could see them. Perhaps because of her losses and the way her sister died so she could live. His sacrifice would have accomplished nothing. He fails. This isn’t how we’re supposed to feel when we go to these movies. We’re supposed to feel lifted up and told we can do it! We aren’t supposed to question it.

Speaking of questioning things, the side trip to Canto Bright, often the target of those critical of the movie, is an exercise in making us question our world. It is a big glowing arrow shining down on the kind of hypocrisy which makes capitalism work. Questioning capitalism is not something we want to see happen in our escapist entertainment. It is disruptive to our comfort zone. In the middle of this storyline we have the introduction of Benicio Del Toro’s ambiguous DJ which is also troubling for so many. Is he a hero or a villain? He has to be one, right? I need to know how to feel about him. Why isn’t the movie telling me how to feel about each character as they do in The Greatest Showman?

But the biggest crime of The Lat Jedi is the way it literally connects our hero and our villain. Rey and Kylo’s psychic connection is a sticking point for so many. The Last Jedi spends a great deal of time deconstructing the idea of the “light side” and the “dark side” of the force, cause our myths often require this division. Connecting those representing that, getting us to understand Kylo’s fears and backstory, telling us that Rey is a so called “nobody,” these are issues too difficult to think about while eating our popcorn. They make us question ourselves and the way we feel comfortable with who we are and how we live our lives. It awakens us to ideas of truth which are uncomfortable. Luke makes his last ditch hail mary but certainly doesn’t get the kind of heroic end that we have been told we need to feel satisfied. Everything we expect about a blockbuster is questioned and perhaps belittled. That is definitely not the kind of feelings we want to get at the multiplex. 

We respond to films (any kind of art) that makes us feel the way we want to. So we select the pill we want to take. Do we want to be lied to to feel good and comfortable, to reinforce our "American Dream" or do we want to face our truths, see the challenges ahead and believe we may be able to tackle them?

The Greatest Showman is about making us feel good and comfortable with our world as it is. We can believe what we are doing is good and right and that goodness will prevail. The Last Jedi makes us uncomfortable and makes us question what we have assumed about so much, while still leaving us with the hope that maybe the struggle is worth it, maybe together we can live to see another day. No guarantees.

So much of our reaction to each film is about which pill we want to take, the comfortable lie or the uncomfortable truth. And, as with so much “art,” how we respond says so much about who we are.