I've not seen this movie, @donkeypong, but would like to. Barnum seems like a person who invented himself, persona, and so it is fitting that there would be many versions of this master showman and self-promoter.
Biographies and biographical movies are always interesting for what they include and what they omit. Also, intriguing is when the public decides, or demands, to know more about a cultural figure, and a public hero is toppled because of private shadows.
Of course, we are witnessing much of this revaluation, nowadays, with the #MeToo movement. No longer is the private life of a public figure viewed as separate from their work or art, for example.
It is difficult, for example, to laugh light-heartedly at the jokes of Bill Cosby or Louis C.K. without acknowledging how their sexual misconduct infects their art and smears their legacies.
Furthermore, we are beginning to recognize that the depravity of our cultural heroes affects our core values, too; which is to say, what we're willing to overlook or pardon says a lot about our own priorities, who we are and who we wish to become.
Great reflections. Thank you.
Thanks, for your post which occasioned them :)