A Million Dreams: Motivation in The Greatest Showman

The 2017 Musical read through some basic elements of motivational psychology.

“You don't need everyone to love you, just a few good people.” -Charity Barnum

The Greatest Showman is a 2017 musical drama film, directed by Michael Gracey and starring Hugh Jackman and Zac Efron. Inspired by the story of P. T. Barnum's creation of the Barnum & Bailey Circus and the lives of its star attractions, this movie is all about the motivation of the main character, Phineas. Raised in a poor family and in love with the noble Charity Hallett, Phineas dreams of making something "big" with his life, and create something spectacular that can inspire dreamers all over the globe. Things don't initially go as he planned, until he gets the idea of putting up a show with peculiar people as the main stars, later named a circus. The incredible success, however, doesn't bring Phineas in the upper class as he desired, since his family doesn't seem to fit in. He brings in his show a famous actor, Philip Carlysle, and receives an even bigger success. Blinded by his aspiration of becoming even better, he directs a tour of the famous European singer Jenny Lind around the United States, but by doing so he loses the support of his wife and his initial circus. Realizing that everything he achieves has no meaning to him if he doesn't have the support of his loved ones, Phineas goes back to his family. Phineas is an incredibly strong and inspiring character, the kind of main character that many other movies lack. His motivation throughout the movie has been interesting to study, and mainly revolves around his relationship with his father, his life goal and how he gets people into doing what he wants them to.

Mirroring in The Greatest Showman

First of all, Phineas has a close relationship to his father Philo, a tailor who works for Charity’s family, and in this relationship there are evident examples of mirroring. Mirroring can be defined as the behavior in which one person subconsciously imitates the gesture, speech pattern, or attitude of another. Philo doesn't want his son to be judged because of his social class, so he always taught him to look tidy. From the first minutes of the movie, he makes sure that he brushes all the dust off of his son’s coat before they enter the Hallett mansion. Even if humble Philo doesn't realize, Phineas is learning how to mirror his father’s behavior, and he learns, through mirroring, that it's pivotal that people look good, considering appearance as the key to success.

Phineas will later transmit this behavior to his daughter Caroline, who wants to become a ballerina. After the family starts receiving some income from the circus, Phineas sends his daughter to dancing school. However, she doesn't fit in with the other ballerinas, since they make fun of her because her dad runs such a modest business. Phineas, on the one side, does whatever he can to bring the Barnum name into the upper society, striving to appeal to upper class audiences. Caroline, on the other side, thinks of quitting dance school because she can't be accepted by the other ballerinas. “She will learn to ignore them, just like I did” observes Charity, but Phineas answers by saying “She shouldn’t have to” (Gracey 2017). In this moment, both Phineas and Caroline are mirroring their fathers, putting other people’s opinions before their own. It's after Phineas introduces the figure of Jenny Lind, a beautiful European singer, that the father and daughter can have the recognition they desire. After Jenny tells Caroline that she must be a good dancer, the little girl decides to stay into dance school; while Phineas is finally happy because, by running Jenny’s shows, he can finally be a famous showman even in the upper class audiences.

Life Goals in The Greatest Showman

Another incredibly interesting aspect of motivation in this movie is in Phineas’ life goal. In Adler’s goal-oriented theory, a life goal can be defined as a non-specific goal that a man can tend to, but cannot fully fulfill. From the very beginning, neither Phineas nor the audience know what his specific life goal is, we just know that he wants to make something extraordinary, and create a great life for his beloved Charity. As little Phineas sings, he has dreams that are keeping him awake, “a million dreams for the world [he’s] gonna make” (Gracey 2017). As he grows up, Phineas realizes that his dreams aren't going to pay the bills, so he finds himself involved in a job that doesn't fit his enormous expectations. He apologizes to his wife, saying “this is not the life [he] promised” her , but he doesn't realize what Charity’s life goal is, since she has “everything [she] need[s]” (Gracey 2017). In this moment, we can see the difference between two characters that have always shared the same dreams, but in very different ways. To Phineas, creating something spectacular means creating an event that will charm huge audiences and make him and his family famous, while to Charity, this means having a loving family in her life. While Phineas continues to want more from his life, never realizing that his goal of having everything will never be enough to him, Charity has stopped her frenetic search for more when she decided to have her two beautiful daughters.

Later in the movie, the singer Jenny Linn sings a song that defines Phineas and his life goal. His life goal is to have a goal, and nothing will ever satisfy his desire for more. As Jenny sings, “all the lights of a thousand spotlights, all the stars we steal from the night sky will never be enough” (Gracey 2017). Phineas represents how people become when they don't realize that a life goal is a limit we can go towards, but it will never be fully achieved. If we don't stop and appreciate what we have, we will forever keep longing for a moment that will never arrive, and life will pass us by. To realize his dream of creating something “spectacular”, Phineas first opens the Barnum American Museum, which is a total fiasco. He then starts the Barnum Theater, and then aspires to even more when he starts touring America with Jenny. But when Jenny decides to interrupt the tour because romantically refused by the showman, Phineas has a crisis moment, in which he loses the theater (which also burns down) and his house. After Jenny has her revenge on Phineas by kissing him in public, Charity and the two little girls move away from him. He lost everything he had. It is only when Phineas is at the farthest point from his goal, that he realizes what he has become, and what his goal really was. He realizes what the public always meant for him, and that “for years and years [he] chased their cheers, the crazy speed of always needing more, but when [he] stop[s] and see[s] [Charity] here, [he] remember[s] who all this was for” (Gracey 2017). His goal was to make something extraordinary, but he can't achieve this goal without the support of his wife and daughters. To change this, he decides to go back to his priority, seeing his daughters grow up with the woman he loves. Phineas’ life goal represents the theory of the existence of a life goal can be applied to everyday life.

Cost-Benefit Analysis in The Greatest Showman

Finally, Phineas knows how to sell himself, and how to motivate others to do what he wants. To do this, he provides an accurate cost-benefit analysis, which can be defined as weighing the total expected costs against the total expected benefits of one or more actions in order to choose the best or most profitable option. When he wants to convince the little person, Charles Stratton, to be the main attraction in his show, he sharply answers, “you want people to laugh at me”, so Phineas replies “well they're laughing anyway, kid, so you might as well get paid” (Gracey 2017). Phineas later adds that he will be wearing a beautiful uniform and riding a majestic horse, so the people will not laugh, they will salute. The greatest example of Phineas’ subtle persuasion, however, lies in his conversation with actor Philip Carlysle, when the circus man is trying to convince him to join his show. Carlysle doesn't want to join, because being part of a circus would severely damage his reputation, but Phineas needs his image to elevate his show to an upper level audience. In the scene in which these two characters are conversing in a bar, the balancing of costs, presented by Carlysle, and benefits, presented by Phineas, is simply brilliant. On the one side, if Carlysle joined the circus, he would lose his comfort, his inheritance and the fortune of his name. He would be “disgraced and disowned, another one of the clowns”. However, Phineas knows the right pressure points to convince Carlysle to join him, and he replies to his opponent by saying that he knows that a life with snob people is suffocating him. He isn't free to take risks, to live his own way, to be free and to achieve more from his life. And by being such a young man, Carlysle suffers for not being given the freedom he deserves, and Phineas knows this quite well. So will Carlysle “stay in the cage, or will [he] finally take the key?” (Gracey 2017). At this point, Carlysle and his young spirit are struck too deeply by Phineas’ words, and the actor is one hundred percent sold on becoming part of the show. In fact, especially after meeting the acrobat Anne, he will accept to lose his inheritance and even his own family for the sake of the show.

Once again, this movie is an outstanding combination of different motivations in different characters, all connected by the common thread of the amazing mechanisms in P.T. Barnum’s head. He has flaws which follow him through the whole movie, but he has the strong will to become a great showman and do something extraordinary with his life. It's a demonstration that, even when everything goes wrong and our world falls apart, our ability to stay motivated and to motivate others is our ticket to a successful life.