The prince of humbug

I watched The Greatest Showman recently, and it got me thinking about the ways that movies manipulate us. Maybe they appeal to our sense of nostalgia (The Force Awakens, anyone?), or to our instinctive love of a story of triumph against all the odds (pretty much every sports movie ever made). Maybe they appeal to our romantic side (hence the plethora of rom-coms available), or our desire to believe in heroes. Maybe they're so flashy that the spectacle distracts from their lack of substance, or they gloss over the uncomfortable parts of the story to give us half truths that make us feel good. Let's face it - if you walk out of a movie having had a good time, you're more likely to recommend that movie to someone else, and the studio racks up the profits. It's just good business.

And there's nothing inherently wrong with that sort of manipulation. I'm not complaining about the way Jurassic World played on my love for Jurassic Park, or the way The LEGO Batman Movie threw in every popular sci-fi and fantasy reference it possibly could, or the way Guardians of the Galaxy gave us yet another bunch of nobodies saving the galaxy. Most of the time, movies work because they connect with things that are already important to us - love, family, home, courage, sacrifice, and hope, to name a few. So even when I know I'm being played by a movie, I'm happy to go along with it when it's bringing out good things in me.

The problem comes when you get a movie like The Greatest Showman. It's a masterpiece in manipulation, a spectacle that would meet with the approval of P.T. Barnum himself. The bright lights, upbeat music, and vibrant costumes swirl around you, Hugh Jackman's charm makes you instantly inclined to like his character, and the movie never slows down enough for you to hold on to the knowledge that you're being duped. I couldn't care less about historical accuracy, but the fact remains that this version of P.T. Barnum shares one thing in common with his historical counterpart: they both shamelessly use people to further their own careers. The movie even touches on this multiple times, and it's obvious that Barnum doesn't care about his performers as people, but come the end of the movie they're begging him not to give up on them, to keep the circus open. Even though he's done nothing but treat them with disdain, even though the whole circus is built around exploiting and dehumanizing them, the happy ending in this film revolves around keeping that "home" alive. Granted, Barnum seems to learn some lessons about the importance of family, but that doesn't stop the "greatest show" from spinning on.

And it's quite the show - a whirling cascade of color and light and song to gloss over the uncomfortable aspects of the movie. I have nothing against the songs themselves, and some of them are actually quite good when taken out of their movie context, with themes that serve to counteract at least in part the more disturbing aspects of the story. But the songs are also used to sweep issues under the rug without really addressing them, or even to magically wave away the problems altogether. It's hard not to get caught up in numbers like From Now On or the Oscar-nominated This Is Me, and The Greatest Showman uses that emotional response to distract you from the truth - these people deserve a better place, a better home than Barnum's circus of humbug.

I will freely admit that aside from a few moments where I felt like something wasn't quite right, I fell for the spectacle, and I'm not surprised that so many other people have too. But once I stepped outside the movie theater and started to think about what I'd just seen, I began to feel very uncomfortable, not just with the problematic content, but with how well I'd been duped in the moment. It's one thing to get me to overlook cliched writing or overdone story arcs or seriously cheesy romantic moments by playing on my emotions. It's another thing entirely to use those same methods to get me to overlook more important issues. The Greatest Showman isn't the first movie to pull this trick and it won't be the last, nor is this phenomenon constrained to entertainment. And that's my biggest takeaway from this whole thing - making an attempt to be more conscious of the ways I'm being manipulated to overlook things I shouldn't ignore, both in fiction and, more importantly, in real life.

We're going on a book hunt...

It's January, which means it's once again time to present my reading plan for the year!

Last year I did my best to read a lot more of the books that I already owned, and although fanfiction and library books distracted me somewhat, I still did pretty well. I summited my chosen mountain for the Mount TBR challenge (meaning I knocked 24 books off my TBR piles), and reread a bunch of old favorites as well, thanks to the Read It Again, Sam challenge. I also met my personal goal of 52 books, reading a total of 57 books, 4 book-length fanfics (plus a whole lot of shorter fics), and 18 comic collections.

This year, I'm recommitting to the Mount TBR challenge at the Mont Blanc level, to move at least another 24 books off my mountain of reading material. If I'm really on top of my reading part way through the year, I can always move up to a higher mountain. I'm also coming back to the Read It Again, Sam challenge, since the majority of the books I own are ones I've already read but liked enough to keep around, even if I haven't read them in years at this point.

The majority of my potential hard-copy TBR books for the year.

I'm also adding in a new challenge this year - the Birth Year Reading Challenge. I came across this challenge on a book blog, and thought it looked like an interesting idea. Then, I started to do some research and discovered that both Matilda and Ten Kids, No Pets were published the year I was born, along with two Discworld books. That did it for me; the only thing left to decide was how many books I wanted to aim for. Given that I turn 30 this year, I figured 30 books sounded like a good goal. Five of them will be shorter than 100 pages, including one of my favorite picture books - The Incredible Painting of Felix Clousseau - along with other childhood favorites. And some of the books for this challenge will actually count toward my Mount TBR challenge as well - it turns out four of the unread books on my shelves are the same age as me.

By the time I throw in fanfiction and all the books that catch my eye at the library, I'm guaranteed to have a full year of reading ahead of me. It wasn't all that long ago that I was struggling to read 20 books in a year, but I'm now back to the reading frenzy that was my life up until college, and it's wonderful. So bring on a new year of reading - I'm ready and raring to go!

The tail end of my books from 2017

2017 was a good year. I defended my thesis, made it through the whole Bible, started to actually feel at home in Ohio, hiked above 10,000 ft. without dying, and read a lot of good books. I didn't achieve all my goals, but I feel pretty happy with what I did accomplish. And now, without further ado, here are my thoughts on the last of the books I read in 2017.

53. Taran Wanderer, by Lloyd Alexander

(Read for the Read It Again, Sam challenge.) This was the first Prydain book I read as a kid, and it's always been my favorite of the series. Unlike the rest of the series, this is a journey story - Taran has set out on a quest to find out who he is, since his parentage is unknown. The various people he meets along the way all contribute to his growth, and he comes to realize that being himself is enough, and what he does with his life matters more than his unknown origins. From an adult perspective the message delivery is maybe a little heavy-handed, but then again it worked wonders for me as a child and that's the target audience, even if I still love these books as an adult. My rating: 9/10

54. Chocky, by John Wyndham

(Read for the Read It Again, Sam challenge.) When I first read this book I was about the same age as the kid in it, and was just starting to read science fiction so I was enthralled by all the various ideas this book touches on. Rereading it now, I can see how some parts of it are dated, but the ideas are still wonderful and the execution is lovely for the most part. The story isn't fast-paced or action-filled, but it remains one of my favorite explorations of what contact with an alien intelligence could look like.   My rating: 9/10

55. Tehanu, by Ursula K. Le Guin

(Read for the Mount TBR challenge.) I'm glad I didn't read this book as a kid; I don't think I would have appreciated it back then. I always wondered what happened to Tenar and Ged after the original trilogy, and this book begins to answer that question. It's definitely character-driven, with only a loose plot to hold things together, but the characters are interesting enough to keep my attention. For the most part I really enjoyed seeing Tenar's view of the world, although I did at times feel like I was being clubbed over the head with particular points, which threw me out of the story a bit.   My rating: 7/10