The Greatest Showman, a musical featuring actors and actresses such as; Hugh Jackman, Zendaya and Zac Efron has had an overwhelming amount of praise in the past weeks since its release. The show is centered around a man named PT Barnum, an entertainer who partnered with other circus owners to come up with what was known as, The Greatest Show on Earth. Initially, the movie seemed it wouldn’t have much success striking a low 8.8 million dollars in the first weekend. However, unexpectedly the movie made twice as much the second weekend and eventually shot up to 113 million in its first five weekends. It currently rests at 194.7 million dollars.

While the Greatest Showman is based on a true story, many have noticed the film left out a key character, Joice Heth. Heth was an enslaved woman, whom PT Barnum essentially rented for 12 months by paying her owner 1,000 dollars. She was critical to PT Barnum’s success and yet was strategically left out of the cast list.

The entertainer would claim that Heth was 161 years old and the last known connection to George Washington. Of course, both were false claims but nonetheless people paid to see her, talk to her, touch her and listen to her stories. This was the original act that made Barnum famous. She was on display for 12 hours a day, six days a week and made no money in doing so Barnum would continually feed his audience made up stories about her to increase his profits and it worked.

She was not 161 years as Barnum had said, but she was old and she died only months after becoming a part of the show. However, Barnum kept her as the main attraction for some time after by selling tickets to her autopsy. The autopsy claimed that she couldn’t have been more than 80 which sparked the last of many attempts at fabricating her life. He told some 1500 onlookers that he had replaced the body and that Heth would one day return to the show.

The movie is visually stunning with CGI stunts, makeup and has catchy songs like, This is Me and Rewrite the Stars. It has a pleasing theme that says embrace your differences, but it is important to note the very important life that the movie forgot or simply left out.