‘This is me’ – but is it?

There is an incredibly powerful song in the film The Greatest Showman called ‘This is me’.

It is sung by the cast of Barnum’s Circus. Audiences come to see them because each is in some way a ‘freak’, but together they are a tight-knit family. Against the finger-pointing and the pity, they sing together ‘This is me’. Their lives have been defined by rejection because of what they look like, whether it be their extreme height (or lack of it), their impressive beard (on a woman), their birthmarks, or their tattoos.

But they sing a different story. They refuse to be the labels others give them. While they might be bruised and hurt by how they have been treated, they know that they are more than a physical quirk or an outlier from the norm.