The first female ringmaster of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus led the show for the first time on Thursday night. “It’s a huge deal,” Kristen Michelle Wilson told CBS News. “I am the very first female ringmaster in 146 years.”
"History has been made!" the circus proclaimed when Wilson was named the first female ringmaster. Sadly, she will also be the last. Two days later, the famed circus announced it was closing, as if to prove America is truly not yet ready for female leaders.
"The Greatest Show on Earth," which had its origins in a freak show, was out of touch in a variety of ways — perhaps why it was surpassed by Quebec-based Cirque du Soleil's modernized, sophisticated take on the circus. Clowns have fallen out of fashion along with the subjugation of animals for entertainment.
Ringling Bros. was under attack by PETA for decades to stop its use of elephants and other animals. The company announced in May of last year that it would be removing the elephants from its shows and sending them to a conservation farm in Florida.
The tent is coming down forever due to declining ticket sales and high operating costs, Kenneth Feld, CEO of Feld Entertainment, said in a statement Saturday night. The operating costs included rail transportation and a traveling school for the children of performers. Feld told the Associated Press “it’s a different model” that doesn’t particularly work for modern times. Its continued existence was a real-life anachronism.
Once the elephants were gone, the show “saw an even more dramatic drop” in ticket sales, Feld said. The show attempted a balancing act of modernizing with the removal of the elephants while retaining the tradition and nostalgia audiences showed up for. It may be that the draw of the circus was its promise of a return to a less PC past filled with gigantic wonders so mesmerizing you forgot the call of exploitation.
The circus's first black ringmaster, Johnathan Lee Iverson, who was hired in 1999, has argued that the circus was actually a force for social progress due to its inclusion of little people, female managers, and female daredevils. The circus has had at least three black ringmasters out of the 39 who have served in its long history.
The circus will be continuing a tour through May before officially folding up the tent. The elephants will remain in the Florida conservation, and the other animals — including lions, tigers, camels, donkeys, alpacas, kangaroos and llamas — will go to suitable homes, Feld said. Some human performers will be placed in other shows operated by Feld, including Marvel Universe Live, Monster Jam, and Disney On Ice, but many will be out of a job. The final performance is on May 21 at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum.
