Really loved the film Water For Elephants- I know it's an old one but I only recently watched it. Thanks to a bit of Reese, RPatz and the hero of the whole show being an elephant called Rosie, I was delightfully drawn into the world of the early 1900s travelling circus. One could almost smell the straw, the candy floss and the heat of the stage lights.
That circus was also a pretty good (or bad) example of how NOT to run a company sustainably. As the whole purpose was to make more and more money, this meant that both people and animals were worked until they dropped, and in poor conditions. With 'star attractions' coming and going, it was all very well when times were good but in the hard times, cuts were made in more innovative ways. In the film, circus employees were fired when the company was not making enough money to cover their costs, by simply throwing them out of the fast-moving circus train with an unlikely chance of survival! Drink, violence and corruption common backstage, none of this was apparent to audiences who were wowed with all the glitz and glamour of a fantastic big top spectacle.
Luckily today we have more stringent measures for understanding the operations of a business, even when it is all rosey on the surface.
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