One of my favorite scenes is when the doctor presents John's case to his colleagues using scientific medical terminology (skull exostoses, papillomatous tumors, etc.). But ultimately in his concluding statement he refers to John using the same name given to him at the freak show: the Elephant Man. A term associated with a ridiculous myth that the ringmaster came up with–a far cry from the scientific goal of describing disease manifestations and mechanisms.
I went into this movie blindly,…