When I
reviewed the filmed recording of Hamilton,
I noted some of the things that have been happening in the world in which it
was released – the pandemic, the protests – and watching it, different things
kept popping into my head as I thought about it being filmed in June of 2016.
The first time Hamilton and Eliza kiss, I thought, “Remember the days when if
was safe for actors to do that?”, and the realizations built from there. When Hamilton was filmed, Obama was still
president. A lot of people were still hopeful that Trump would never be
president. The Harvey Weinstein story hadn’t yet opened the floodgates of
people telling their stories of sexual harassment. DACA was still secure.
Philando Castile was still alive. It was just over four years ago that this was
filmed, but so much has happened since then.
As such,
it’s inevitable that the experience of watching Hamilton in 2020 is going to be different than it would’ve been for
those audiences in 2016. There’s been talk recently about Hamilton’s blind spots, and Lin-Manuel Miranda has acknowledged the
validity of that criticism. I know that, for me, it stood out more that
Washington is virtually given a free pass as a slaveholder, whereas the more
antagonistic Jefferson (along with Madison, by association) is called out more.
Miranda painted Hamilton as a complex protagonist with flaws, but he softened
over some of Hamilton’s views that wouldn’t be received well by progressive
audiences today.
This
isn’t a new phenomenon, of course. Most stories about the Founders gloss over
the parts of them that make us uncomfortable, and a lot of America’s sordid
history gets brushed out of sight when we want to remember the “heroes” of the
past. To use another pop-culture example from recent years, Crane on Sleepy Hollow frequently extolled the
virtues of both Washington and Jefferson while, in the present day, he worked
alongside a Black female police officer, never really stopping to consider what
Abbie’s place might’ve been among his mentors in that era. Iron Jawed Angels, a movie I really love about Alice Paul’s suffragist
movement, barely touches on the fact that she excluded Black women in order to
maintain support from groups in the South. All too often, the ugly parts that
don’t fit the desired narrative are referenced with lip service at best. It
doesn’t mean that the stories told can’t still be compelling and evocative, but
it does mean that they’re incomplete. Miranda is one of countless storytellers
to have done this – we don’t need to rake him over the coals for it, but we
should interrogate his choices to tell the story the way he did, just as I
should interrogate my reactions to it, past and present.
Even
though Hamilton and Supergirl are obviously two
wildly-different properties, it’s similar to what I’ve been saying in my recent
Crimes Against… posts: a work can be both appreciated for the good it brings and critiqued for the elements where it
falls short. As I’ve said, being a thoughtful consumer of media doesn’t look
like just one thing, and we all need to decide what we choose to consume and
why. We all have limits, and we all make allowances. Along the way, I hope we
all urge creators to continually improve themselves and create works that are
more honest and inclusive.
That’s a
lot on the recent criticisms of Hamilton,
but I wanted to talk about other thoughts I had while watching Hamilton in 2020, the moments that
resonated with me differently. First, I loved “The Story of Tonight” and the
“rise up” interlude in “My Shot” even more this time around – I’ve always liked
them, of course, and I know those lines have appeared on protest signs since
the first Women’s March, but it was stirring to see these Black and brown
people playing American revolutionaries singing it on my screen while, outside,
protests for racial justice have been ongoing across the country (around the world) for over a month.
The
cabinet battles are another element that hit home even harder. Again, it was
already plenty relevant back when the show first came out, and I wrote about it
at the time, but the last four years of Congress, to me, feel like they’ve gone
beyond mere entrenchment. It’s to the point where it often feels like no single
policy/bill is more important than “dunking” on the other team, and especially
with the House and Senate split, the whole thing is just an exercise of the two
parties sniping at one another as each chamber passes bills that the other has
no intention of passing.
Finally,
there’s Washington. Now, none of what I’ll say here negates what I said about
Washington above. But looking at Washington the
character (who, as played by Christopher Jackson, also brings the Obama
vibes too,) one thing that really strikes me in contrast to our present
circumstances is the way he’s continually motivated by what’s best for the country, keeping his own self-interest
out of it. There’s obviously “One Last Time,” in which he realizes he needs to
step down as president for the sake of America’s future: “If I say goodbye, /
The nation learns to move on. / It outlives me when I’m gone.” But even before
that, when Hamilton supports John Laurens in dueling Charles Lee over insulting
remarks the latter made about Washington, Washington intervenes, thanks Lee for
his service, and rebukes Hamilton for his part in the duel. When Hamilton
argues that he was only defending Washington’s honor, Washington replies, “My
name’s been through a lot – I can take it,” and remains focused on holding the
continental army together rather than giving way to infighting. Even though
Trump only announced the campaign for his 2016 run a month before Hamilton opened on Broadway, the way
Washington is written feels like such a direct contrast to the president who,
time and again, proves that he cares more about his reputation and his own
personal gratification than the good of the country.
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