Viewing Hamilton through a 2020 Lens

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.