Clickbait garbage "think piece" on Hamilton- Page 2

[gypsy101]

Posted: 7/26/16 at 12:56pm

Minerva, "Chris" is a generic enough name that I felt the need to differentiate (probably because I wrote out that list before I looked at the cast list to count their ethnicities and couldn't recall if there was another Chris in the cast). All the other people I mentioned have unique enough names or are more widely known, I didn't mean to suggest he's less important.

Also, my main issue with the article itself was that it seems as if he's also never seen the show or even listened to the cast recording but is for some reason super-judgmental of it. Why someone would write a critique of something they haven't experienced in any way is beyond me (even After Eight allegedly sees things before giving his overblown opinion on them).

[Broadwayhunk]

Posted: 7/26/16 at 1:07pm

I'm sure people have their own reasons for promoting the show.  I'm just pointing out  that many of his arguments are specious.

[John Adams]

Posted: 7/26/16 at 2:05pm

mariel9 said: "One of Lin's goals was to make the founding era interesting, alive, accessible, as opposed to the dull dry education a lot of us got. "

I disagree very strongly. Hamilton is not a history lesson about past, American history. The show is not trying to make the past seem more alive or accessible. From the very beginning, this show has always been about how history is repeating itself today. It has been, from the very beginning, about how today's immigrants are shaping our current American landscape, and are the "Revolutionaries" in America today. It is about how today's hip-hop artists are strongly and creatively commenting on today's America - just as our founding fathers did.

The ethnic origins of the cast are not meant to be a gimmicky "twist" to make America's past seem less dull and dry. It was a deliberate choice to use people of color to reflect what America looks like today. The city of New York is spoken of in terms that reflect how current, popular culture describes New York City today (the greatest city in the world). Women voice their desire to be heard and counted as equals using the voices and language of today's contemporary women. The description of the roles immigrants play in America are reflective of the roles they play in today's America (or at least, Manuel-Miranda's opinion of those roles). The music is one homage after another to recent hip-hop artists.

In its earliest days, before all the hype, and before the general public started posting, and blogging, and re-defining "what Hamilton is", Lin Manuel Miranda wanted it to be a mix tape. In speaking of his impressions of Chernow's book, his says, “I recognized the arc of a hip-hop narrative in Hamilton’s life.”

I think that because of all the chatter online, and in print, and on television, the authentic origin of Hamilton got lost, forgotten, or perhaps was never even known by most. Hamilton is not a history lesson with gimmicky changes to make the past "come alive". It's the opposite. It is a show about how history is repeating itself in today's America, and how today's hip-hop artists and today's immigrants are shaping today's America, in a similar fashion as did the founding fathers.

In an interview with Charlie Rose, Leslie Odom Jr. said of Lin Manuel Miranda, "He's made [the founding fathers] make sense in the context of our time, with our music." Hamilton isn't just a gimmicky history lesson. It's much more about Manuel-Miranda's expression of what is happening, and who the Revolutionaries are in America today.

Updated On: 7/26/16 at 02:05 PM

[After Eight]

Posted: 7/26/16 at 2:12pm

^

Whew. Quite a mouthful there. Some real highfalutin stuff.

But when all the verbiage is swept away, the show remains a plodding, pretentious bore.

 

[John Adams]

Posted: 7/26/16 at 2:27pm

After Eight said: "^ Whew. Quite a mouthful there. Some real highfalutin stuff.
But when all the verbiage is swept away, the show remains a plodding, pretentious bore."

Still my favorite!

 

[mariel9]

Posted: 7/26/16 at 2:33pm

I disagree very strongly. Hamilton is not a history lesson about past, American history. The show is not trying to make the past seem more alive or accessible. From the very beginning, this show has always been about how history is repeating itself today. It has been, from the very beginning, about how today's immigrants are shaping our current American landscape, and are the "Revolutionaries" in America today.

I'm sorry you disagree with me so strongly. I don't actually disagree with you. I think Lin had more than one goal with the show and it works on multiple levels. If Lin didn't have any intention for Hamilton to be about history, he wouldn't have spent so much time with primary sources or had Chernow on staff. As he said at a teachers workshop about the show:

"If we start from the point that these founders are human and what we’re trying to uncover is as much humanity [as we can] in two hours and forty-five minutes, what does that mean about the rest of your history textbook? It’s the beginning of a discussion and that’s very exciting. It’s not ‘we spoon feed you a musical and you love history.’ This musical unlocks that history is written by the victors and so what does that mean for history, what does that mean in your mind." http://www.hesherman.com/2016/07/08/lin-manuel-miranda-lifes-a-gift-its-not-to-be-taken-for-granted/

Updated On: 7/26/16 at 02:33 PM

[John Adams]

Posted: 7/26/16 at 3:04pm

mariel9 said: "I'm sorry you disagree with me so strongly. I don't actually disagree with you. I think Lin had more than one goal with the show and it works on multiple levels. "

Yeah, AfterEight is on the right track... what I wrote is pretty 'highfalutin'. I get irked when I see examples of, or criticisms of the show referenced primarily as a history lesson - especially when it seems as if the casting of people of color was intended to act as a 'device' to make that history lesson seem less dull. ...and I still feel that folks who focus on how "history is more alive" for them are missing a much bigger picture...

...but, Yup.  I apologize for the fact that your post triggered an undeserved, 'highflutin' venting!

 

Updated On: 7/26/16 at 03:04 PM

[newintown]

Posted: 7/26/16 at 3:05pm

The show is entertaining, but it is most definitely not history. It's a fiction, an allegory, devised using names from the past. Those who believe that they have learned facts after viewing it are living in a fool's paradise.

That doesn't mean in any way that the show has no value; it has a great deal. But like any piece of entertainment or art, many viewers (perhaps most) may misunderstand what they're seeing.

[gypsy101]

Posted: 7/26/16 at 3:12pm

well some history is being show. many of the things that occur in the show occurred in history.

[John Adams]

Posted: 7/26/16 at 3:31pm

gypsy101 said: "well some history is being show. many of the things that occur in the show occurred in history."

Yes, true, but in the "clickbait" article, the author (IMO) was hypercritical of the absence of historical accuracy regarding slavery (as one example). To my mind, the author is too focused on the history lesson aspect and because of that, is missing the forest for the trees.

[VintageSnarker]

Posted: 7/26/16 at 4:27pm

The thing that bothers me is there's a lot of opinion framed as argument and false equivalences.

" Perhaps marginally less embarrassing than “when I say yo, you say ho.” But only ever so marginally. "

He ties the pirate act on AGT to nerdcore to Epic Rap Battles of History. These are all different things. They have different goals. Of course their quality varies. You can't just lump "all the things I don't like" together and then quip about how it was "unjustly robbed of the Pulitzer."

"Literally nobody has ever quoted Hamilton in my presence."

One, your personal experience is not proof of much. Two, I'm sorry your life is so sad and joyless.

" There’s something revealing in the disjunction between Hamilton’s popularity in the world of online media and Hamilton’s popularity in the world of actual human persons. After all, here we have a cultural product whose appeal essentially consists of a broad coalition of the worst people in America: New York Times writers, 15-year-olds who aspire to answer the phone in Chuck Schumer’s office, people who want to get into steampunk but have a copper sensitivity, and “wonks.”"

A. So if you don't like someone, they're not a person. B. These generalizations obviously don't encompass everyone who likes Hamilton.

"But fixing history makes it seem less objectionable than it actually was. We might call it a kind of, well, “blackwashing,” making something that was heinous seem somehow palatable by retroactively injecting diversity into it."

Finally, we get to a real argument. I happen to disagree. Having sat through many, many shows with little to no diversity, you're not aware of how heinous anything was. Some audience members might notice the absence of women or people of color on stage but if marginalized groups are not there to intrude upon your glossy fantasy, you're not forced into acknowledging them. That said, Hamilton is telling the story of Alexander Hamilton. Could they have included "enslaved or free persons of color"? Sure. But the likelihood is that those stories would once again be turned into narratives of atrocities (12 Years a Slave) or racism and while those stories have value, we need to see more than that. It's so nice to see a story about a woman that's not about the disadvantages and sexism she faced because she was born a woman. Even when it's not the story of a real person who did face that kind of push back from an establishment, we tell imagined stories to girls that are about girls overcoming a gendered bias to succeed. How about we don't start the story assuming that girls need to constantly be told that they're at a disadvantage? How about casting more than one person of color and not making their story about facing prejudice?

" In this way, Hamilton carefully makes sure its audience is neither challenged nor discomforted, and can leave the theater without having to confront any unpleasant truths. "

Is that the project of musicals? And just because you gloss over the challenging aspects of the score and casting because they don't meet with your approval, it doesn't mean they're not challenging.

" Does any of this sound familiar? It certainly went unmentioned at the White House, where a custom performance of Hamilton was held for the Obamas. "

It's a 2-3 hour show. You have to choose your story. It can't actually be about someone's entire life. There are also things left out of Evita and all the jukebox biomusicals.

The penultimate paragraph makes a lot of leaps but I feel like this post is already long enough. My takeaway is that the writer is very resentful of all the hype for a product that he doesn't find artistically satisfying. But you can't have it both ways. It can't be pervasive, mainstream blockbuster erasing all of history's ills for the American public at the same time it's a darling of the elites that most people have never encountered, thus not having much of an effect on anyone.

[aaaaaa15]

Posted: 7/26/16 at 4:44pm

As the writer hasn't seen the show, he would also be unaware if someone had quoted it to him. 

[kingfan011]

Posted: 7/26/16 at 5:00pm

The article really undermines itself by pretending that it is impossible to hear about the show outside of New York. Has he not heard of the cast album that sells everywhere and has been? Does he not realize that Broadway shows then tour so anyone can have the chance of seeing it that doesn't live in new York.

Also not everybody likes it just to like it or to prove some political point. I love the soundtrack because it has compelling catchy music that sticks. Also I'm pretty sure a young kid who is listening to it is listening simply because they like and not because they are a media elite.

He actually has some good points about the show but torpedoes himself by suggesting that only people who live in new York have seen it (obviously not true) and that they're must be some kind of politically or other reasons for people liking it aside from them just liking it.