There’s a sinister mythology that pacifies students of American History. Oh, it’s innocuous enough if you need to believe the Founding Fathers were the greatest men who ever lived … but once you ask even the simplest of questions like, “Why aren’t there any Founding Mothers?” you are in for a world of pain. For example: The Emancipation Proclamation didn’t initially free a single slave, nor was it intended to free all the slaves … The Boston Tea Party? Drunken kegger that got out of hand; anything similar happening 200 years later would involve campus police and a lost security deposit. Oh, and don’t get me started on the “chopped down the cherry tree” fable. That thing exists only for people who need to believe the Father of America was so pure he couldn’t lie, and not a guy who was both a great man and a piece-of-shit slave owner at the same time.
Personally, I find it hilarious that the Americans who need to believe the mythology the most tend to be the same ones who blissfully promote the greatest liar in American political history as their champion.
I love the mythology for the same reason that I can see it as mythology: it is an ideal representation of words, events, people, and motives that deep down we know were conflicted. And that brings us to Hamilton, a stylized and staged interpretation of those words, events, people, and motives as told by a group of men the Founding Fathers had no intention of giving voice to. This is the same reason I love the US Constitution – because while it remains a savagely racist mocking of non-white males, it is at the same time a recording of some of the best ideals ever put to paper. I think it’s very important to understand the Constitution as both of these things, and –more importantly—that it is amendable, precisely because our Founding Fathers knew they were imperfect; they just didn’t quite know how imperfect.
Hamilton is a stage musical, written and performed mostly rap-style by Lin-Manuel Miranda as titular Founding Father Alexander Hamilton. Much of early American History is about the rivalries among the great minds who shaped the nation. The musical reminds us two minutes in that fellow Founding Father Aaron Burr (Leslie Odom Jr.) shot Hamilton in 1804, thus becoming one of two answers to the question, “Which US Vice Presidents have shot a man while in office?” That detail out of the way, are you ready for rapping Founders? Are you ready for George Washington (Chris Jackson) to be cool? Are you ready for the Revolutionary War to be fought with breakdancing? This is what Hamilton offers … and it’s brilliant.
Americans my age know all the words to the “Schoolhouse Rock” songs. This is how we learned about conjunctions and that the biggest problem with “Manifest Destiny” is the animator ran out of paint. Hamilton is better. Much better. Lin-Manuel Miranda portrays Alexander Hamilton as an aggressive young opportunist with a keen sense of the moment as demonstrated in the Hamilton theme song, “My Shot.” The song represents Alexander Hamilton’s constant desire to move ahead and succeed, violently if need be. Think of how much more insightful and aligned with the American alter ego such a theme is than “I’m Just a Bill.”
I suppose I have to dock this for being a stage play. This is pretty much the only way to see Hamilton, but there’s still room for improvement, like –you know- movie stuff, sets and action and cinematography. Somehow I know that if you set this musical free to roam in the wild, it would attract undesirable forces, like lack-of-focus, and actors who can’t sing, but…still, wonderful as this musical is – and such a strange combination of both white-washing and PCing the subject matter—it is still limited to exactly the machinations of the stage which means that you the audience are required to bring more to the table than you might wish to.
Tickets to Hamilton, of course, have been $$$$$, so seeing the show was darn-near impossible even in the non-COVID era. While I’ve heard the soundtrack countless times, the live performance accentuated the brilliance of Lin-Manuel Miranda and crew. And I’ve now come to two conclusions – 1) LMM may well be the greatest talent Broadway has seen in half a century. 2) For all his talent, LMM will never be a Hollywood leading man. That second revelation really hit hard. “Why not” you ask, “if he’s so talented?” Yes, I had the same question. First off, there’s a look that comes with Hollywood leading men; he just doesn’t have it. Several of his co-stars: Daveed Diggs
, Chris Jackson, Leslie Odom, Jr. have the look. Lin, sadly, does not. And even if he had the look, LMM comes off as too amiable in front of the camera. This is a great asset in a neighbor, a friend, a partner, an ally, a human…but it’s a lousy attribute for someone who appears on camera for a living. I could be wrong here, and I’d like to be because Hamilton is clever and rich and a monumental achievement by a superior mind, but I don’t ever see LMM getting the girl, drag racing a supercar, or walking in slow motion with his back to an explosion on the silver screen; those will remain among the million things he hasn’t done yet.
Watching the spectacle of Hamilton, I truly wonder how George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and the like would view being depicted as non-white stage performers. My personal guess is that once the shock died down, they’d have a lot less problem with a musical –however irreverent- paying them homage than what is currently happening in the United States. You see, our Founding Fathers foresaw a lot of things. And while they may not have foreseen women vote nor the end of slavery, they accounted for those possibilities. What they didn’t account for, however, was one party and all of its members to a person choosing power over integrity. The balance of power illuminated in the Constitution may as well just be scribbled in crayon and hung on a refrigerator if one of the two major parties never chooses to honor it. I honestly think George Washington could handle being portrayed by a descendant of somebody he owned, but he’d shit a chopped-down cherry tree watching Trump and Republicans destroy the country he founded.
I’m not ashamed to say that Hamilton represents the only time I have felt truly patriotic in ages. I am as great a sucker for American mythology as any of my fellow citizens, but haven’t had a whole lot in the last four years that swells my patriotic heart. And I suspect even Trump fans secretly feel the same way – “owning the libs” –whatever that means- just doesn’t have the same ring as being the envy of the world. Hamilton, the musical, represents the last time I felt the world truly envied us.
♪I am not throwin’ away this plot
Although you might have done forgot
Yeah, we’re just like Enchanted
This story’s kinda slanted
And we’re not throwin’ away the plot!
I’m the 2020 version of a ‘buster
Gatherin’ all the attention you can muster
A lack of social life has got you flustered
You’re sick of chillin’ with Netflix
You want a title you can trust-er
And I am not throwing away this plot! ♫
Rated PG-13, 160 Minutes
Director: Thomas Kail
Writer: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Ron Chernow
Genre: History, sure, we’re gonna go with history
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: People who know all the words, but can’t afford the seats
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: White supremacists
♪ Parody Inspired by “My Shot”
