The Dollop episodes on Aaron Burr go into a lot of detail on Hamilton and what a horrible piece of shit he was and how the liberal love for the musical is exasperating. In the 40s, Hamilton was considered by everyone vaguely on the left to be a proto fascist.
I don't know how to pirate it, but here's the patreon link:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/dave-watches-70387475
one of maybe two politicians in the play that have any sort of record of even gesturing at opposing slavery with their public office.
wasn't adams also among that number? making the presentation of him as uniquely racist to the point where jefferson is taken aback incredibly shitty?
It's funny because Burr not having real beliefs was the real-life Hamilton's propaganda about Burr. So like, it's totally fair to have Hamilton the character think and say that- but the show just treats that as the gospel truth
iirc he did write some anti slavery stuff, but i just googled it and i was thinking of his son, who obviously was also unsuccessful but seems to have been genuinely committed to opposing slavery from my 1 minute of skimming
This really makes me want a "Well There's Your Problem" about Hamilton. Give me 3 hours of this!
I will be saving this comment for its information! Is there any more resources on the subject?
I introduced an older relative to Mos Def on a car ride recently, she said she liked it and then immediately started talking about how much it reminded her of Hamilton :agony-shivering:
I enjoyed the wordplay, and I tbh I do think it's an interesting cultural artifact. Like, what's really the aim of the play, what's it really about? It's not about the actual Hamilton, nobody gave a shit about him (before the play was written, at least). It's definitely more about contemporary politics and just using the historical setting as a way to talk about them indirectly (like how The Mikado was set in Japan but really about British politics, for example).
The timing of the play (along with the... gestures wildly at it) suggests that it's about Obama, and trying to tie up loose ends about Obama's legacy. Just like Obama had to deal with intransigent Republicans stonewalling him, Hamilton has to deal with intransigent Anti-Federalists. Reading it this way, I think that while the play's whitewashing of various slavers is tasteless and deserving of criticism, it's kind of missing the point to view it just as historical revisionism, because the historical setting is just a metaphor for what it really wants to say.
Hamilton and Burr are foils, and they are both ambitious, but Hamilton's ambition is good, while Burr's ambition is bad. The distinction is established right at the start, and carries on to the end, when the conflict results in Hamilton's death. The way it's framed makes it more central to the play than any of the other conflicts, the revolution, the debates with Jefferson, the marriage and affair, none of these things are as important as the Hamilton-Burr story. Which is kind of odd, because, if the play is about contemporary politics, who is Burr supposed to represent, exactly? Some libs pointed to Trump as being a Burr-like figure, but the timing of when the play was written doesn't really line up for Burr to be based on Trump. My answer is, Burr is what people wrongly accuse Obama of being. Obama is not like Burr, he's like Hamilton, and that's the reason why Obama is good.
But what distinguishes Burr and Hamilton? Burr is someone who plays his cards close to his chest, and changes his positions based on where the winds are blowing, whereas Hamilton speaks his mind and sticks firmly to his beliefs. What are those beliefs? Uhh, I couldn't really tell you. But he worked tirelessly, night and day, writing the Federalist Papers! He wrote so many papers! What those papers were about, ehh, the play doesn't really get into it. But he worked really hard! Sure, the play (inaccurately) hints at Hamilton being opposed to slavery, but he never actually does anything about it. It's worth noting that his big jab at Jefferson is, "We know who's really doing the planting," which could be read as more about Jefferson being lazy and undeserving of his position. This also ties in with the emphasis of Hamilton being an immigrant - he didn't come from wealth, he bootstrapped his way up from nothing. He also makes the choice of sacrificing his marriage in favor of his career.
And I think this reveals what the message of the play really is: "It was his turn, actually." The criticisms of Obama that it's actually most concerned with aren't leftist criticisms about bombing weddings or right wing criticisms about being a secret Muslim from Kenya, it's liberal criticisms that he stole the election from Clinton, that he jumped ahead in line. The play reaffirms the logic of "It's her turn," but it says, Obama also worked hard and sacrificed. He wasn't like Burr who just said whatever it took to get elected and jumped ahead in line. Therefore, he had a valid claim to the presidency.
I think that message is kind of subtly hidden in the play, I only really noticed it when I took the time to type this out, and it's especially hard to spot if you forget that that internal liberal dispute was relevant. And I think that is really what it is, it's honestly not so much an argument for liberalism, liberalism is assumed, the actual point is to defend Obama from criticism from other liberals.
hey comrade I like this analysis a lot and I appreciate u for typing it up :Care-Comrade:
Back in 2016, before I even know what Hamilton was, I went on a road trip with this American friend. She was like "can I put on songs from this musical that I like" and since I'm not adverse to musicals, I said ok. I couldn't take five minutes of it, the US ideology was so thick. We actually argued for most of the trip about this fucking musical.
Conclusion: I am the best leftist on Hexbear for hating Hamilton before you guys did.
Its pure neoliberal ideology.
"excuse the complete romanticization of some of the worst shit, the music is so catchy!
Treat defenders aren't just an online phenomenon. I've been called everything from racist to clinically insane by criticizing Hamilton offline.
Don't you dare criticize my whitewashing propaganda!
fr fr, you want an impressive revolutionary figure that fought for freedom, look no further than Lenin!
Vladimir Lenin? Vicious tyrant who killed a million people and created the evil Soviet Empire which would menace the world for decades.
The American Founding Fathers? Well, you have to take into account their time and place...
If Stalin's in the musical I want his big spoon and bong with him :stalin-smokin:
anastasia:
- rasputin doing evil magic causes the october revolution
- the main character is a royal family member
- bolsheviks are depicted as mindless zombies under rasputin's evil spell
- royals are depicted as sympathetic benevolent autocrats who never ever encouraged antisemetic pogroms
- Lenin not mentioned but originally supposed to be the villain insted of Rasputin
- wildly ahistorical even for a cartoon
- has a few numbers, but mostly not a musical
- the tsar is still in power october 1917 even though he abdicated months earlier
- the tsar gets killed in october 1917 even though he was killed in 1918
this is unsatisfactory
peace land and bread, from the kids show "Histeria" or whatever that was
a 3 minute revisionist cartoon will not satisfy my desire for a 3 hour live action musical
Jesus Christ Superstar is rad because the christians HATE it.
I was part of a performance in highschool and we literally had baptist groups picketing outside in protest, in a town of like 30,000 people.
Along those lines, I've got a soft spot for Godspell after being in a very fun and creative production of it when I was in highschool.
It says a lot about the lack of political imagination that millions of theater kids who can recite this entire show from memory haven't taken up arms in the name of democracy.
Movie is a musical anyways, but it also is based on a stage musical I think, which is itself based on a novel?
Victor Hugo’s “Here’s like ten chapters on the history of the Paris sewer system”
Because a ton of libs like it
and in the comments sections for the songs, there are suspicious amount of bot looking comments.
it isn't perfect, but it did make me cry. got some good songs too, the trombone is really great.
i would be interested in a genuine leftist reading of it, since it seems ripe for that sort of thing. it isn't revolutionary, but it could be read that way imo
I'm a big fan of old-timey hucksterism so it's gotta be The Music Man for me
Plus it's the inspiration for the best episode of The Simpsons
I honestly think it's done a huge amount to innoculate me against anti-Semitism. Fiddler was the first piece of media about Jewish people that I ever saw when I was very young, and the idea of Tevye being part of an evil conspiracy is just so silly that all the anti-Semitic bullshit just bounced off of him.
You could check this out...
Cannonball Adderley's Fiddler on the Roof
Cannonball Adderley's Fiddler on the Roof is an album by jazz saxophonist Cannonball Adderley released on the Capitol label featuring performances of material from the Broadway musical Fiddler on the Roof by Adderley with Nat Adderley, Charles Lloyd, Joe Zawinul, Sam Jones and Louis Hayes.
A track: To Life
Mine is Urinetown. It's basically a musical about how Libertarians are stupid and wrong.
Even ignoring Hamilton's dogshit songs, terrible politics and historically revisionist portrayals of people who were literal white supremacists I've long been mad at it on a personal level as well because way back in 2015 I was smoking with people and put on Warren Zevon's Lawyers, Guns and Money and they turned it off like it was cringe and put on the Hamilton soundtrack instead lmao
way back in 2015 I was smoking with people and put on Warren Zevon’s Lawyers, Guns and Money and they turned it off like it was cringe and put on the Hamilton soundtrack instead
Classic super villain origin story
No, you are merely terminally communist and this, somehow, makes you almost the only person distracted by the celebration of slave owners bougie overlords.
Real shit, In The Heights is better.
You're not insane, it's aged like mold. There are a few good songs but it reeks of its late Obama era moment
It long ago lost any actual meaning. It's just a touchstone for libs to follow the #resistance (the one that became fawning admiration of the US government the moment Biden got in).
And for libs to do constant apologia for casting slaveowners as diverse people and glossing over it.
Again, it has nothing to do with that; it's just that casting non-whites as the Founding Fathers really pisses off the right, so that's why it's done. Nobody gave it any more thought than that.
Nah its even worse. Maranda (if I'm spelling it correctly) read one of those founding father libshit biographies, and likened him to a rapper after reading one of his poems.
Someone on r/cth said that the singing of Hamilton sounds like your History teacher trying to rap, and that forever stuck with me.
It's garbage. Besides how terrible the politics and the message and whatnot are, the music is also terrible.
Yes you are insane. Hamilton is a world-historical play, light itself
