Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/03/09/two-people-were-very-disappoin.html
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Funny how those people never seem to mind when a church play casts a white guy as Jesus.
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Geez, and I thought Stadler and Waldorf were jerks in The Muppet Show…
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I really hope they put those quotes as part of the advertising campaign for the musical in the Denver area. It would 100% make me want to go to (not that i need more reasons to see the play, but one more can’t hurt).
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How late are these haters?
The indignant uproar about Hamilton having an all PoC cast (and hip hop songs too!) already happened years ago; catch up, you ‘provincial putzes.’
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No doubt they are big fans of the old western movies where all the Native Americans are white guys in wigs.
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I for one think these commenters deserve a brutally accurate portrayal of our founding slavers.
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Were they also upset that the actor playing George Washington wasn’t wearing wooden false teeth?
When I first saw Hamilton, I was so pleased by their choice of a black actor portraying GW that I literally laughed out loud when he appeared on stage!
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Loz im geyn!
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There’s plenty to hate about Hamilton. For example, although it features an all-PoC cast, none of the characters depicted were people of color in actual history. I have a long unpublished essay on this subject. Briefly: the opening lyric is:
How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a
Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a
Forgotten spot in the Caribbean by providence
Impoverished, in squalor
Grow up to be a hero and a scholar?
The answer to this question, which “Hamilton” refuses to give, is “white privilege”. Instead, “Hamilton” asserts that its hero got to the top by effort:
The ten-dollar founding father without a father
Got a lot farther by working a lot harder
By being a lot smarter
By being a self-starter
By fourteen, they placed him in charge of a
Trading charter
Specifically, he did this:
Started workin’, clerkin’ for his late mother’s landlord
Tradin’ sugar cane and rum and all the things he can’t afford
What “Hamilton” fails to mention is that the rum and sugar cane he’s trading are one leg of the “triangle trade”, St. Croix was largely populated by slaves, and Hamilton was intimately involved in this trade from the young age of 13, when he is kindly supported by the island’s white elite after his mother’s death.
Later in life, he found success amongst the elite of New York, and conspicuously married the richest woman he could find, a Schuyler. While “Hamilton” presents the Schuylers as black women, the actual Schuylers were wealthy white women who were one of the richest slave-holding families in the North. Recently the bodies of 14 slaves buried on the Schuyler estate were unearthed:
Grimaldi says there are no signs of abuse on any of the bodies. But the women were heavily muscled, a clear sign that the they lived difficult lives of hard labour.
Hamilton gives white people black faces, but it erases the history of actual black people.
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Oh good, I was afraid the internet couldn’t find one contrarian. You’re in good company, I hear Mike Pence hated it too.
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JESUS ISN’T WHITE?!?
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I feel weird that I didn’t want to see Hamilton and didn’t think I would like it.
It’s mostly due to me just not being able to get though the music and for some reason it just doesn’t grab me at a musical level. I did try to listen to the album but I find myself just not paying attention to it. I guess hip-hop just isn’t my thing and I never gained an appreciation for it.
Sill, If you are offended by the idea of PoC playing these characters the problem probably is you.
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I think “the music isn’t my jam” is a perfectly valid reason to not like a musical, especially if you did actually give it a fair shot.
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That’s a pretty amazing bit of cart-before-the-horse-ism.
“What is this music you’re playing? James Brown? This guy totally ripped off Public Enemy!”
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I personally ascribed to the “Jesus was a carpenter who married a woman named Mary, had kids, nice guy, and died…and stayed dead.” Jesus.
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no, he wasn’t a guy, Jesus was actually Mary Magdalene in drag - and he washed his own feet!
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