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i got literally yelled at by some ex friends who were white for saying having rapping slave owners was offensive.
I have to admit that I only knew that Hamilton was a slave owner and that he is played by a black guy. I didn't even know he raps.
hamilton is not played by a black guy! i was referring to Thomas Jefferson played by the (honestly very talented ) davved diggs. theres a scene where he comes in and the slaves are cleaning the floors then they start dancing with him, https://youtu.be/hruG4iDSQAI?si=a4WUZf7zXwQFRq_7. and he even says "be a lamb sally", sally his 14 year old victim. hamilton also raps, hamilton is played by a puerto rican man.
also its all ok because Hamilton and jefferson have a rap battle where Hamilton totally calls him out/s
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he even says "be a lamb sally"
Jesus fucking christ.
its so fucking baaaad. imagine if this was good art that cared about black people. you could have had a scene where sally hemmings comes out played by a child and had a long mournful monologue, about her abuse at the hands of jefferson, a "founding father". you could make something powerful that confronts the audience and makes them uncomfortable. But no, she gets a cheap throwaway line in a jazz number. its repulsive.
but is all ok because it impileds Hamilton is TOTALLY biracial so this musical, totally cares about black people./s
Edit: I ended up using this comment as an excuse to infodump but I tried not to do the
whole thing where, by infodumping, I am implying that this knowledge is uncommon or that the person I’m responding to is ignorant of it. And it appears that I’ve explained the idea of a leitmotif to a theater kid. My bad, Othello. I just like explaining things. Love your stuff 
it implied Hamilton is TOTALLY biracial
It’s pretty wild what facts needed to be left out or minimized to make this come across. Being playing by LMM instead of a white guy is a big part, obviously, but the whole idea that he was an “immigrant from the Caribbean” does a lot of heavy lifting there, too.
He was the grandson of wealthy merchants on one side and of Scottish nobility on the other. He was seen as lower status because he was born in the colonies and out of wedlock, but he was very much a colonizer. And his “immigration” was moving from one British colony to another and British colony. He received a decade of private education and tutoring before his mother died and it was that education that he used to be able to go to New York with the purpose of continuing his education.
you could have had a scene where sally hemmings comes out played by a child and had a long mournful monologue, about her abuse at the hands of jefferson, a "founding father"
For anyone who’s not super familiar with musical theater, it tends to make heavy use of callback, reprise, and theme to tie together disparate ideas. If you don’t know what that means, think of the happy music that plays in the beginning of Up. When that same music plays near the end of the opening sequence and that makes you wanna cry? It’s not just because it’s sad. It’s because the music juxtaposes the sadness of the moment with the happiness and hope they’d just lost. It’s that kind of thing.
Hamilton has stuff like this all over and is pretty tightly woven, but there are some dropped threads where you would expect some kind of callback and we just don’t get any. The reason? There were several more songs about opposition to slavery that were dropped because they didn’t play well in the test showings.
Hamilton is truly a story of oppression, as packaged for the privileged masses.
HAMILTON DISCOOOORSE!!!!! WOOOOOOOO
Love your stuff
youre new but i see you! some good takes.
for starters let me get sentimental and sincere. as a child with a parent from the Caribbean i 100% saw myself in hamilton as a teen.(wrote my way out meant a lot to me) I related to the character extremely hard being a black loudmouthed demsoc at the time. no one believed in me and i saw hamilton as an inspiration. I was also determined to burn my name into the face of the world. this musical has heart and come from an immigrant perspective (not a black one mind you). and while people in this comment section deride the musical for being "for white people" the people who love the musical the deepest, who make fan art and analyze every song tend to be young queer and black people, and people of color. its good. its meaningful. but its liberal and launders the reputations of evil people. at the end of the day the musical is strangled buy it inablility to meaningfully critique its subjects.
He was the grandson of wealthy merchants on one side and of Scottish nobility on the other
So all those thing you laid out yes but I was referring specificity to when jonh adams calls him "a creole bastard" and yes there were always rumors he had a lil black in him but those were mostly insults to ruin his reputation.
Hamilton has stuff like this all over and is pretty tightly woven, but there are some dropped threads where you would expect some kind of callback and we just don’t get any. The reason? There were several more songs about opposition to slavery that were dropped because they didn’t play well in the test showings.
do not site the deep magic to me witch i was there when it was written if many of the scrapped songs were left in the musical would have been very different and thematically constant. It would have been much improved I agree but it wasn't so we have to judge the final product as is. and the musical doesn't center black voices, at no point do we hear a black characters perspective, they are only background characters and political tools. and yes they take a lot of time to say slavery bad but they dont show it. especially since black people (and some queer people) played a huge part of the revolutionary war. its hallow, sweeps the seriousness of the subject under the rug with a quick wave. also sooooo many songs from the second half of the show should have been cut in favor of what did get cut, test audiences be damned.
oh noo you deleted it! you want me to delete this one?
No need to delete it. I put mine back up. I’m just having a weird day and was getting in my head about coming off as annoying.
I also got very into Hamilton for a while, to the point where I was writing out maps of various motifs that came up and itemizing where they were and what that did to the meaning. I think my window into Hamilton was through neurodivergence, of people looking at you like you’re crazy and being simultaneously condescending about your forwardness and obsessiveness but also in awe of a lot of your output and endurance. That said, I keep finding examples of ways that perspective falls short, so I appreciate you being sincere and sharing that.
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oops, I really do know jack shit about that musical 
dude i know the whole thing by heart I was a theater/model un kid in highschool, no I am not ok. I had the cd. its the most cringe thing about teen me. i have so much Hamilton facts in my brain its not even funny, ALL of my (ex) friends love Hamilton, and yes the black kids also loved Hamilton but it was an preforming arts school we were not normal, also the black kids wanted more parts and thought this was a great way for them to get more start role once they totally make it to Broadway one day. none if them are on Broadway. i am a cursed being.
I got put in the worst role in theatre plays all the time for being ND and mocked the NT kids for forgetting their lines and generally fumbling up while I said the single line I had perfectly, it didn't help with being a people's person
luckily i got in to the school for poetry. and then i really got into stagecraft and building things.. until they cut our funding, and then they just stopped having cool sets. i was a behind the scenes kid. i did costuming, and stage makeup too.
Are you feeling the freedom yet? 
yep..gotta love charter schools. they definitely aren't a scam.
I have the feeling a lot of communism seeds get planted in schools, but not really by teachers indoctrinating the kids, lol
i wasnt i swear! i had standards!
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Damn I feel old now
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Not trying to sway your opinion, you're entitled to it. From a certain perspective though, having black folks play slave owning founding fathers is sweet justice in the sense that true racists would turn over in their graves to know that a black man was playing them.
There also are not an abundance of opportunities for black opera singers. Tossing aside the race of the characters is a statement. Listen to Leslie Odom Jr, Aaron Burr's actor, thank Lin-Manuel Miranda deeply for creating opportunities and providing "a new vision of what's possible" as he accepts his Tony for best actor. That old white slave owners indirectly led to the success of some crazily talented black folks in my time is something I can dig. You're free to disagree.
Anyway, give it a watch.
I love lesslie Odom Jr, so talented, a shame how Miranda treated him. its not that they played the slave owners its how tastelessly it was done. The musical lies about hamiltons actual positions, he was also a slave owner (yes his wifes slaves counts) and a hypocrite in many ways, not to mention Miranda deleting the third rap battle weakens the slavery is bad message. its kinda maddening the musical would have been so much better if he left that scene in calling out Hamilton in some small way (other than being "too honest" and "too horny") aslo dunking on jefferson for being a creep would have been nice. there many more things that ruin the musical. theres a world where the Hamilton musical was well done, where it critiqued its subject even a tiny bit and didnt have the slave owner dance and rap, we dont live in it lol. and yes we desperately need more roles for black performers and Hamilton has changed broadway in a big way and its wonderful I always love to see more black artist shining. but yeah it was always lib shit but it could have been inoffensive lib shit. as inoffensive as liberalism can be lol. I just feel like Miranda showed that he knew what he was doing by refusing to make a single meaningful critique of a slave owner. sorry I keep adding stuff. but who care what dead people think? what are the real life impacts of hamiltons success? the babygirlification of slaveowners.
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It's funny because I have a deep appreciation for music, but I find so many musicals deeply and profoundly insipid
Hamilton most of all
Rap music for people who are scared of People of Color
I don't remember who said it, but the fact that the first big rap broadway show was about the whitest thing ever - a treasury department secretary guy - is absolutely expected
first big rap broadway show
ummm excuse me it's called hip-hopera
I can't relate to this album, he's just talking about growing up poor like a poor person!
He's an elder statesman! That's just like me!
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As a bisexual and former theatre kid, it does feel like certain stuff like broadway and that particularly bombastic pop existing in gay communities is some sort of psy-op or gaslighting. I hate the stuff, honestly. Lotta great gay music out there and its rarely the stuff pushed by the machine.
Musicals are what happens when you place incredibly high demands(singing, dancing, acting, tons of extras) on performers to the point that it hurts their singing and acting. And then decide, its just a style of performance everybody! Like theyve turned the affect of bad performance into a stylistic choice and its sooooo fucking grating.
If your desired takeaway is anything other than, cool costumes! Impressive coreography! Fun performing! What a voice! You probably wont like musicals.
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I will be real, I will snooze through musicals, operas, anything that is haute culture, not out of principle but I am sitting in a comfy chair and somewhat well composed vibrations are hitting me, it is dark-ish if I turn my head. Sleepy time 
This was me every time we went on a field trip to hear the local city orchestra play
The teachers would usually be upset, BUT THEY WERE THE ONES WHO WOULD PLAY CLASSICAL MUSIC DURING NAP TIME IN KINDERGARTEN, HOW WAS I NOT SUPPOSED TO ASSOCIATE CLASSICAL MUSIC WITH SLEEPING?
I still do it, I can't help it. I only know plays by reading the books they are written in.
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the ideology is nauseating but the most baffling thing to me are people who say they like it for the music. the few times i've tried listening to a hamilton song it has made me feel like i'm being subjected to someone uncle rapping at their nephews wedding party
i have a rough idea of what is going on it, not more. I neveer listened to it, bc i was repulsed by my second hand knowledge already so i put it in the "look at it after this laundry list of actually cool stuff", so i am a bit of a 
wrt to it
I firmly believe Lin-Manuel Miranda should have been bullied more as a child. The play is just cringy slam poetry disguised as rap.
Immortal Technique did his best.
is slam poetry where poetry slams come from?
You perform slam poetry at poetry slams, yes.
I never knew where this was coming from, it just made my toe nails fall off out of blandness so I avoided it like the plague
Everyone goes through the stages of slam poetry.
Initial Exposure: You go with your college friend to watch the prettiest, most bohemian girl on the planet from their psych 101 class perform slam poetry at the bicycle-repair-shop-and-underground-cafe in your college town. You’re floored by her emotional story of helping a friend call the National Suicide Hotline. A single tear rolls down her face as she chokes out her final verse. You’re floored by her performance.
Second Exposure: You watch the next performer nervously address the mic. They are somehow the most well groomed person you’ve ever seen and the sweatiest person you’ve ever seen. The Christmas lights that are hanging a foot above the stage dance off from glistening forehead. He is funny, weaving a story about his precocious little brother stealing mom’s credit card to by Pokémon cards. Then boom. Cancer. He hangs his head and continues, finishing softly and existing the stage swiftly. You’re moved…but suspicious.
Final Exposure: You’ve watch a few more acts and are starting to see a pattern. A mother tells a story about her miscarriage 20 years ago. An obviously not-out-yet student laments about feeling rejected by his roommate’s ex-girlfriend. An eternally benched football player in his second senior year recounts his struggle to get a scholarship while juggling a job and watching his siblings. Finally a middle aged man in a stained Star Wars shirt opines about some lost love and your pretty sure he’s talking about a child he met online. You and your friend decide to leave, get drunk, and relentlessly make fun of the acts you just saw.
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See this is why when we have state funded communist gay bars like in 
we'll have a sign for the bartenders to tap which will read "No Hamilton"
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One of my NB customers was wearing a shirt with a Hamilton quote on it and I wanted to die.
I sat through a friend's baby shower while they blared the entire Hamilton soundtrack through a tinny Bluetooth speaker
I no longer fear hell, for I have lived through worse
musicals fuckin suck. ive been to so many shows where im the youngest person there, and im not super young lol. lotta gray hairs like this trash.
to be fair, I can see the appeal of having people sing very well and tell a story, or at least this is what I tell myself so people won't see me as a gloomy, anti-cultural killjoy
so people won't see me as a gloomy, anti-cultural killjoy
it's ok to be a killjoy about shit liberals love. Plus this shit isn't culture, it's just rich white people dressing up to show off for their fellow whites.
part of me agrees with you there, but idk, I feel I should just drop that crowd and look for people worth taking to, just sucks that many queer things are so tame and boring, at least clubs let me dance my brains out
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this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2023
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