to be fair, they also talked about other musicals i didnt care about, but I wasn't feeling it, lmao. i would have been happy with literally any other topic, but i fall asleep during this shit, cant help it
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/new-research-alexander-hamilton-slave-owner-180976260/
i somehow knew it was gonna be that image. This is one of those things that both fascists and communists cringe at, but for opposite reasons
it's like a mixture of being a theater kid with being a kid who plays strat games all night
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.
https://youtu.be/WbkjsnMEiqE?si=w-6HMrtQq_8RWdja
My only engagement with the Hamilton material is with the Ben Franklin song because I love the Decemberists and Colin Melody sings the soundtrack version, but that song does cast at least a little shade on BF when it makes fun of him for being too horny to do politics right and for being a shitty father.
Those are all fair points, I didn't know anything about them...ahem...whitewashing intended scenes.
true racists would turn over in their graves to know that a black man was playing them.
ah yes, the old riddle. is putting harriet tubman on the 20 dollar bill based because it would make andrew jackson angry to be replaced by a black woman? or is it cringe to put harriet tubman on the currency that was used to purchase her?
the answer is actually that we should keep andrew jackson on the 20 dollar bill because he hated the federal reserve
Lol, a fair point. I think this somewhat cements this being a matter of perspective. Neither perspective is wrong or right, just different angles while everyone is still wanting whatever is worse for the slave owners, and whatever is best for the black folks. I'm open to having my opinion changed about whatever is the most just outcome.
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
Sadly I did not coin that term and it was popularized by R Kelly of all people lol
Sadly I did not coin that term
we'll see who believes that once i'm through correcting this article
because of Trapped in the Closet, which, to be fair, qualifies as a hip-hopera (not to ignore R. Kelly's crimes)
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!
a treasury department secretary guy
You gravely misspelled "hero".
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.
I like Encanto as a musical because of the anarcho-feminist themes. Most movies have the hero do productive labour like fighting bad guys, disarming bombs, or performing art. Mirabel is a hero frustrated she can't do productive labour on the same level as her family, but she spends the entire movie fixing problems through caring labour and learns to value her abilities for that, which exposes an important dimension of labour theory to the casual watcher. Also the Encanto is an anarchist commune.
I guess I could have specified broadway musicals. There are some great musical movies. I enjoyed moana. Also i have a friend who keeps bugging me to watch encanto, maybe ill watch it
As a bisexual and former theater kid, the one musical I actually liked was about an alien hive mind taking over a small town and making everyone sing in a musical.
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?
Hamilton was not high culture. It's like the definition of middlebrow
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 firmly believe Lin-Manuel Miranda should have been bullied more as a child. The play is just cringy slam poetry disguised as rap.
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.
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"
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.
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.
if you don't have similar interests it's pretty much impossible to be friends with someone. Youd be bored as shit of each other, one talking about Hamilton and the other talking about video games or something.
The only good musicals are pantomimes because they know it's shit and have fun with that.
There's a lot of young people that love musicals but old people are the only ones who can consistently afford tickets.
Lenin spoof of hamilton would be 100 times better than the original