I'm unironically pretty fond of Hamilton, mostly because I was first introduced to it by my students, a pair of "troublemaker" preteen edgy gamer brothers (i.e. the type who cursed every other word just to be shocking and who loudly pretended to be Trump supporters just to piss off their teachers and classmates lol... for the record, there were pretty obvious underlying reasons for their behavior but I won't go into it). That it had enough power to genuinely engage two doofuses like them really impressed me. The older kid in particular seemed to embrace (fictional) Hamilton as a sort of personal hero -- and he really did need that kind of outlet/role model at the time -- so I just can't bring myself to be dismissive of the whole phenomenon. Plus the tunes are catchy and the story's good entertainment. I basically approach it the way I approach stuff like catgirl Cao Cao, so the historical revisionism and shallow politics don't really bother me.
Otoh I have this extremely lib friend who's a superfan of both Les Mis and Hamilton, and I have to confess... that I honestly don't get, haha.
I think that's what bothers me most about it actually. Like any other popular form of historical fiction, it's being viewed through the earnest lens to learn, and it's going to fail on multiple fronts. As a work, it's entrenched in American civil religion nonsense. And it bothers me that it's gotten so much traction in education because holy shit it is a really piss poor primary text.
Yeah, that's fair -- when taken seriously as an educational tool it's pretty gross. I don't know the context where these kids first encountered it (I don't work in a school setting and this was a few years ago) and if it was for a history class or something then yikes for sure.
At least Les Mis is based. Marx writes a few cool things about the Socialist rising of 1832. In the book Enjolras is literally "Robespierre did nothing wrong" and he's the centrist in the Revolutionary group.
Hamilton is really, really awful. But that's what you get when it's a cast of villains.
I assume your lib friend is like conservatives who love RAtM, they just like the chords and the lyrics have no meaning.
I'm unironically pretty fond of Hamilton, mostly because I was first introduced to it by my students, a pair of "troublemaker" preteen edgy gamer brothers (i.e. the type who cursed every other word just to be shocking and who loudly pretended to be Trump supporters just to piss off their teachers and classmates lol... for the record, there were pretty obvious underlying reasons for their behavior but I won't go into it). That it had enough power to genuinely engage two doofuses like them really impressed me. The older kid in particular seemed to embrace (fictional) Hamilton as a sort of personal hero -- and he really did need that kind of outlet/role model at the time -- so I just can't bring myself to be dismissive of the whole phenomenon. Plus the tunes are catchy and the story's good entertainment. I basically approach it the way I approach stuff like catgirl Cao Cao, so the historical revisionism and shallow politics don't really bother me.
Otoh I have this extremely lib friend who's a superfan of both Les Mis and Hamilton, and I have to confess... that I honestly don't get, haha.
I think that's what bothers me most about it actually. Like any other popular form of historical fiction, it's being viewed through the earnest lens to learn, and it's going to fail on multiple fronts. As a work, it's entrenched in American civil religion nonsense. And it bothers me that it's gotten so much traction in education because holy shit it is a really piss poor primary text.
Yeah, that's fair -- when taken seriously as an educational tool it's pretty gross. I don't know the context where these kids first encountered it (I don't work in a school setting and this was a few years ago) and if it was for a history class or something then yikes for sure.
At least Les Mis is based. Marx writes a few cool things about the Socialist rising of 1832. In the book Enjolras is literally "Robespierre did nothing wrong" and he's the centrist in the Revolutionary group.
Hamilton is really, really awful. But that's what you get when it's a cast of villains.
I assume your lib friend is like conservatives who love RAtM, they just like the chords and the lyrics have no meaning.