chicago.suntimes.com: Ever since the historical musical “Hamilton” began its march to near-universal infatuation, one group has noticeable withheld its applause — historians. Many academics argue the stage musical portrait of Alexander Hamilton, the star of our $10 bills, is a counterfeit. Now they’re escalating their fight.
3 comments:
Historians irked by musical ‘Hamilton’ mounting a counter-attack play
I am always fascinated to learn when musicals/plays that claim to be factually accurate are wrong. It is sad to see that art is valued over the truth sometimes with supposedly historically accurate musicals. It is interesting how Hamilton was written with the intention to tell the real story of America through a diverse cast yet fails to mention the shortcomings. It seems a little bit counterproductive telling an inclusive story with characters that were, in fact, the exact opposite. I remember reading interviews with Lin Manuel Miranda talking about how he was creating the real story of the founding of America and this historian brings up a very important point that this is completely wrong. I wonder if Hamilton wasn’t such a success commercially if vocal critics would have stopped the show due to its factual inaccuracies. This article raises the question, what is the theatre’s responsibility to tell the factual truth rather the artistic truth or the emotional truth. This is article brings home the point about how widespread the problem of systemic racism is in America when the article talks about how Ron Chernow wrote. I agree with the author of the article and Ishmael Reed that Chernow’s work shouldn’t have been taken to be the sole source. I hope Reed has success telling of the real America and making sure that more people see the problems with the retell done in Hamilton.
This is interesting and while I don’t think Hamilton was entirely a bad thing, I do agree that making Alexander Hamilton out to be a different person than he really was is a problem. I think in general in the United States (and I would assume likely in other countries as well) we like to pick heroes in history and glorify them. Hamilton (the musical) certainly does that, and that does perpetuate our tendency to ignore how racist the founding of America was. At the same time, the ideals Hamilton (the musical) promotes are not the same as the ideals that Hamilton (the person) promoted. While people walk away from Hamilton (the musical) with a very rosed up idea of Hamilton (the person), they also walk away with a feminist, pro-immigrant message about fighting for what you believe in presented by a cast of almost entirely people of color. I think there is a lot of value in that, and that couldn’t have been achieved if they musical had been more accurate. That being said, you could argue that LMM should have picked a different historical figure to right a musical about, someone whose ideals more closely aligned with the message he was trying to portray. I don’t think the fundamental problem is really with Hamilton, I don’t think we should be getting our understanding of history from musicals. I think the real problem is the US education system is often functionally teaching folklore (especially in elementary school) rather than being honest about the white supremacist that this country was founded on, and how much that is baked into our history. If we were more honest about that in general, then historical fiction that strays from from the truth would be less of a problem. Though, if everyone had a more realistic picture of our founding fathers taught to them from childhood, they probably wouldn’t want to see a musical glorifying them.
Hmm. I’ve known, as I think everyone does, that Hamilton skirts the historical reality of the founding fathers, although I did have the impression that it was *mostly* accurate. It is a thought provoking dilemma: Hamilton has launched or greatly furthered the careers of several persons of color (Leslie Odom Jr., for instance), and while Hamilton may have not had a particularly progressive mindset, Hamilton still certainly does. Its messages about inclusion and equality are not hidden. It has provided much needed representation of minorities in mainstream theatre, and hopefully provided role models that aspiring actors and children of color can look up to. Also, it’s good. As a musical, it’s just, well, really a good musical. I’m not sure it would be productive (or realistic, considering how much money it’s making) to close the show or edit it in any serious way. I do wonder, though, if the problems could be at least somewhat remedied by more provided context. A program note, or just more acknowledgement in the publicity that Hamilton carries of the realities of the time period and of the founding fathers. It seems like if that context could be provided along with the musical, it could go along way without dampening the positive parts of Hamilton.
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