like any good democratic socialist american i spent fourth of july weekend grilling meat and watching the brand new debut of hamilton on disney plus. i’m well aware that i’m supposed to hate hamilton and disney. both my 25 year old son and ishmael reed (the haunting of lin-manuel miranda) have convincingly explained why i’m supposed to hate hamilton. everyone has schooled me for years on why i should hate the disney corporation (by the way in trying to find links for you to understand this better everything that came up first was right wing “pro family” groups angry at disney for lovingly portraying gay and lesbian characters).
i get and agree with the criticisms (from the left) of hamilton and disney. in many ways disney is the perfect company to advance hamilton. disney loves to bring us powerful stories that move our hearts without, perhaps, challenging the status quo. on paper it is offensive to think of people of color playing slave owners. there is evidence that ron chernow‘s biography of hamilton (i read all 818 pages) may have whitewashed evidence of the schuyler family’s slaveholdings and hamilton’s tolerance thereof. it would be distasteful to imagine jewish people playing hitler and himmler and goering (although in some ways this is just what was being played with in the fabulous the producers with “springtime for hitler” and the more recent (amazing) movie jojo rabbit with taika waititi–part maori part jewish actor/creator—playing the part of hitler.)
as the twitterverse and my son have explained it to me hamilton=obama=joe biden, which, if you don’t know, could be one of the harshest yet banal things you could say on twitter. it boils down to contempt for a wall street sanitized, safe identity politics that makes white liberals feel like something has changed, while it hasn’t.
contrast hamilton with the san francisco mime troupe–a worthy mission–as a pink diaper child (of a radical playwright/professor) who grew up acting and singing and is still an avid theater-goer you’re never going to find a better target demographic for the audience of sfmt–a nearby theater troupe touring its own new play and music skewering most recent events from a far left perspective, what’s not to like? turns out, plenty. i live in a community that turns itself out every year to billet the sfmt as it comes to sacramento to perform in southside park next door. i sat through about five of their full plays hoping against hope i was wrong before i vowed never to watch even one free scene again. simply put, the shows are unbearable: didactic, not funny, not dramatic, no good music. there is no reason to put oneself through this–super disappointing.
it turns out there’s one thing my radical playwright professor of a father instilled in my demographic that the san francisco mime troupe can’t touch and hamilton can: the importance of political theater actually being good theater. see i was brought up to always look to the example of bertolt brecht. brecht, my father explained, was able to marry his politics and theater by actually being a wonderful playwright. his pieces (over time) grew less didactic and more popular without losing their radical edge. and because they were popular, those plays reached so many more people than they would have if they didn’t actually provide entertaining gripping theater.
so all of this is by way of saying that while all of that above criticism may be true, hamilton is still wonderful because lin-manual is a genius. this play, its music, its radical re-envisioning of american history, its sparkling hilarious lyrics, its dancing, its staging, is cutting edge theater and opera. sure, contextualize it. see ishmael reed’s play too (let me know how you think it was) and, while you’re at it, if you live in a “battleground state” (where it is a toss-up being democrats and republicans) vote for joe biden for president (i probably won’t in california because he is so far from my values and vision for this country and california will certainly deliver its electoral protection to biden without my help)
on disney: this deserves its own post, but i love disneyland and disney movies. i have never been to disneyworld, but i want to go. i know i’m not supposed to, but i love disney. i hate their racist history. i hate many of the things i’ve heard about the company’s practices. but i love their product. what can i say?
