Caine brings up a good point: the musical Hamilton is deeply flawed, failing to address native Americans or slavery adequately. This is an important concern because one of the things Hamilton does exactly right is break the myth of the Founding Fathers as demigods spreading enlightenment and justice and freedom across the land. It is appropriate to take it to task for not shattering all the myths.
But here’s the thing: I can simultaneously appreciate the wonderful music and the strong story, and recognize the validity of criticism. It does not detract from art to say it does this one thing really well, but it does this other thing poorly; it does not mean that Lin-Manuel Miranda needs to go back and rewrite everything, nor does it mean the critics have to shut up and accept it as is.
It means the story isn’t finished. It’s never finished. There’s always room for more great art that tells another part of the story, and we’ll always have new art that portrays another part of the beauty and tragedy of the human experience.
Hell yes. I wish more folks thought this way. Opinions about art, and music especially, often feel like religious apologetics: flaws must be denied or ignored at all costs.
Over in the UK at the moment, and my two nieces are forever breaking out into something from the Hamilton soundtrack — and they haven’t even seen the show yet.
The cool thing was that one of them remarked that they didn’t study much American history while they were in school (not really surprising since Brits have a couple of thousand years of their own) and while neither is likely to take up American History in college, they did take an interest in the story and have learned a little history while belting out the songs.
Since the musical is about the life of Alexander Hamilton, it’s not flawed in the sense that it leaves something important out. If it was claiming to be about American history, then yes, it would be leaving something out if it didn’t touch on Native American history. Judge a work of art by what it’s trying to do rather than what you think it should be trying to do.
*fatal eye roll*
Not another one.
#3
Why can’t there be multiple scales by which to interpret and determine the quality of art? In fact I thought that was one of the points of art to begin with. It can be and should be approached from multiple views. Is there a great work of art that only conveys what the artist was thinking at the time it was created?
I’m not saying there can’t be multiple points of view about a work of art. However it doesn’t work to judge something by wanting it to be something it isn’t. A biographical musical isn’t a general history of the United States, and Alexander Hamilton in his lifetime did not interact with indigenous people. Hamilton supported Washington’s policies with respect to native peoples, and that was about it.
It’s entirely fair to judge the Founding Fathers for their attitudes and actions with indigenous peoples. It’s not fair to judge the musical about Hamilton through that same lens though, because the musical is it’s own creation. Judge it by its own merits.
And yet all of this was happening on land taken from native Americans, in a culture that definitely payed a lot of attention to them (to the point of mentioning them in the Declaration of Independence), which makes their story relevant by default.
The problem is that the history of the United States has been told for GENERATIONS by largely ignoring the native population of this continent, and excluding or erasing them. The fact that the story of a man whose entire life took place in the Americas does not include any interaction with the people who were here before his ancestors even know the continents existed is, in itself, noteworthy.
That doesn’t mean that the musical is bad – it’s not – or that Miranda is bad.
It means that it does something bad – through omission – that has been done so often that it’s a serious, ongoing problem, and that makes this a perpetuation – however slight – of that problem. It’s another brick in the metaphorical wall of erasure.
“it is both possible (and even necessary) to simultaneously enjoy media while also being critical of it’s more problematic or pernicious aspects.”
-Anita Sarkeesian
If there had been anything to erase in Hamilton’s life with respect to indigenous peoples, that would be fair enough to criticize with respect to the musical. Bringing it up otherwise is just riding a hobby horse.
Great point – so many people who get outraged at criticism of the art they enjoy miss it. There have been instances when the critics really do want to shut something down (e.g. the The Death of Klinghoffer), but most criticism is about engaging with a piece of art not trying to destory or disapper it.
“According to Ron Chernow’s excellent biography, Hamilton had an equally enlightened opinion of Indians even after some of them, in the pay of the British, threatened to attack the home of his father-in-law, Philip Schuyler, in Albany in August 1781 while Hamilton’s pregnant wife was living there. The Indians and their fellow British raiders were scared off when one of the Schuyler women bluffed that a group of rebel soldiers was on its way.
In spite of their presence in the raiding party, Philip Schuyler negotiated with neighboring tribes to keep them neutral during the war. After the war, when real-estate speculators wanted to push Indians out of western New York, Hamilton warned that only friendly relations with the natives would guarantee peace. He also became a trustee of what was later named Hamilton College, a school that accepted Indian students as well as whites.”
-https://www.quora.com/What-did-the-Founding-Fathers-especially-Alexander-Hamilton-think-about-American-Indians
Leaving aside that, here’s a succinct summary from Caine: “However, there is not one lyric, one mention, one anything of the peoples whose land this is occurring on, or the ongoing clash of cultures during this time in American history.”
As I said, Native Americans were an ongoing presence and issue in EVERYBODY’S lives at that point in time.
I should mention that the biography cited on Quora is the same one that inspired Miranda to make the musical in the first place.
In a story about the founding of the American republic, the American Indians and slavery are important elements and it is entirely appropriate and relevant to notice their omission. Don’t make excuses. Miranda made an artistic decision about what elements he would include; it was his choice, and it was a choice. You shouldn’t pretend that it was simply to reflect an accurate version of reality, because it isn’t.
Charming Quora anecdotes aside, Hamilton’s position on Native Americans was to support President Washington’s policy, which at first was enlightened but by the time his second term in office was ending in 1796. By then the flood of white settlers into the frontier was unstoppable, and government policy changed to reflect that reality.
Hamilton’s own career and life revolved around his political ambitions and his role as a Founding Father and as the first Secretary of the Treasury, not around indigenous peoples, and the musical reflects that. Insisting that the musical must also have a mention about native cultures is the kind of hobby horse that’s being ridden here.
It’s a story about Alexander Hamilton the man, not the American republic though. That’s the important point here.
Bullshit. The US wasn’t forced to steal all that land.
From Native American Policy:
I think you overestimate the control the federal government had over those settling the West.
Cultural genocide.
…Wow, apologism for the revolutionary era America’s treatment of the Native population is not something I foresaw seeing on here.
The “charming quora quote” refers to native Americans, working with the British, attacking the house that his pregnant wife was living in.
You claimed, and I quote, “Alexander Hamilton in his lifetime did not interact with indigenous people”. Are you saying that because he was not present when his wife DID interact with them, they had no presence in his life?
And actual genocide. Americans generally have yet to acknowledge the extent of what was done to indigenous peoples as the U.S. was settled.
Oh yes. But even a most charitable interpretation of their intent to assimilate the indigenous peoples amounts to nothing less than practical obliteration.
If you set this scenario up with any two white nations, the logic becomes blatantly ridiculous.
Like, if a bunch of English civilians made landfall on France and killed the French people for their houses, I don’t think England would throw up its hands and say “We can’t control this roving band of English bandits, so we should just protect the displaced French as we absorb them into English society.”
Sure, it’s more humane than just slaughtering them with no questions asked, but it still shows that they think displacing natives and stealing their land is preferable to just putting some effort into stopping your citizens from doing this.
Plus, I’m calling bullshit on this being some magnanimous decision by Washington. The US had a vested interest in acquiring more territory. I don’t buy that he was just an impotent do-gooder struggling to control his racist imperialist subjects.
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2016/01/05/george-washington-first-author-federal-indian-policy-162914
As for “riding a hobby horse”, hey, you dimwitted ass, do me a favour and fuck yourself into a black hole. If you actually shut up, and did the required reading, you might have some idea of reality.
I have not seen Hamilton nor have I read much on the Musical other than what I have just read here.
It is a Broadway Musical isn’t it a musical set in the 1700’s and based on the life of Alexander Hamilton it uses not 18th century music but contemporary musical forms to tell a story to contemporary audiences about some aspect of his life that resonates with the contemporary situation we are living through now.
The struggle and the personality of Alexander Hamilton were a very good choice as was the time period of turmoil and change it makes mirroring today’s conditions of conflict and change easier and maybe less problematic than making up a completely new story without historical references to map contemporary questions on top of.
By the success of the show I would say that it has worked and like many really good works of art has stimulated the conversation further. hurah!
uncle frogy
Seriously… “hobby horse”? That’s some grade-A assholery.
Says who? Why can’t I evaluate something by any criteria that I think are important?
Even if I followed your advice, how does it change anything? It’s trying to create sympathetic characters, in a generally upbeat and occasionally sappy Broadway musical, which would be very difficult when slaves and Native Americans are included in the world it’s portraying. Trying to make things look better than they really were is something that warrants criticism. I know there are thousands of stories like that, and in fact that doesn’t make any of them any better.
You might have excuses for it. Doing something about it might change the pace or scope or tone of the story you had planned, for instance. It might mean it isn’t quite as wonderful as you imagined starting out, and you can’t figure out a way to make it work. And so what? This isn’t a first draft. Write a different story: instead of an ill-conceived fantasy posturing as a historical drama, you have all sorts of options available to you.
It’s basically what I see many people ride when they judge something. Consider the Bechdel Test, if you’re familiar with that and how it could be applied to a movie, say Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing. Obviously it flunks said test. So what? It’s still a great movie. The value of the Bechdel Test isn’t to mindlessly apply it to a movie, it’s to generally note how few movies there are involving women characters that aren’t all about the men. That’s a fair cultural criticism at large. But it’s a silly thing to judge a single movie by.
Similarly, criticizing Hamilton for not touching on the subject of indigenous peoples misses the point about how little most Americans know about the sorry history of the U.S. as it relates to the original inhabitants of the continent. The musical Hamilton is about Alexander Hamilton and his life, especially as a Founding Father and influential politician in the early years of the Republic. If we were talking about the musical “Custer” and how it failed to note his relationship with Native Americans in an attempt to whitewash his history, that would be fair game for criticism of the work.
The reason for the success of Hamilton isn’t that it’s an accurate historical piece, but that it takes a historical subject and adopts it as a brilliant hip-hop musical that breaks the mold when it comes to such productions. If you want to write a dull, plodding lecture instead, good luck getting it produced on Broadway.
It wasn’t hard to slip in a line about women’s rights, and it wouldn’t have been hard to slip in a line about native Americans, even if it was just in Eliza greeting him after Washington sent him home, you know, “I’m so glad you’re here, some redcoats and indians came to attack us.” or a mention of the Crown trying to use the native Americans against the revolutionaries, since that was important enough, apparently, to make it into the Declaration.
The point of this is not to say “this is a bad musical”, it’s to say “This is good, but it continues a trend of erasure, and it’d be good to have future productions depicting this era acknowledge this aspect of it, especially since the injustices against Native Americans are still ongoing”.
I don’t see why you have such a big problem with this.
Ah. Another commenter who doesn’t bother to read what I wrote.
PZ:
Not just you. Dimwitted commenter hasn’t read anything. If they had, they’d know that Dr. Keene is a massive fan of the musical. That doesn’t make the erasure of Natives okay. Yeah, it’s a minor thing, but it really matters, especially in light of what’s going on right now, the feds and homeland security are into large scale intimidation at this point, and looking to do us harm, but is mainstream media there?
No, because Native lives never matter, not in a play, not in history books, and not in life, and not today.
This is another reason it matters, from a comment on the original thread:
Appreciation of a history which eliminates Indigenous peoples, outside of the “savages who killed Custer” box. It matters more than most people know.
This means we need more musicals. Of course, dipping back to the well of American Political History of the 1700s may make it difficult to achieve the same acclaim that _Hamilton_ did if done right away. But, we shouldn’t stop trying. After all _Ben Franklin in Paris_ was put up in 1964 and _1776_ came five years later. And _1776_ did bring up the issue of slavery and how it was an actual point of contention among the States as to whether they would support a resolution of independence. It wasn’t the driving issue of the show, but it was part of it. _Ben Franklin in Paris,_ not so much. But, we shouldn’t have to wait
How great it would be if there were a canon of works that touched on that history. No one story can tell everything. And wouldn’t it be great to have ones that were set not in the halls of power but in the streets and homes of the people who had to live with the policies put in place.
More!
Vivec @22:
Actually, the situation you describe precisely matches the misnamed “Golden Age of Piracy” in the Caribbean. That entire time period involved civilians of the various European nations sailing around robbing, slaughtering, and enslaving the inhabitants of other European nations, while their governments said “Oh, tut tut, what a shame, nothing we can do about it.”
Or else it was the government themselves who were doing the land grabs. The entire 18th century was rife with it, and it certainly wasn’t only happening to indigenous peoples. European powers would attack each other with no more than the flimsiest of casus belli, when the real reason was just that they thought a neighboring monarch was weak — a teenager (Charles XII of Sweden) or a woman (Maria Theresa of Austria) or just because the attacking monarch liked seeing his name in military gazettes (Frederich of Prussia). When Poland’s government became dysfunctional, its neighbors carved it up without a twinge over the course of a generation.
Land grabs were par for the course in the 17th and 18th century. So were massacres of civilians — even among groups of people ostensibly sharing a race and religion. Those things weren’t caused by racism — rather, the effect of racism was to raise the atrocities that Europeans routinely did against one another up to the level of actual attempted genocide against the natives.
Two discussions on this blog about Hamilton and nary a mention about the second most important character (it can be reasonably argued that he is the most important character) in the play.
I think it would be contrived and gratuitous to try to squeeze a Native American presence into the story of these two men and their shared triumphs and tragedies. I don’t believe Native Americans, their presence and plight, had much if any bearing on the relationship of these two, and I can easily understand why Miranda did not try to insinuate some aspect of this into his masterpiece.
Unfuckingbelievable. Well, I can tell each and every asshole did not bother to read. Hope you have a great time patting yourself on the back for making an Indian feel like absolute shit. Again. Because we don’t get enough of that shit, no, not at all.
Thanks ever for reminding me that Native lives don’t matter, that we never mattered. It’s not like us Indians are the whole foundation of this country or anything. Nope.
PZ, I appreciate you trying to post about this, but with this grade of commentary from people who cannot be arsed to read, I really wish you hadn’t.
Someone needs to set Howard Zinn’s people’s history to hiphop.
Fair enough. I guess the main part of my objection is that I reject this idea of the US government being this benevolent but impotent force, too weak to stem the tide of settlers and doing the best they could to protect the lives of the natives that the settlers encountered.
We’ve consistently fucked over the Native Americans since we first made landfall in the states, and the fact that Washington would rather condone cultural and good old garden variety genocide than even consider using troops to enforce a Western border shows where his fucked up priorities were.
It’s the allegorical equivalent of Pilate throwing up his hands and going “Sure, I could find this innocent itinerant rabbi not-guilty, but I’m not directly calling for his death so hey I’m not the bad guy.”
I’m not sure if Washington or anyone else could have stopped the settlers, but you’re right, we could certainly respect him and the other founding fathers a lot more if they’d at least made an effort. The only one I know of who seemed to be on the right side of history was Ben Franklin and his Remarks Concerning the Savages, where it’s pretty clear that the savages he was talking about were his fellow colonists (http://www.wampumchronicles.com/benfranklin.html).
And of course there were earlier colonists like Roger Williams and Bartolome de las Casas and Thomas Morton — I’ll agree that they deserve a musical too. For that matter, what about telling the story of Jamestown from Powhatan’s side?
I would suggest therapy for someone feeling such a need instead. A People’s History of the United States is to history what Ayn Rand is to philosophy – simplistic and polemical. It’s the kind of book that appeals most to young adolescents. Chernow’s biography of Hamilton was better suited as a source for Hamilton the musical because it at times is as much hagiography as history, which if you consider hiphop’s emphasis on the rapper as hero (and anti-hero) makes sense.
I’m disgusted that people are calling representation of Native Americans a hobby horse. We all realize that while great work is being done in media representation of women, ethnic minorities, and LGBT people, Native representation and Native issues have NEVER been a mainstream issue, right? Right? I mean, at this very moment — the same moment people in this thread are writing about how the US just couldn’t help Manifest Destiny cuz immigrants — the government has shut off the water supply to Native Americans protesting in North Dakota. No mainstream media attention that I’ve seen. And you’re irritated that people won’t shut up about Native representation? Really? *spits*
I haven’t watched or listened to Hamilton, but from what I understand, much of its popularity has been because of the diverse cast. Is it really that left field to say, “Hey, maybe if you added some of that diversity to the content, not just the cast, the play would have been even better and more successful”? Sheesh.
The latest mainstream examples of Native representation I can even think of were the Adam Sandler movie (where Native Americans walked off set because of racism) and the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (which features a white actress playing Native American woman trying to be white). So yeah, we need to talk about how we represent Native Americans in art and media, and when American History has been making it to Broadway lately (also see George Takei’s play about Japanese internment), it’s perfectly reasonable to argue that inclusion of the original inhabitants of this country is important and would improve the quality of some of these plays. This shouldn’t be controversial, particularly on a blog known for social justice content.
@Caine,
I don’t comment often, but I’ve learned a lot from your writing, and I thank you for bringing it up. I’m sorry that people here are blowing it off.
If this musical tried to address “native Americans or slavery adequately” (with people having different definitions of “adequate” of course), it would be many hours long. Decisions were made which first and foremost took into account one thing – the flow of the narrative. That was Miranda’s job as a storyteller. And Jeffrey Seller’s job as the producer was to ensure it was in the best position to make lots of money. We may not like that, but that wouldn’t stop being true.
The play does address slavery, and I’d argue it’s hard to make it any clearer than having 2 main characters state “We’ll never be free until we end slavery.” (“The Battle of Yorktown”) In the early days at The Public, there was also “Cabinet Battle #3,” in which Jefferson and Hamilton get into it over slavery, complete with mention of the fact that the debate had cowardly been kicked down the field to future administrations, at least until 1818. But, in previews, it became clear that piece killed the momentum of the latter part of the second act, which is already emotionally heavy, so it had to go.
I don’t think it’s fair to place on this one play the responsibility to address almost all social issues at the time. There is also no mention of Aaron Burr’s work for equal rights for women, nor Washington’s ahead-of-his-time “don’t ask don’t tell”-policy with regard to sexual relationships among his troops.
We all have causes close to our hearts, and the reason Miranda keeps hammering in that Hamilton (and Lafayette) is an immigrant, is because that’s a cause close to his heart. Some people wanted to see more commentary on women’s rights and called this play “flawed” for it’s lack of that, others wanted more attention to slavery, and as this thread shows, there’s also the wish it had addressed the plight of native Americans, because those are all causes close to those people’s hearts. It’s quite upsetting to see someone refer to this as being a “hobby horse,” empathy for other people’s experiences is sorely lacking there.
For me, the problem isn’t so much that this particular play doesn’t address the experience of native Americans, but that seemingly no play does. The wider issue is that this part of this country’s past keeps getting overlooked, or minimized. This play tried to tell the story of one man’s life, it could not realistically take on the responsibility of addressing all these huge and important social issues. As was said above, it was not meant to be the story of the founding of this country.
But my hope is that this success can spur others on to use art to shine a light on other stories and events from this country’s history, and hopefully more than one can take on the experience and treatment of native Americans in the way that it deserves.
Asking for at least the mere mention of Indians at some point in the musical is not “trying to address all social justice issues of the time”, it would be a clear reflection of the fact that Indians were a part of the political climate and general living of all people at that time, whether positively or negatively viewed. Indians were there and it seems highly suspicious that they get nary a mention (we’ll leave a stack of future wishes for a speaking or leading role, mmkay?).
The musical doesn’t have to address external issues, because a story certainly needs to have a focus, but it can still make mention of other issues that other characters may or may not be struggling with. At the very least.
Anyway. What toska said, Caine.
That’s tokenism though, and just trivializes the subject.
starfleetdude @ 43
Oh my gawd. I need some kind of Anti-Indian Bingo card here. To give us any attention at all is “riding a hobby horse”, and yet simultaneously we are so motherfucking important that simply acknowledging we exist is “trivializing the subject”?
I implore you to voluntarily shut up and never speak on the subject of Indigenous peoples again. Your discourse on this is either astoundingly dishonest, shamefully ignorant, or both. Please, do yourself and all of us a favor. Stop talking and learn.
Saying “hey, yeah, Indians exist and some of the ideas for this new nation come from various forms of governance practiced by some of their nations” would be entirely appropriate. Saying “man, isn’t this struggle for liberty on our part while grossly oppressing these other people kind of ironic” would be entirely appropriate. No, we weren’t a central feature in Hamilton’s life and so nobody is suggesting the play about Alexander Hamilton shouldn’t focus on Alexander Hamilton. A little acknowledgment is not a hobby horse, nor is it trivializing anything.