The "Hamilton" Notes

Like many others, I have been fascinated by the storm surrounding "Hamilton" right now. I have read debates about minute details, and as (maybe?) a public service, I'm compiling what I know:

*One camp says it's wrong to elide questions of slavery, make people seem more heroic than they are, etc. Another camp says, This is fan fiction. It's a fantasy. It's not a work of history. Distortions are permissible.

*Maya Phillips, of the NYT, had one of the more-interesting questions: If Miranda doesn't need to follow the rules of history, then why can't he make the women more active and more compelling? If George Washington can be re-cast as a saint, then why can't Angelica have a role in one of the rap battles? (I liked this.)

*Very few people enjoy the Sally Hemings moment. A counterargument: Miranda knew he was showing Jefferson's ugliness, and he wanted to have that awkwardness at the top of Act II as further evidence of Jefferson's villainy. A counter to the counterargument: Jefferson was raping Hemings when she was fourteen (or close to that), and the slapstick moment in Miranda's Act II just doesn't "cut it."

*NPR: We would have preferred to see Javier Munoz in the movie. He was sexier than Lin-Manuel, and he had a better voice.

*Jason Katzenstein: There is nothing epic about the founding of America; this was a tragic moment for the world. The founders were bad people. When Hamilton says, "I'm just like my country...." it's a shocking "self-own" moment--and not in the way Miranda intended.

I loved watching "Hamilton" a second time. Food for thought.....

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