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Lin-Manuel Miranda: "In the Heights"

 First, the argument around casting, for "In the Heights," makes me think about "The Silence of the Lambs."

Mark Harris writes about the issue with "Lambs"--the director exploits some ignorant and fearful responses to transgender people, in his portrait of "Buffalo Bill"--and Harris goes on to say that a movie can be both problematic *and* worthwhile. Acknowledging missteps that the creative team made.....is not the same thing as saying that a movie needs to be tossed aside.

(I do wonder if Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jon Chu are being just *slightly* disingenuous in the way they have replied to criticism over the past couple of weeks.)

Second, a big feeling I had while watching the "Heights" movie was this: What happened to "Everything I Know"--? In a show of earnest and expository solos, "Everything I Know" is among the *most* earnest, and the *most* expository.

Nina is mourning the death of Abuela. She is sifting through Abuela's possessions. She notices little details (and the detail work makes me think of Miranda's idol, Howard Ashman):

There's a photo of the ladies at Daniela's....
You can tell it's from the eighties by the volume of their hair....

And:

Here's a picture of my parents, as we left for California...
She saved everything we gave her--every little scrap of paper....

Nina recalls Abuela's teacherly role on the block. "Every afternoon, I came. She made sure I did my homework. She could barely write her name. Even so....she would stare at the paper and tell me, Bueno. Let's review. Why don't you tell me everything you know?"

These thoughts lead Nina to recall Abuela's sacrifice--leaving her homeland, in terror, in early childhood. "On the day they ran....did she dream of endless summer? Did her mother have a plan? Or did they just go?" It's this imaginative moment--this recreation of Abuela's fearlessness--that clearly leads Nina to become a different kind of pioneer; to embrace a different kind of ambition, a different form of "migration"--and to return to Stanford.

"Everything I Know" has two meanings. It refers to the facts Nina absorbed at Hunter (or some similar high school). It also refers to emotional knowledge: "I know that Abuela was a badass, and a fighter. And I will be that, too."

Among the strange choices Jon Chu made....cutting "Everything I Know" is one of the strangest. I continue to think about this weeks after seeing the movie.

P.S. Another thing I like about the song: Nina is a brain. She has cerebral, analytical talents. This song--which brings Abuela back to life--is a demonstration of Nina's *talent for thinking* .....We understand why she is an academic standout. All this is missing from the movie.
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