The intense debates surrounding Hamilton don't diminish the musical — they enrich it
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By now, very few Americans remain who have not at least heard of the Broadway smash hit Hamilton, which tells the story of America’s first secretary of the Treasury. The vast multitudes who have been unable to score a ticket to see the play have gotten to know it from the chart-topping cast album. Lyrics from the songs have become catchphrases — the determined Hamilton insisting, "I’m not throwing away my shot"; a gleeful Jefferson crowing, after Hamilton did throw away his "shot" (his political career) by publicly confessing to adultery, "Nevah’ gon’ be president now!" That last one was perfect for the 2016 primary season, with candidates falling left and right before the Trump juggernaut.
After winning a Grammy and a boatload of Tony nominations and awards, and creating a passionate fan base that spans generations, the musical’s creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and nearly all of the original cast members have moved on to other projects. But there is every reason to believe that this remarkable musical, which will open in other US cities and London, will maintain its popularity and cultural power for years to come.
The robust debates about Hamilton will continue as well. Despite the truly astonishing amount of good press the play has received, it has been the subject of a few strong critiques — which have been met with forceful responses. These debates, though informative, seem to me curiously and unfortunately polarized. Defenders of the play often appear to believe that critical discussion of the work must inevitably diminish Miranda’s accomplishment. That is simply not the case.
Is it simply "white" history done with black actors?
Hamilton’s signature feature, the casting of black and Latino actors to play prominent members of the founding generation — Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and, of course, Alexander Hamilton (only King George III is white) — has drawn great praise along with great skepticism and some outright condemnation.
Casting in this fashion might appear a mere stunt without Miranda’s ingenious blending of traditional Broadway show tunes, Top 40–style popular music, and rap. In the hands of a less gifted songwriter and composer, this could have been a disaster. But it works.
George Washington rapping feels right. Audiences’ wildly positive response to the play’s aesthetics — storytelling, music, and performances — has only been bolstered by its triumphant, and seemingly inclusive, depiction of America’s founding. As one young person enthusiastically put it to me, "The play makes it all right to feel good about America."
Yet not everyone is feeling all right about Hamilton and its casting. The noted novelist Ishmael Reed, one of the first critics out of the gate, blasted Hamilton in Counterpunch. Where others saw the nontraditional casting as uplifting, Reed found it abhorrent: What, he asked, were black people doing portraying, in a sympathetic manner, white men who had enslaved black people?
The journal Public Historian featured a related argument from the Rutgers-Newark scholar Lyra Monteiro, and asked several historians, myself included, to respond. Among other observations, Monteiro noted that the casting of black and Latino actors as the founders does not make up for the near-total absence of actual black historical characters. With so many people of color on the stage, it is easy to forget that, aside from Sally Hemings, to whom a fleeting reference is made – an actor mimes her part — the play depicts no black people of that time. The Revolutionary period is decidedly white.
The evidence is scant that Hamilton, had he lived, would have promoted abolition
And then there is the presentation of Hamilton himself. Although he was enlightened on the subject of race, suggesting that blacks were not inherently inferior to whites, he was not, as the musical suggests, deeply committed to abolition. He bought slaves for his in-laws, and there is some indication that he may have bought at least two for himself.
The closing number of the show goes so far as to hint that Hamilton’s death, a tragedy in itself, was all the more terrible because it was a blow to the cause of abolitionism. Elizabeth Hamilton laments that her lost husband would have had more time to work against the institution.
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There is no reason to think, however, that Hamilton would have actively worked against slavery had he had more years, as he did not do so during the years he was alive. He did not even enlist the power of his pen in the effort, as prolific a writer as he was. As with many other political leaders in his generation, other issues related to the founding of the country occupied most of his attention — that, and making a living.
And in this era of concern about "the 1 percent," the play understates Hamilton’s deep commitment to elitism, while ignoring the downsides of the conservative, British-influenced political and economic system he wanted to put in place.
Hamilton in an age of historical revision
Hamilton is attractive on numerous levels — and to different audiences simultaneously. There is no wonder that its depiction of the founding generation would have instant appeal among ardent consumers of what journalist Evan Thomas described back in 2001 as "Founders Chic." That genre celebrates the derring-do and personal characters of a handful of men (with occasional nods to their consorts) who supposedly "made" the Revolution and the Early American Republic.
On the other hand, for the past several decades academic historians have complicated the founding narrative by expanding the cast of characters involved in it: Native Americans, poor whites, blacks (enslaved and free), and women. With this has come a more intense focus on the problematic aspects of that era — Indian removal, slavery, and the construction of white supremacy.
Yet such is Hamilton’s aesthetic merits that I, and other of my colleagues who have been deeply involved in the project of complicating the narrative, have managed to fall in love with the play, despite its groundings in a triumphant founding narrative. Evidently, many of us enjoy feeling good about America too, though we insist on remembering and discussing the tragedy that was every bit as integral to our country’s beginnings as the positive aspects. It makes perfect sense that these two impulses — to celebrate and to complicate — should be a part of discussions of Hamilton’s cultural message and historical accuracy.
A word on historical accuracy: Hamilton is a work of historical fiction. Creators operating in that genre have the license to make things up in order to fulfill their artistic vision. It can only go "wrong" when the license taken with facts strains credulity, and prevents the narrative from ringing true.
That is not so much a failure of history as a failure of art. While imagining things that may not have happened, or did not happen exactly in the way the creator imagines it, is endemic to the process of creating historical fiction, this does not preempt historians’ perfect right — even duty — to say where a given work strays from the historical record. It can do no harm to a work of historical fiction to tell people what parts of the story are, well, fiction.
It’s not "nitpicking" to explain where history and art diverge
But this leads to a strange aspect of discussions about Hamilton. One often hears that the play will prompt audience members to go out and discover Alexander Hamilton’s real life story. This is unquestionably true, and one of the show’s great benefits. At the same time, however, historians who have actually sought to separate fact from fiction in public venues have been derided as nitpickers who do not understand, or respect, the creative process, as if merely setting out where the play veers from the historical record were a presumptively hostile act.
It is not. In fact, knowing the real history allows one to fully appreciate the artistry involved in condensing material and making necessary alterations to keep the story moving forward smoothly, a thing Miranda does brilliantly.
The saying "Nobody likes a know-it-all" almost certainly accounts for some of the negative responses to academic historians’ observations about Hamilton. This is particularly so given the intense affection the play inspires among its fans.
As it does in so much of life, I suspect that individual temperament plays a role here. Evidently, for a number of people, enjoying the play requires, at some level, believing it is all true — or acting as if they believe it is all true. Knowledge of any gap between fact and fiction breaks the spell, so to speak.
While these people embrace the idea of the play as a vehicle for getting people to the real history, they apparently also believe this should be done only in the privacy of homes or in classrooms. Historians writing about the gaps in public forums, alerting the community at large to the fictional parts of the play, are spell breakers — spoilsports. (Come to think of it, that is quite a familiar role for historians.)
Others with a different temperament have an alternative response: Knowing the truth takes nothing away from the enjoyment of the play. I watched it and loved every second, understanding that Hamilton, Lafayette, Mulligan, and Laurens did not run around New York City as the equivalents of D’Artagnan and the Three Musketeers, that Angelica Schuyler was a married woman when Alexander and Eliza were married, that Jefferson was not the only slaveholder on that stage, and that Hamilton was not an ardent abolitionist or one who championed immigrants. None of this knowledge took away from my enjoyment of the play’s artistry and ingenuity.
As for Hamilton’s cultural message, conveyed through casting and narrative, it is equally true that those who write about race have the right — and duty — to comment upon and analyze how so important a work of art speaks to this critical issue. How could it be otherwise when race plays so central a role in American life, whether everyone is willing to acknowledge that or not?
Back to Lyra Monteiro and her Public Historian blog post. Monteiro, who also admits to loving Hamilton, makes an insightful point that shows how very hard it is to escape America’s constructions of race, even when we try. She notes that while the play’s casting supposedly blows up racial categories, it manages, in the assignment of songs, to keep them firmly in place.
"White" Eliza and "black" Angelica: the musical’s racial coding
The Angelica Schuyler character, with whom Alexander is in love, raps and sings in a style associated with black music, and is essentially "black." The woman who becomes his wife, Eliza, sings tunes that make her effectively "white."
Expanding on this point in my response to Monteiro, I noted further that the "black" Angelica even conforms to stereotypes about black women: She is sexually aggressive, sassy, and no-nonsense. She does not end up as Alexander’s wife. Eliza, soft spoken, demure, and "ladylike," is "white," and becomes the wife of the hero, Alexander. Casting people of color as whites does not presumptively do away with our understandings about the meanings of race.
Like any great work of art, Hamilton provides fertile ground for exploring issues of nationhood, identity, race, and gender. I insisted in the Public Historian, and I still believe it to be true, that it is possible to raise these and other hard questions about Hamilton and also think it a great musical that should be seen by all who can and taken seriously enough to be analyzed for all that it says about our culture and history.
Through this, we will get the best of all worlds — a work of art that makes us think and argue even as it entertains. Who could ask for anything more?
Annette Gordon-Reed is the C
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