In the year of our Cassandra 2024 Fantasy High: Junior Year, Season 3, Dimension 20, Dropout Episode 11 Brennan Lee Mulligan, Ally Beardsley, Lou Wilson, Emily Axford, Brian Murphy, Siobhan Thompson, Zac Oyama Dungeons and Dragons
Theres a few reasons why Hamilton hit a hard turn on people liking it 1. Lin Manuel Miranda and the Hamilton cast got really over exposed in the years following. LMM wrote Disney stuff, Daveed Diggs got the lead in a TV Show, Leslie Odom Jr was the Nationwide Insurance sponsor. 2. The George Floyd/BLM Movement of the 2020s really shook the foundation of many average peoples understanding of racial politics in America. Hamilton was the embodiment of the 2010s Obama feel good era, and felt like resistance to the initial MAGA wave. 3. Typical internet contrarianism. Whatever was popular and good actually sucked, whatever sucked was secretly genius. Same shit as the Star Wars prequels
@@lukerabon7925 yeah, didnt people harassed the actor who played the kid for years? to the point he now is retired and suffers from esquizofrenia? people really didnt like the prequels.
I think you're second point hits it on the head. As a nation, the US began to have more serious conversations about race and the aaron sorkin type liberalism of "every problem can be solved with an impassioned speech" is corny as hell
@@maxwell9211 I mean, I mostly agree, but I think if my first and third points weren't true, we could be having those discussions in a more genuine way. And I don't see most Hamilton criticism coming from that idea.
I think it might have been Lin started cameoing in shows and movies after Hamilton and people didn’t like him there so they directed that at the thing he created also.
I didn't know there was a hard turn, then again, I was never really into the hype to begin with. I thought people just moved on to other things the way things just do usually.
I only realised there had even been a turn watching this, right now. I thought at the time it was a little odd, and I was watching it like "Hang on, didn't he actually OWN slaves?", but I didn't realise that was a general shift.
It’s complicated. It’s a brilliant musical with great characters, music and lyrics. And as a weird, fun niche thing for musical theatre nerds it’s great. But being on Disney+ made it too popular for its own good. But after it premiered on Disney+ to a huge, worldwide audience, it got under much deeper scrutiny. The problem wasn’t the historical Hamilton being a jerkass (that’s explored pretty well in the last third of the show, especially Say No To This). But the show had a few historical inaccuracies, mostly in how Burr was portrayed, and some events being shuffled around. And when it goes from a niche thing to the only depiction of the founding fathers that most young people have seen, historicity suddenly matters. Miranda couldn’t have predicted how big or how important his show would be. Lin-Manuel Miranda also started being overused in everything, to the point where he despite some hits (Encanto, Moana), he had a lot of misses (New Mary Poppins, the terrible Seagull Rap in the Little Mermaid remake), and he went from being revered on his own merits to just “the latest Disney guy”. In the Disney+ cut, you can see something you don’t notice in the recording or even as much live: he’s just not great in the role. He’s the weakest actor in the cast. But the thing that really hurt it, especially after becoming a massive hit on Disney+, was the additional scrutiny in the political messaging. His commentary on America, race, and feminism in Hamilton is kind of shallow, which is ok for an obscure broadway show but for something that attracted this much attention, they felt it needed more. Take his choice to cast an all non-white cast to play the American Founding Fathers, with King George as the sole white cast member. Initially, this is clearly just so he can tell the story of Hamilton (which he thought was cool and had been forgotten by most Americans), while also giving roles to non-white people like himself. (Compare with the musical 1776, which has an all-white cast). The metaphor doesn’t go deeper than “America is a multicultural nation, so wouldn’t it be fun if the founders reflected that?”. But this has some issues. Despite discussing the horrors of slavery, it stays patriotic and doesn’t criticise America enough. By making Jefferson and Washington black, some consider he’s ironically “whitewashing” history. I could go on, but basically, most leftist consider the show too centrist and patriotic. BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY OF ALL, the whole metaphor of “Britain - White people; America - Non-white people” doesn’t really work when you analyse it hard. America is historically more racist than Britain, taking much longer to eliminate slavery and discrimination laws. Many metrics consider Britain has less racial inequality than the USA. It’s all clearly things Lin-Manuel Miranda hadn’t considered when he made his fun rap musical about his favorite underappreciated founding father. This is the sharp turn Brennan is talking about.
For those of us playing the home game, I think Hamilton got the hard turn because it has a premise that is like... Fine for smaller-scale theatre kid audiences, but the more popular it got, the more it impacted people's understanding about the actual history. Also really good music can switch off your critical thinking skills, also known as the West Wing Effect.
Hamilton is definitely more suited to small-scale productions and if it had stayed that way I'm sure it wouldn't be as hardlined now. For example, the colorblind casting goes from the original intent of "inclusive casting because this is our history too" to "revisionist nationalism sidestepping historical racism" real quick.
Another thing that added to how Hamilton warped people's understanding of American history is that when the show was still fairly new, they used to sell tickets for $10 to students. And history teachers would bus their students over to watch the show. And I highly doubt that those teachers sat their students down after to teach them or encourage them to research which parts were true and which weren't.
I would like to see that Court of the Stars music more than Hamilton. What crazy elf name would they title it after and would any members depicted in it be alive to watch it in the audience?
How does a half elf dancer Son of a high elf and swashbuckler Dropped in the middle of a forgotten little town in Solace, Leviathan’s offended, Grow up to be a maximum legend?
I was one of those annoying people who wouldn’t shut the hell up about Hamilton for a good 18 months or so. I didn’t “turn” on it exactly, I still fully love it, but at the same time I just never need to hear about it or talk about it ever again.
And the joke was directly pointed at Siobhan because she saw Hamilton before it was cool, when it was in previews at the Public Theater. There was an entire bit in Um Actually where she got roasted over that.
It was mostly the fact that it only acknowledged slavery in one throwaway line, and a lot of the characters owned slaves IRL. At least that's the complaint I've heard.
I think people just had enough of Lin Manuel Miranda being in a ton of projects, especially with Disney, so they started a hate train. Tbh I still think Hamilton is pretty good, like credit where credit’s due.
@@Etta_James that, and its "avant-garde" use of hip hop--a music genre of the people--as the main selling point for a musical that only the upper classes could afford to attend
insofar as the criticism goes beyond "it's conceptually cringe" (perhaps true, but also a critical non-starter) I think a lot of people find the use of race-blind casting for a bunch of white slavers and capitalists distasteful at the very least (and like its source material, the Chernow biography, it massages historical truth to fit its narrative, like overstating Hamilton's commitment to abolitionism). and at root it is a fundamentally American nationalist/exceptionalist work, it believes in "the American experiment" as something innately and uniquely "good" that might just have some problems or corruptions (which are kind of sidelined by the musical's narrative via absence or one-liners) - the musical pretty much tells you this point blank a bunch. for the record I enjoyed it at the time of release because LMM writes a good melody. so at least I admit it!
I think the real joke has more to do with people who try to virtue signal when they realize they liked a problematic thing by backpedaling and dunking on it as hard as possible, rather than owning up to it. That said, there's discourse about the choice to use BIPOC to represent historical white figures who did a lot of horrific things to BIPOC, rather than make a story about historical BIPOC of the period, while also using genres of music primarily pioneered by BIPOC to tell the story. That discourse, I think, is legitimate, and worth engaging in good-faith discussions over it. What is not legitimate is the dunking on *Hamilton* and Lin-Manuel Miranda because he's "cringe" or "overrated" or simply because it was what all the theatre kids were talking about until the next big show came along (which was *Hadestown* and let's be clear, that has its own issues, but it also didn't break out of the theatre bubble in quite the same way *Hamilton* did). But *Hamilton* is by no means unpopular now, it's still practically printing money on Broadway and on tour.
Musically, I think Hamilton is still absolutely fantastic. I have started to feel a bit weird about the way it portrays characters like Washington, a genocidal murderer with a mouth full of teeth stolen from people he enslaved, as kindly old wise men. But I also understand that like… For his soldiers, that _was_ what he was. He kept the army from doing a coup after the revolutionary war through shear charisma. And he set the precedent for the lawful transition of power by stepping down when he could have easily won reelection. So… Yeah, the founding fathers are fucking weird and complicated and all have a fuckton of blood on their hands and a handful of amazing acts of virtue that cannot begin to justify them. Even the ones who are almost entirely good like John Adams did authoritarian shit like suppressing freedom of speech.
There was a removed song that had some lines that called out Washington for being a slave owner, and I wish more of that sentiment made it to the final draft
my issues with the musical were cemented when i posted about how some inaccuracies about Alexander Hamilton were iffy (because i could see people misunderstanding and thinking they’re facts) and someone replied saying i was “just looking for reasons not to like it” (i was actually looking for reasons to like it despite that) and then they argued that Hamilton was an abolitionist and was seen as an immigrant for being born in a Caribbean colony… which uh… those were the inaccuracies i was talking about… still solid music. good story telling. killer performances. 8/10
If the Wolfsong was about summer instead of spring, it would literally be Hamilton. "Nothing like summer in the city, Someone in a rush next to someone looking pretty"
Reminds me of the way other girls in my class treated the Spice Girls, tbh. I remember them pretending to be the Spice Girls at recess one year and then the next year they all claimed they had always secretly hated them.
As an Australian it was very fun to watch the Hamilton discourse, because from here it was just a hyped musical about people I barely knew about. If I did even a little reading about the characters it was instantly “here are the historical inaccuracies of Hamilton and how its characters were actually terrible”. Once the hype died down that was all that was left 🤷♂️
As a Dane when I finished listening to the album for the first time my immediate commentary was "America got the weirdest revisionist history propaganda", I still like the songs because they are so catchy. I was so baffled when the discourse started up because it seemed like it was mainly Americans going "wait a minute, this is revisionist history propaganda!?". I didn't realize until then that that came as a surprise to people, or that fans were legit stanning the historical Alexander Hamilton or Thomas Jefferson based on the musical characters.
no fr same, i'm a kiwi and it was not hard to find out that it was super inaccurate like?? literally there was historical info in the genus lyric annotations dare i say anyone who thought it was totally factually correct is just.. media illiterate lol
@@mars624Hamilton was never really meant to be propaganda. It was a color conscience look at Hamilton's origins in an era where many conservatives were decrying immigration despite the clear irony of their sentiments. It being a musical meant there was always going to be some form of artistic license that seemingly went over people's head more and more as time marched on
i was for sure into it and i still think its a good musical but i simply cannot listen to it bc it sends me vividly back to a place in life that i cannot go.
I’ve always been in the firm “I like it” category maybe more love when I was in college. Creatively speaking it was clever and new in terms of being a mainstream use of rap in a musical theatre context. I get how its problematic in how it characterises historical figure but I think maybe part of the reason it didn’t bug me so much is because I never took it that seriously. The characterisation is very surface level. Its on the same level as those historical play that get taken to high schools. But I think that mix of “its obsessively hyped as perfect but some people” and “problematic in quite a few ways if properly analysed” has made the discourse act like Hamilton should have ever been seen as anything but a creative work of fiction with a historical basis. Its like no one has ever seen a single “based on a true story” movie.
It is still well liked. The hype train praising it died down, and a different group of people started hating on it for being insensitive, historically inaccurate etc. Some people just hate Lin's voice. In fairness, if a voice could be punchable...
This feels a bit like a twitter-is-not-real-life thing - like if a key article of the prevailing position in 'the discourse' is that a thing is too popular, or heaven forfend too moderate, then almost by definition the discourse is a minority position being amplified. imho, though, Hamilton is kinda just an example of mythologization, maybe even 'reclamation', which is fine if not outright good - esp since there were no shortage of much whiter and more 'conservative' mythologizations of the same guys before. If it's actually doing harm or promoting something harmful, that's one thing, but if the point is that it is decontextualizing dead guys for an inspirational story, that feels like a pretty natural and good thing to me. Course I am Canadian and so was always cynical of the Founding Father's politics, still hoping for a sequel about the Burr conspiracy...
I think musically it's pretty good, but I don't think lin Manuel Miranda is good with lyrics, they're quite simple and repetitive even though the use of them with two makes them seem so
I got into Hamilton just before the backlash, so that rush you get when you first get into something carried me over the backlash, so now I like it a normal amount.
I think some songs are alright and very catchy but it’s absolutely ridiculous that they tried to give a woke makeover to literal slave owners, plus the play is so nationalistic it’s kind of hard to watch for some parts. Also lin manuel Miranda’s voice is so aggravating but that’s just personal
@@jazzy4830 tbh, Miranda never claimed that it was meant to be one-to-one with history. It's a musical after all and he made it pretty clear what his intentions within musical were, somewhere along the Trump era a lot of that went out the window for a lot of dissenters
hamilton is a 7 at best. it's never been better than a 7 it just was new different and shiny (plus it featured rap which is popular) so it eclipsed everything else. as far as I'm concerned it's entry level kind of low class theater as far as broadway standards are concerned.
Is that what happened to Hamilton? People really liked it and now people don't? I'm so out of the loop I didn't even know it went through such a lifecycle.
No, Hamilton is still incredibly well liked. The discourse surrounding Hamilton is something that's been attached to the musical since the beginning but gets repurposed now and again whenever very specific people are questioning how good it actually was in retrospect. It's the case with everything from the 2010s
I don't understand the discourse in the comment section. This video was a dunking on Hamilton, is dunking on how people only like something when it's socio politically pleasing to do so, but then turns on it when the wave changes. This is like a Tumblr thesis
I can proudly and verifiably say I was a Hater from day one because through hard work and with much support, I was able to Read by the age of twenty-four.
I always fucking hated hamilton, but that's a personal taste thing. It's still a solid musical to get people more into theater and I can appreciate that about it but also like... god that fucking show is insufferable.
I still like Hamilton. I think Lin Manuel is one of the worst singers in the industry, but damn can that guy write about something he's passionate about. It's a unique take with an artists "voice" and I'd like to see more people telling history in their own way.
I distinctly remember at the peak of Hamilton's popularity, a video was recommended to me. It was a video interviewing an old black man that had problems with Hamilton. They framed this man not as someone speaking their mind, but as, and I quote, "The only person in America that actively dislikes Hamilton". I like Hamilton, I still do, I'm still not sure when the hard turn happened. Probably cowards wanting to hate something because they liked it for a fee months.
Dunking on people who are dogpiling on dunking on LMM is hilarious. Dude is a talent and writes good musicals. Just because his most famous one has some problematic tone issues doesn't make him less talented.
im an avid fan of hamilton and am not aware of any public opinion shift on it. most have moved on, but no one dislikes it that didnt already...or so i thought lol
