I was 12 when the age of “Hamilton” worship began, and I remember it well. For a while, it seemed like Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hip-hop musical was the height of social progress: the sparkling image of how far we’d come as a society, and more specifically, America as a country.
I also remember when that reverence started to turn into resentment. Only a few years after “Hamilton” took Broadway by storm, the conversation was already shifting from admiration to a growing distaste for performative activism. In a political climate preoccupied with riots and human rights concerns, a musical about dead slave-owners simply wasn’t enough. Like “Hamilton”’s fatally ambitious lead, we just weren’t satisfied.
Now, five years later? I’m sitting in a movie theater watching Lin Manuel Miranda rap about abolitionism and getting serious whiplash.
In an age of Sydney Sweeney jeans commercials with potential eugenicist themes, Big Beautiful Bills, and “Red Flag Alert for Genocide” designations, it feels almost scandalous hearing a largely POC cast sing about immigrant pride and women’s independence.
In fact, over the course of the musical’s nearly 3-hour-runtime, the ironies just keep piling up. Characters fear that a two-party system may pose a threat to American democracy (foreshadowing much?). King George — “Hamilton”’s caricaturish figure directly satirizing oppressive oligarchy — is eerily reminiscent of the United States administration (even as some of the biggest supporters of this administration shoot off fireworks in homage to our 18th-century “fuck you” at British colonialism).
To top it all off, one particular scene makes me both laugh and wince as Daveed Digg’s Thomas Jefferson sings, “when Britain taxed our tea, we got frisky / imagine what gon’ happen when you try to tax our whiskey.” According to Congress, the United States government made about $11 billion off of alcohol taxes last year. Just saying.
Pessimistically, it might be a dire omen that “Hamilton” has circled back to being as progressive now as it was 10 years ago. Yet, I have to question: Should that realization truly be our biggest takeaway from “Hamilton”’s anniversary?
Often I walk out of a theatre or scroll past a social media trend or read a news article about some political concession and think, “Is this really the best we can do?”.
It’s not necessarily that whatever “this” is is “wrong,” problematic, or boring (although these things are usually at least a little bit true). They just mean so little in the context of the world.
They’re fleeting, vaguely entertaining at best. Maybe if you’re in an optimistic enough mood you can call them “a breath of fresh air,” or a “nostalgic reminder of childhoods long past,” or maybe you’re too distracted by the thirst-trap content (basically giftwrapped for the audience, as if the movie exists only as a vessel by which to spawn TikTok edits) to care. But the point remains that this isn’t meaningful “content.”
Actually, by nature it is the very opposite: the antithesis of satiation, an infinity away from fullness. It’s bubblegum that turns bland and sour after six bites, a bowl of ice cream that gives you a rush for 20 minutes until your blood sugar crashes, a wafer melting on your tongue and gone in seconds. It’s empty, and hollow, and forgettable, and so determined to sell as many tickets as possible that — like “Hamilton”’s other lead Aaron Burr — it refuses to take a stand for fear of alienating a single potential customer.
Is this really the best we can do?
This is exactly the sentiment that was echoed back in 2020 as people challenged, “Really? A musical about slaveowners? Why exactly am I supposed to worship this so much?” and they had a very valid point. They still do. But 10 years later, “Hamilton”’s lyrics don’t feel dated and spineless. They feel bold and insurgent. Yes, the musical’s politics are far from flawless, but it is a bitter reality that even despite its shortcomings it seems intensely revolutionary compared to what we hear on the news and from our administration right now.
Casting people of color doesn’t erase Sally Hemings’s legacy. Rebranding patriotism as immigrant empowerment doesn’t make the United States any less an occupation of indigenous land. Calling Hamilton a “Creole bastard” doesn’t mean he wasn’t a slaveowner.
But then again, can we really damn “Hamilton” for being what it is? Lines like, “raise a glass to freedom, something they can never take away / no matter what they tell you” are still powerful. Seeing actors of minority demographics take center stage in complex, non-caricaturish roles hasn’t stopped being meaningful after a decade of matinees.
Ultimately, I have to wonder if there is a reason Lin-Manuel Miranda chose now to re-release “Hamilton” in theaters (though I’ll admit, the anniversary does provide convenient timing). I mean, setting aside your gut reaction, can you actually remember the last time in recent history that something like “Hamilton” got produced or aired? Do you really think the public reception now would be better than it was 10 years ago?
No, “Hamilton” isn’t everything. But it is something. And right now, maybe we shouldn’t take that for granted.
