The Complex Violence of 'Hamilton'
Photo from Disney+
Somewhere on the corner of Well-Intended Historical Fantasy and Violent White Historical Revisionism stands an ethnically ambiguous man in a colonial military jacket.
Such is the case with Broadway sensation Hamilton. Disney recently made waves when they announced they would be releasing the smash-hit musical on their streaming platform Disney+, just in time for the Fourth of July. And while many people rejoiced, some people like myself, recoiled.
I have always had a personal aversion to Hamilton. At first, my reasons were nebulous. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what repelled me – the show tells the story of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, but its magic lies in the fact that the show is performed primarily by actors of color through hip-hop and rap. On its surface, Hamilton is subversive and progressive. And yet, something for me was remiss. Maybe it was the fact that despite the show being performed by people of color, it was largely inaccessible to them. The average top ticket price for Hamilton on Broadway was $199, and their premium seats broke a Broadway record, at one point costing $1,150 a seat – the first Broadway show to offer a premium seat in the four-digits. I watched the classism of Hamilton play out in real time within my acting program. Many of my white classmates saw the show at full price with their families, while my classmates of color had only experienced the show after hours of anxiously waiting to see if they’d won the lottery for discounted tickets.
After much reflection, I’ve realized that the socioeconomic hypocrisy of Hamilton certainly played a part in my distaste, but there is more to it: Hamilton repels me because, at its core, it’s a complexly violent piece of theatre.
The violence of Hamilton is complex because it helps people of color while simultaneously harming them. On one hand, you have a show that is putting money in the pockets of actors of color. There are more working actors of color in the world because of Hamilton and that is a victory to be celebrated. Many BIPOC artists made their Broadway debut because this show made space for them on the stage. Furthermore, the show has helped cement the fact that you can have shows with predominantly BIPOC casts, telling stories that do not center on BIPOC pain and still be wildly successful.
Yet, on the other hand, the story does not center on BIPOC at all. Though there are Black actors on stage, they are not playing Black people, nor are they telling a Black story. Alexander Hamilton and his constituents were very real and very white. Many of them owned slaves. Many of them raped those slaves. They stole land from Native Americans and Native Mexicans in the name of “revolution.” They beat their wives. Visually, we enjoy the spectacle of Black and Brown people singing about revolution. But in reality, they are playing white people in a story that sanitizes and venerates their violent accomplishments.
At its core, Hamilton is complexly violent.
It is this sanitization that hurts people of color the most. Hamilton paints its ensemble out to be a group of young and scrappy visionaries seeking a better tomorrow. One of the show’s most famous moments is when cast members boldly proclaim “Immigrants, we get the job done!” While well-intentioned, this line is violent at its core because it absolves the Founding Fathers – and the white audiences watching – from having to truly face the brutality that came with the founding of America. The Founding Fathers were not immigrants. They did not move to a country in hopes of joining the culture, enriching the community, and bettering their lives. They came to steal, rape, and destroy. They came to “civilize” the “savages” of the land. They’re not immigrants – they’re colonizers. To call them anything else is a gross disservice.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that Hamilton has opened doors and signed checks for people of color, that it has allowed us to enjoy the rare spectacle of a stage full of BIPOC artists, that it has successfully told a story that does not center on BIPOC pain, while simultaneously erasing BIPOC all-together, sanitizing the violence of colonialism through the labor of Black and Brown artists, and further deepening the socioeconomic divide that is intrinsic to American Theatre. For many white patrons, the cognitive dissonance of the show’s very existence never even crosses their mind. For myself, it requires expert-level mental gymnastics to separate the truths. For these reasons, I cannot enjoy it. I support it from afar, but with mixed feelings. I wish Lin-Manuel Miranda the best, and I hope that one day, American Theatre does better.
Imani Vaughn-Jones
Atlanta-based actress and writer. Firm believer in active love and the Oxford comma. The world is your oyster — grab some hot sauce.