Shownotes
Happy 250th birthday to the United States of America! 250 years ago, you became independent from us Brits. We're the King George III in this relationship, and we know it.
Alexander Hamilton. You know the name, but you probably didn't before the musical debuted in 2016. On 3rd July 2020, as America protested the murder of George Floyd, and locked itself indoors simultaneously, Disney+ dropped something that made the world look again at the ten-dollar founding father, his story, and the country he helped build.
As the United States turns 250, it seems a good opportunity to tell the full story behind the Hamilton phenomenon; from Lin-Manuel Miranda reading Ron Chernow's biography on a Mexican holiday and realising that he was not throwing away his shot to adapt it, to the Broadway explosion that made tickets worth more than a month's rent; from the non-stop creative engine of a show that rewrote what musical theatre could be, to the $75 million Disney deal that brought it to homes during the COVID-19 pandemic.
What does it mean that a show about America's founding myths, performed by the people that founding excluded, has become the defining cultural text of the American anniversary. A history of immigrants controlling the narrative, to a modern America where immigrants are persecuted. Who lives, who dies, who tells your story? In 2026, that question has never been more important.
History has its eyes on you, America.
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Transcripts
Hi everyone, I'm Em and welcome to Verbal Diorama, episode 349 Hamilton. This is the podcast that's all about the history and legacy of movies you know and movies you don't that wants a revelation.
So listen to my declaration. Welcome to Verbal Diorama.
Whether you're a brand new listener, whether you're a regular returning listener, thank you so much for being here and thank you for choosing to listen to this podcast. I am so happy to have you here for the history and legacy of Hamilton.
But if you are a regular returning listener, thank you so much for continuing to listen and support this podcast for as long as you have. Whether that's the whole seven years, whether that's less than that, thank you so much for your support.
It genuinely means so much to an indie podcaster who does everything by herself. This episode kind of a little bit different. It's the first time I've done a stage show on this podcast.
a movie that was released in:A 250 year old monster, often benevolent, but sometimes the starter of wars.
I am of course Talking about the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States of Americ, a young country in the grand scheme of things, but a country that's achieved a lot in that time. 45 Presidents, starting with George Washington.
And his right hand man was the $10 founding father, Alexander Hamilton, an immigrant from the West Indies that changed his fortune with his incredible brain as well as his country, but also annoyed quite a few people along the way. History didn't really remember him until Lin Manuel Miranda picked up a biography.
k Obama at the White House in: Em:Hamilton tells Alexander Hamilton's life in two acts and details, among other things, his immigrant backstory, his involvement in the American Revolutionary War as an aide de camp to George Washington, his marriage to Elizabeth Schuyler, his career as a lawyer and Secretary of the treasury, and his interactions with Aaron Burr, which culminates in their duel that ends Hamilton's life. Let's run through the cast.
We have Lin Manuel Miranda as Alexander Hamilton, Leslie Odom Jr. As Aaron Burr, Philippa Soo as Eliza Hamilton, Renee Elise Goldsberry as Angelica Schuyler, Christopher Jackson as George Washington, Daveed Diggs as Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson, Anthony Ramos as John Laurens and Philip Hamilton.
Okieriete Onaodowan as Hercules Mulligan and James Madison, Jonathan Groff as King George III, Jasmine Cephas Jones as Peggy Schuyler and Maria Reynolds and Sydney James Harcourt as Philip Schuyler and James Reynolds.
Ariana DeBose also appears as part of the ensemble, playing the very real biracial Sally Hemings, a slave owned by Thomas Jefferson, as well as playing a part that's widely seen as both the bullet and the personification of death. Hamilton was written by Lin Manuel Miranda, was directed by Thomas Kael, and was based on Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow.
et's go back to the summer of:Streaming services became a lifeline, mostly for the re watches of shows like Friends, Comfort Food, at a time when many people were struggling either with COVID symptoms, the loss of family and friends, or from simply the isolation of being kept at home. And it wasn't just the COVID lockdowns going on at the time either.
May: May:George Floyd was coincidentally born in Fayetteville, was named after the Marquis de Lafayette. Two months after Floyd's death, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures released Hamilton onto Disney plus mostly because of the effects of the pandemic.
And when it did arrive, it was a powder keg lit by ongoing racial tensions, people being stuck at home and the fact it was more accessible on Disney plus than had it premiered in cinemas like it was supposed to.
So our story starts with Hamilton himself, Lin Manuel Miranda, who grew up in a bilingual New York household with Puerto Rican parents that fostered an appreciation for both Broadway tunes and Latin music, an early exposure that deeply influenced his creative identity and his instinct to blend hip hop, R and B and traditional Broadway styles.
He drafted the first version of in the Heights during his sophomore year of college while living in Wesleyan's Latino Cultural Centre alongside fellow first generation American students.
For the first time, he didn't need to check part of his identity at the door, and that connection inspired him to put his community's experience on stage. In the Heights won four Tony Awards, including Best Musical.
ican flag from his tuxedo. In: began the writing process in:He described Hamilton's extensive writing by calling him the human word machine, saying he must have produced the maximum number of words that a human being can scratch out in 49 years. Over the course of his writing and research, Chernow also took the time to dive deeper into Hamilton's history.
People knew him as the ten dollar founding father, but otherwise history didn't speak of Hamilton as much as it did of Washington or Jefferson.
Chernow would say, if Washington is the father of the country and Madison the father of the Constitution, then Alexander Hamilton was surely the father of the American government.
Before Miranda had finished the second chapter of the 800 page book, he began to think of Hamilton's life as a series of hip hop songs performed by people of colour.
In Hamilton's story, his difficult Caribbean childhood, his move to New York, his role in the revolution, Miranda saw a story very similar to that of the origins of many famous rappers. It inspired him to write a rap about Hamilton.
The immigrant who writes his way out of poverty narrative was structurally the same story hip hop had been telling for decades.
an early number backstage in:However, this president happened to be black. Historically, the first time a man of color was given the highest seat in office. The most powerful nation on earth.
While Barack Obama's election didn't inspire Hamilton, it was Obama's approval that fanned the flames. Miranda's initial title for his show was the hamilton mixtape.
May:It's a concept album about the life of someone I think embodies hip hop. Alexander Hamilton, unquote.
rics that hardly changed from:Miranda has since revealed that he would have rethought the whole project and if that performance had bombed.
fore on stage and screen. The: ment of a new constitution in: And in:Lin Manuel Miranda took seven years to write Hamilton and all the locations he wrote in are listed in the special thanks on the credits for the movie version. His songwriting process was unconventional by Broadway standards.
He wrote alone, first producing rough home demos of each song, essentially recording himself, rapping and singing over basic tracks. These demos were then handed to Alex Lacamoire to orchestrate, arrange and release as full theatrical scores.
Miranda has been clear about his compositional instinct. Hamilton got everywhere on the strength of his writing and Miranda's favourite MCs did the same.
The lyrical density of the show, the internal rhymes, the syllabic compression, the rapid fire delivery was directly modelled on what Miranda heard in his favourite rappers.
He peppered in references to the Notorious BIG, Mobb Deep and DMX throughout the musical, obtaining clearances so audiences understood the specific homages being paid. These weren't vague stylistic borrowings, they were deliberate credited tributes.
The core creative team for the stage musical came together fairly quickly because most of them had worked together before on in the Heights, including Lin Manuel Miranda, director Thomas Kail, choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler, musical supervisor Alex Lacamoire, costume designer Paul Tazewell and lighting designer Howell Binkley.
Lacamore served as Hamilton's orchestrator, arranger, musical director, conductor and keyboard player and also produced the Grammy winning cast album. His role is genuinely hard to overstate. Miranda brought the songs, Lackamore built the sound.
ment in the production of the:Ahmir Questlove Thompson and Tariq Black Thought Trotter of the Roots, the influential Philadelphia hip hop group and house band for the Tonight show, saw Hamilton before it came to Broadway and and they were taken with it and chose to produce the official cast album purely based on the strength of the music. Lacrimore spent around a month and a half working with Questlove and Black Thought, recording and mixing the cast recording.
Questlove's endorsement was unequivocal. He would say, quote, to be hip hop is much more than just rapping in the production, it's more in the attitude.
A couple of years ago when the musical Fella was first out, I was amazed that something that raw, that uncut, got past the guard and actually got made. And I thought, similar to Obama, this is going to be a once in a lifetime thing. And then along comes Hamilton.
Like dude, finally a reason to come to Broadway. First authentic hip hop show.
Black Thought was interested specifically in how Hamilton could bridge generational and ideological divisions in hip hop's audience, as well as between theatre goers with conflicting political positions. Miranda is Puerto Rican. Hip hop was created by black artists.
A Latino man writing a show in a black art form and winning enormous acclaim for it is a question worth asking, but Miranda completely acknowledges criticisms and has consistently credited his black influences explicitly rather than obscuring them. QuestLove and Black Thought's involvement is a genuine signal of how the hip hop community at large received the work.
It's two of the most respected figures in black American music actively choosing to attach themselves to the project.
One person who was new to the team for Hamilton was David Korins, who designed the elaborate set, which included wooden scaffolding, a wood floor, coils and lengths of rope.
The most complex elements are rising walls and a double turntable, a setup that includes a ring independently orbiting around an inner rotating floor. Korins' initial instinct for the turntable came from the show's thematic DNA.
He was struck by the circular movement inherent to the show, from the literal hurricane that devastated Hamilton's homeland to his tempestuous relationships with his political nemeses, to his cyclical relationship with Aaron Burr. The turntable physicalises both the same cinematic nature of the show and the whirling nature of Hamilton's story.
Korins' historical research was meticulous. He visited both the Schuyler house in Albany and the 18th century Fraunces Tavern in Lower Manhattan.
The chandelier in Hamilton's tavern scene is inspired by one he saw there.
Every object on set, including quill, pens and inkwells, letters, candles, and even the colour of the champagne in a ballroom scene, is historically accurate. He also considered 33 different shades of brick before settling on the right one. The brick walls actually ascend eight feet.
Between the first and second acts of the show, a few carefully selected props change from rifles and buckets to maps and books as the story moves from revolution to governance. The biggest design challenge was representing each of the many locations on stage without overloading the show. With unnecessary necessary scenery.
Across nearly three hours, 30 years and 46 musical numbers, Hamilton takes its audience from interior spaces to battlefields all around New York City.
Costume designer Paul Tazewell, who's featured on this podcast before for his costume work on Spielberg's west side Story, is also part of the show's diverse creative identity. Being a gay black man Before Tazewell drew a single scale sketch, he and director Thomas Kail wanted to answer a fundamental question.
Was this a filmic recreation of the American Revolution with period accurate costuming? Or did the contemporary sound and storytelling of the show demand something a bit more modern? Street clothing, contemporary fashion?
And in reality, it was a mixture of both.
Tazewell collected an expansive array of images of 18th century clothing appropriate for the characters, including portraits painted of the Founding Fathers and their contemporaries.
He also pulled contemporary fashion images that carried a style influence inspired by the 18th century while maintaining a modern sensibility, including work by John Galliano and Alexander McQueen and paintings by Kehinda Wiley. The breakthrough came during the staged reading at the Public Theatre before the Off Broadway production.
Tazewell and Kale decided to simply put the cast in period costumes from the Public Theatre's extensive costume stock and see what the show felt like. The goal was to have a look that felt clean and held together, and the result was clarifying.
A period silhouette felt right, but a design rule was agreed. Period from the neck down, contemporary from the neck up. And in practice, this meant no 18th century wigs.
The cast wore their own hair or hair that reflected their natural texture and contemporary styling. For Daveed Diggs as Lafayette, his hair is worn back in a ponytail, mimicking the style of the 18th century but more modern.
With his curly hair as Jefferson, his hair is released and allowed to be as explosive and fabulous as the way he plays the role. And that single design choice does enormous work.
It makes the cast legible as themselves and contemporary people, even as they inhabit 18th century silhouettes.
One of the most conceptually rich details in the whole production is the neutral base for the ensemble, becoming the visual metaphor of parchment, the paper that Hamilton was creating his life with. That then provided a base to which, more specifically representative pieces could be added by colour and style.
And it meant the ensemble members playing multiple roles could add and subtract pieces from the base, such as adding a skirt, for example.
The fabric choices are all of the period, but the detailing is stripped down to make it feel more modern, with no patterns or embroidery other than for King George, who has the most elaborate and detailed costume. His over decorated costume visually isolates himself as someone trapped in the old order. As part of the British Empire.
He can't move the way the rest of the cast moves. Literally and figuratively, he's left behind. While the new colonies flourish with independence and the period costumes move with time.
ould have been popular in the:They needed to be in coats that made them look like American soldiers. The women needed to be in ball dresses that are really just a skirt added on top of their corset.
But the costume changes needed to happen seamlessly, considering how short the transitions are.
Tazewell couldn't use authentic 18th century construction methods because the cast had to change in seconds, dance for three hours and perform eight shows a week.
Speaking of the cast, there was no role that had a specific look or type attached to it, so casting directors were able to see people for their talent, figure out who seemed right for the different characters and who brought them to life.
The team came from a place of finding musical theatre performers they loved and seeing who could rap, then going in the other direction and finding rappers and seeing who could sing and act.
Leslie Odom Jr. Was deeply attached to the material, having attended an early informal reading of the show's first act and aggressively pursued the role of Aaron Burr.
Daveed Diggs could rap at a blistering pace and was invited to participate in the early Hamilton Mixtape workshops, which ended him landing the roles of Lafayette and Jefferson.
Pierre and the great comet of:Jonathan Groff didn't originate the role of King George III off Broadway.
t the Public Theatre in early: s Theatre on Broadway in July:Jonathan Groff's King George Camp petulant imperial being the only white principle is not accidental.
Director Thomas Kail was unambiguous about authorial intent, stating it is essential to the storytelling of Hamilton that the principal roles which were written for non white characters be performed by non white actors. Unquote. And it's a rule every performance of Hamilton has followed. But there is a direct criticism of the casting in Hamilton.
Historian Lyra Monteiro points out that despite the predominant cast of colour, it's still white history, and that no amount of casting people of colour disguises the fact that they're erasing people of colour from the actual narrative. As I mentioned, the only character of colour in the narrative is the blink and you'll miss it.
Inclusion of Sally Hemings, who was a slave owned by Thomas Jefferson. True fact. Her brother James Hemings, who was a chef also owned by Jefferson, introduced macaroni and cheese to the US.
ntually freed by Jefferson in:In reality, thousands of people of colour participated in the Revolutionary War either as soldiers, groomsmen or spies. Hercules Mulligan's slave Cato gathered intelligence through his connections as well as clients at his tailoring shop.
He carried the information to Continental army officers and other revolutionaries, including Alexander Hamilton and George Washington. Cato's messages are credited with saving Washington's life on at least two occasions after the war.
Cato was granted his freedom in return for his service. The lives of the people of color who existed at the time aren't featured at all.
February: August: It also received the: ibbean island of Nevis around:He was the illegitimate son of a Scottish immigrant physician father and a British West Indian mother. He was raised in poverty in the Caribbean and orphaned at a young age. He was sent by sponsors to New York to receive an education.
In:From New York, he co wrote the Federalist Papers in support of the Constitution and became the first Secretary of the treasury during President Washington's administration. As Secretary he organized the national bank, the first US Monetary system, the tax system and the Customs Service and established the national debt.
The Federalist Papers alone are an extraordinary achievement. Hamilton co authored them along with James Madison and John Jay, writing 51 of the 85 essays himself.
They remain a cornerstone of American political and constitutional thought. He was an immigrant. He came from nothing. And yet in this United States of America he could become someone the ultimate American dream.
But the musical omits certain key information on Hamilton's very character. It portrays him as essentially abolitionist, and that reading largely follows Chernow's biography.
But the historical picture is considerably more complicated.
links to the slave trade. In:General Philip Schuyler, father of Hamilton's wife Eliza, enslaved as many as 27 people. He was the largest owner of enslaved people in the city during this time.
So much so that in:Research by Albany writer and historian Jesse Serfillipi challenges the often repeated claim that Hamilton's exposure to the brutalities of slavery during his childhood on St. Croix instilled a hatred of slavery, saying no primary sources have ever been found to corroborate this.
Serfilippi's paper argues that not only did Alexander Hamilton instead enslaved people, but his involvement in the institution of slavery was essential to his identity, both personally and professionally.
Evidence from his own accounts suggests he paid $250 to his father in law, Philip Schuyler, for, quote, two Negro servants purchased by him for me, unquote. Hamilton was indeed a founding member of the New York Manumission Society, which advocated for the emancipation participation of the enslaved.
However, he often acted as a legal arbiter for others in the transactions of people in bondage, meaning he was in effect a slave trader, a fact overlooked by some historians. The fact is that most of the founding fathers owned slaves. Thomas Jefferson was a slaver. George Washington and Lafayette also were.
Even Abraham Lincoln, the president who abolished slavery and won the Civil War, and Ulysses S. Grant, the general who fought it, have also come under renewed scrutiny due to the ubiquitous nature of slavery during the colonial period and the early American republic.
, tweets about the subject in:Clayton acknowledged the complicated nature of the debate, which highlights a story told by people of color but focuses on real historical figures who enslaved black people or benefited from the system in some way. Her post read, quote, I really like that this conversation is happening.
Hamilton, the play and the movie were given to us in two different worlds and are willing to kindness. To interrogate things in this way feels like a clear sign of change. Unquote. Miranda replied, quote all the criticisms are valid.
The sheer tonnage of complexities and failings of these people I couldn't get or wrestled with. But cut. I took six years and fit as much as I could in a 2.5 hour musical. Did my best. It's all fair game. Unquote.
So Hamilton was possibly a slave owner and he was also an adulterer and a public one.
Many powerful men had mistresses, but few openly admitted their infidelities Hamilton's decision to publish an explainer detailing his affair with Mariah Reynolds is based on a real historical event and likely the first political sex scandal in the us. The musical quotes directly from the actual Reynolds pamphlet, with some language updated for clarity.
As in the musical the Real Life Hamilton confessed to three men that he was guilty not of illegal financial speculation, but of paying hush money to James Reynolds, who extorted Hamilton under threat of publicising the affair with his wife Mariah. But in reality, it wasn't Thomas Jefferson, Aaron Burr and James Madison who confronted Hamilton.
It was House Speaker Frederick Muhlenberg, Representative Abraham Venable of Virginia, and future President James Monroe. Eliza Hamilton really did burn all of his letters.
No one knows what she thought of his affair or the Reynolds pamphlet, but she really did remove herself from the narrative. The letters Eliza burns during Burn on Stage are actually cursive transcripts of the real letters between Eliza and Alexander.
They're on a type of paper that burns for around 2 minutes and 9 seconds. This is so the flame is not noticeable while Eliza is on stage, but extinguishes so she can exit in a blackout at the end of the song.
sh born John barker Church in:We know Angelica was important to the Revolution. She was celebrated in Federalist circles on both sides of the Atlantic.
She was close friends with Thomas Jefferson and corresponded with him extensively, and her salon in London was a gathering point for American and European elites. Her relationship with Hamilton was genuinely warm and possibly flirtatious, though historians debate how far that went.
She operated at the edges of political power at a time when women had no formal access to it. The Schuyler sisters also did have brothers, a fact that Miranda said he forgot and the defining moment that seals Alexander's fate.
The endorsement of Thomas Jefferson over Aaron Burr was very real in that Hamilton lobbied the House of Representatives to back Jefferson, but he wasn't the deciding vote. Jefferson didn't win solely because of Hamilton, nor was it a landslide.
It also wasn't the so called endorsement that inspired the Hamilton bird duel.
become New York's governor in:And I would be remiss if I didn't actually mention the movie part of Hamilton and why it went from a Broadway hit to a movie version, or at least a filmed version of the show. And there's a very simple reason for it, but it's probably not the reason you think.
By the summer of:But the relentless pace of eight performances a week was taking its toll, and in June, Lin Manuel Miranda, Philippa Soo, Leslie Odom Jr. And most of the other major cast members announced they would be leaving the show the following month.
th June: o departed in March and April:Jonathan Groff, who departed the role of King George III in April and was replaced by Rory o', Malley, returned to reprise his role for the June shoot. There were no reshoots of the material, there was no going back, and it inspired a certain kind of creativity.
a was originally filmed for a: editing the footage in autumn:Kayla Miranda didn't want to decrease the value of those productions by releasing a filmed version, so they decided to put it on hold. They literally said, wait for it, wait for it.
They still shopped the film around Hollywood at the time, and the reaction was overwhelming from major studios, but they turned everyone down. They said no to every offer to protect the theatrical performance performances, not rushing to monetize the film.
It wasn't until: In:A deal was negotiated between Endeavour content, and Walt Disney Pictures president Sean Bailey and the show's producers and creators agreed to sell the film rights to Disney for $75 million.
Disney had acquired in March:This would be a live theatrical experience, bringing the original Broadway company of Hamilton to the largest audience possible. Not everyone could afford $500 theatre tickets, the sort of prices Hamilton was commanding on Broadway.
Access was the explicit priority here, not prestige, not profit. Although of course the profit was nice. Deadline reported the deal as potentially the most expensive single film acquisition in Hollywood history.
isney owns the movie Hamilton: But then: ail and Lin manuel Miranda in: July:To accommodate the change, a percentage of the profits were restructured to benefit not just Miranda and the cast, but the institution that first developed the show, the non profit public theatre where Hamilton was developed. It was released on 3 July to fully benefit from the US's 244th anniversary of independence and 4 July weekend.
On the weekend of Hamilton's release, the Disney plus app was downloaded over 266,000 times, a 72% increase from the past four weeks. Total analytics provider Samba TV reported that 2.7 million US household households streamed Hamilton in its first 10 days on Disney Plus.
In August: th September September:But I guess now is the perfect time to segue into the obligatory Keanu reference of this episode, and if you don't know what that is, it's where I try and link every movie or every stage show. This is the first one to Keanu Reeves for no reason other than he is the best of men and probably also the best of wives and best of women too.
Now, while Keanu isn't in the musical Hamilton, he made headlines when he was spotted in the audience.
during his performance at the:I would highly recommend finding that on the Internet On Rotten Tomatoes, Hamilton has a rating of 98% with a consensus of look around, look around at how beautifully Hamilton shines beyond Broadway and how marvelously Thomas Kail captures the scene.
th July:Disney included Hamilton in its awards consideration campaign and submitted the film to every organisation and award guild, regardless of apparent eligibility. Unlike the Academy, the Golden Globe Awards and the SAG Awards have no specific restrictions against film theatre and thus recognize the film.
Hamilton was nominated for two Golden Globe Awards for Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy and Best Actor, Musical or Comedy for Lin Manuel Miranda. The movie lost to Borat's subsequent movie film and Miranda lost to Sacha Baron Cohen.
Daveed Diggs was nominated for a SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television movie or limited series. He would lose to Mark Ruffalo for I Know this Much Is True.
Hamilton was also nominated for nine Primetime Emmys winning Outstanding Variety Special pre recorded and it was nominated for three Primetime Creative Arts semis winning for Outstanding Technical Direction and Camera Work for a special 250 years ago, immigrants created America. 250 Years sounds like a long time, but it's actually not.
The United States at 250is younger than many of the world's universities, younger than the construction of St. Paul's Cathedral. Rome was a republic for 500 years before it became an empire. China's Imperial history spans millennia.
Even within the Americas, indigenous civilizations predate the Republic by thousands of years, a fact the anniversary celebrations largely struggle to accommodate. And yet, in 250 years, the United States has produced the world's dominant economy, military and cultural export machine, Hamilton.
The show is itself a part of that cultural export. Performed in Broadway and the West End, toured globally, streamed in 190 countries on Disney Plus.
The story of a Caribbean immigrant who helped build America is now an American product sold back to the world. It's especially poignant when we look at America 250 years later and see immigrants being vilified just for being immigrants.
That's what happens when you have a president who cares more about his own self interests over the best interests of the nation he's supposed to be serving. You could argue that America has come a long way in 250 years, but it's also regressed over recent years.
And the 250th anniversary celebrations reflect the partisan nature of America today.
Less about the 250 years of the country's independence and more about placating one man's desire to have a blue pool and watch grown men get sweaty in a ring.
April:Donald Trump fired the center's president, replaced the board of trustees and named himself chairman, and the newly appointed Trump board renamed it the Trump Kennedy Center. In response, Miranda and lead producer Jeffrey Cellar announced that Hamilton would not perform.
Miranda said in response, quote, this latest action by Trump means it's not the Kennedy center as we knew it. The Kennedy center was not created in this spirit and we're not going to be a part of it.
While it is the Trump Kennedy Center, a court has since ordered it cannot be named after Donald Trump, and it is now back to the Kennedy Center. But Hamilton, a story about the founding of America and the celebration of immigrant exceptionalism isn't in it.
I chose Hamilton for this episode on purpose. This was no accident.
It was the only time I could legitimately get away with talking about a movie, about a stage show, and it's the only time I can't include a single cast performed clip because music from a recorded cast album is a guaranteed copyright strike. I've tried to get round it as best I can.
There's an irony about Hamilton, the stage show, how it focuses on a penniless orphan's opportunity to succeed. And yet you had to have plenty of disposable income to buy even the cheapest tickets.
That's why the Disney plus release was so important to its visibility. Suddenly those who don't have a dollar to their name can see it.
Having a theatrical performance, performance like this, made available to the majority of people is a great thing. But to talk about Hamilton is to talk about its many, many positives. It is musically and lyrically incredibly well made.
The cast is phenomenally talented. How they all memorize the complex raps and songs over the runtime is incredible.
And it gives a good rounded history of the creation of the United States, what that took and what it cost and the fundamentals. Italy. This was a young, scrappy and hungry country full of opportunists, mostly immigrants wanting a better life.
Hamilton's father, James Hamilton, was the fourth son of the Laird of Grange and was of Scottish descent. His mother, Rachel Fawcett, was of French Huguenot and English descent.
Alexander Hamilton may not have been a person of color in real life, despite some speculation to the contrary due to his illegitimate birth. But.
But there are rumours that likely stem from the one drop rule, which was a racial classification from the 20th century, that any African ancestry, even generations back, meant a person was considered black. But this classification didn't exist in 18th century America. So Hamilton is considered to be a white immigrant born in the West Indies.
And immigrants, they get the job done. The founding fathers, the leaders, the commanders, the high class citizens were all white men.
But the story of America's founding belongs to everyone and not just the white men who were historically in power. In the late 18th century, women also had very few rights. They truly did live in a world where their only job was to marry rich.
But Alexander Hamilton died when he was either 47 or 49. As I said, because he his birth date was disputed. So Eliza and Angelica were essentially the ones who told his story.
the Orphan asylum Society in:The New York Orphan Asylum Society continues to exist as a social service agency for children today.
Called Graham Wyndham despite his infidelities, she defended her late husband against his critics in a variety of ways following his death, including by supporting his claim of authorship of George Washington's Farewell Address and by requesting an apology from James Monroe over his accusations of financial improprietaries.
She reorganized all of his letters, papers and writings with the help of her son John Church Hamilton, and persevered through many setbacks in getting his biography published.
With his mother's help, John C. Hamilton would go on to publish History of the Republic of the United States of America as traced in the writings of Alexander Hamilton and his contemporaries. That's a mouthful. History of the Republic would set the bar for multiple future biographies of Alexander Hamilton that were written over time.
In June:That August, her request was granted and Congress bought and published Alexander's works, adding them to the Library of Congress, along with ensuring that his works were maintained and stored by the federal government. She remained dedicated to charity work.
abeth Skyler Hamilton died in:I don't know if you've realized, but I'm not American. But Hamilton makes me think about what it must be be like to be American and more importantly, what it means.
The anti racist protests for Black Lives Matter prove that America, but not just America, has a long way to go to truly eradicate racism. Alexander Hamilton as an immigrant, believed in his own voice and his own words and was given a platform by which to speak.
Today's immigrants may have more representation in power, but their fate remains unclear. Especially when you can be arrested now for just being the wrong colour, even if you're an American citizen or not.
But even the British representation we get speaks to the power and politics associated with colonialism. And what happens when you're just a king whose favourite colony decides to up and leave.
Everyone shines in this musical, but I adore Daveed Diggs as Jefferson, Philippa sue as Eliza and Renee Elise Goldsberry as Angelica. Side note, if you haven't seen Girls 5 ever, it's on Netflix. That series is so much fun and Goldsberry is brilliant in it.
You can love something and critique it. It can be artistically brilliant and problematic. The two aren't mutually exclusive.
Hamilton the show, much like Hamilton the Man was a product of his time of capitalism, of racism, of misogyny. Hamilton the Show Much like Hamilton the man was a revolution and a revelation. There are shades of grey and subtle nuances.
I've seen many a discussion thread that suggests the show should never have been made, as well as seeing others state it's the greatest show ever produced.
Both opinions matter when we're talking about a man who did much to create the USA of today, as well as being a man who was problematic and lived during problematic times.
's not just the legacy of the:With the midterm elections looming and 250 years of a country that at one point literally was the dream of many immigrants, it's slowly but surely becoming a nightmare if you're black or brown, if you're lgbtq, if you're a woman who wants autonomy over her body.
Against Today's backdrop, the 250th celebrations come with the normalising of white supremacist rhetoric, the gutting of the Voting Rights act, and the threat of removing birthright citizenship. So to America, if history is written by the Victoria 250 years after the Declaration of Independence, who lives, who dies? Who tells your story?
Thank you for listening. As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on Hamilton and thank you for your continued support of this podcast.
Next episode from the 250th anniversary of independence in the US to the 350th episode of this podcast. Damn, that went quickly. Help me listeners. You're my only hope in a couple of weeks.
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If you want to get in touch, you can email verbaldioramail.com you can also go to verbaldiorama.com and you can fill out the contact form. You could say hello, you can give feedback, or you can give suggestions as well. I would genuinely love to hear from you.
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Thanks again for listening and thanks for supporting independent podcasting. It means more to us than you know. And finally, happy 250th year of independence, United States of America from me and from my cats, Evie. Bye.
Movie should know. Movie should know. Movie should know.
