Whenever Broadway has a new show that isn’t derived from an Eighties movie or any other decade, I’m thrilled. It is hard to get an original idea to take off in any media these days because too many accountants are in charge and I think audiences’ intelligence is low balled by risk-averse executives. My applause for Hamilton was short lived though. I can live with the (c)Rap Music and the diverse cast is perfectly fine. What annoys me to no end is the hagiography of Alexander Hamilton for he was Bernie Madoff in his day, especially with how he screwed over hundreds as America’s first Treasury Secretary.
So I was thrilled that the New York Times finally publishing an article stating the inaccuracies about Alexander Hamilton and the events in the musical. They consulted actual Historians who sat through the Disney+ presentation. What a relief! After reading this I felt mostly vindicated since I’ve never hid my disdain for the man who put the club on the steering wheel of Democracy through the Electoral College. Plus, I’ve read biographies about Washington and Adams, neither made Hamilton look great; with the former he’s an ass kisser and the latter an antagonist despite being in the same economic-political camp.
Sadly, I fear the damage has been done for a generation. Audiences are more open to new stories and have the intelligence to understand something “complicated” as I said earlier. The downside is they’re gullible enough to think what they’re presented is true. Much of Hamilton is bullshit for the real man was a social-climbing aristocratic wannabe wanting to set up America into a rival monarchy (to the established ones in Europe). He didn’t have a problem with slavery too, another fact left-leaning Mills and Gen Zs will overlook. Now he’s getting an undeserved pedestal alongside Tricky Dick and St. Reagan.