HAMILTON!

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I'd give it a watch before dismissing it (if you haven't). For one, it takes aim at slavery plenty. For another, if the people of history are going to be subject to our changing standards, no one will ever be praised, and that includes you, me, and all the people we think we admire today.

All that's required is that we not deify people or conveniently ignore the problems of their time that they failed to breach the orbit of, and I don't think Hamilton does either. It's a little off to have the titular character take others to ask for it, but I think having that telling-off happen at all is a reasonable solution to such a tricky problem.



If I had the chance to see either Chicago or Les Mis on stage, I would TOTALLY grab the opportunity! Of course, at this point in time, that ain't happening any time soon, is it? [/quote]


I recommend Chicago



Genuinely one of the worst things I've ever been roped into watching. There were times I actually could not look at the TV because my head would just turn away out of an overwhelming and inexplicable feeling of embarrassment for everyone involved..



I'd give it a watch before dismissing it (if you haven't). For one, it takes aim at slavery plenty. For another, if the people of history are going to be subject to our changing standards, no one will ever be praised, and that includes you, me, and all the people we think we admire today.

All that's required is that we not deify people or conveniently ignore the problems of their time that they failed to breach the orbit of, and I don't think Hamilton does either. It's a little off to have the titular character take others to ask for it, but I think having that telling-off happen at all is a reasonable solution to such a tricky problem.
"That's probably true, but we won't hear a thing, we'll be long gone. Besides, what would posterity think we were? Demi-gods? We're men, no more no less, trying to get a nation started against greater odds than a more generous God would have allowed. First things first, John. Independence; America. If we don't secure that, what difference will the rest make?"
- Ben Franklin 1776 (the musical)



Yes I LOVE musicals that glorify slave owners!! 🙌
Like ALL historical characters, Hamilton, Washington, etc were a mix of things they did right and other things they did wrong. They did not create the world they lived in and didn't have the advantage of being able to sit on a moral high-horse and judge people from long ago, who are dead who can't respond. History is generally very messy, never has a certain outcome, but sometimes, it makes a good show. In the case of Hamilton, both the man and the show, his strange place in history makes good subject matter for doing something like this that breaks the pretensions of conventional historical drama where these characters would be treated like historical icons from a museum.



Yeah, imagine anyone you admire right now. Now fast-forward 200 years and imagine someone ripping them to pieces because they didn't do enough to prevent animal cruelty in slaughterhouses, or something else that future societies might judge harshly which sit more in the background of our culture today. If you're comfortable with that, fair enough, but the implication of this is that nobody should ever be held up as an example. Otherwise, it makes sense to simply note the moral blind spots each culture has and judge them within that to some degree.

Leave room for grace.



Yeah, imagine anyone you admire right now. Now fast-forward 200 years and imagine someone ripping them to pieces because they didn't do enough to prevent animal cruelty in slaughterhouses, or something else that future societies might judge harshly which sit more in the background of our culture today. If you're comfortable with that, fair enough, but the implication of this is that nobody should ever be held up as an example. Otherwise, it makes sense to simply note the moral blind spots each culture has and judge them within that to some degree.

Leave room for grace.
For example - right now, I condemn everyone on TV and in the movies in the 60's who smoked on screen!



Yeah, imagine anyone you admire right now. Now fast-forward 200 years and imagine someone ripping them to pieces because they didn't do enough to prevent animal cruelty in slaughterhouses, or something else that future societies might judge harshly which sit more in the background of our culture today. If you're comfortable with that, fair enough, but the implication of this is that nobody should ever be held up as an example. Otherwise, it makes sense to simply note the moral blind spots each culture has and judge them within that to some degree.

Leave room for grace.
I get this, but also there are admirable people from every time period. I personally don’t consider the men in Hamilton admirable.



I get this, but also there are admirable people from every time period.
Maybe. Or maybe you just don't know about their misdeeds. And maybe history and a shifting culture have yet to pull a 180 on them. Maybe their legacy is going to suffer the same fate given a long enough time frame. That's kinda the point.

I personally don’t consider the men in Hamilton admirable.
I'm not sure this really addresses anything being said, which is specifically about the necessity of parsing admiration, rather than trying to sum up every person and labeling them either good or bad, regardless of culture or context, and not tolerating any depiction that doesn't square with that polarity.

We all like to imagine that we'd be one of the good ones, one of the ones to see the arc of history while we're sitting on it, but I think history shows us that's not often true. I hope you and I are judged more thoughtfully than the people we judge.

I'm also not sure why admiration is a prerequisite for watching or enjoying the play or film. There's a lot to learn from flawed people. Maybe more than the (seemingly) purer ones.



Maybe. Or maybe you just don't know about their misdeeds. And maybe history and a shifting culture have yet to pull a 180 on them. Maybe their legacy is going to suffer the same fate given a long enough time frame. That's kinda the point.


I'm not sure this really addresses anything being said, which is specifically about the necessity of parsing admiration, rather than trying to sum up every person and labeling them either good or bad, regardless of culture or context, and not tolerating any depiction that doesn't square with that polarity.

We all like to imagine that we'd be one of the good ones, one of the ones to see the arc of history while we're sitting on it, but I think history shows us that's not often true. I hope you and I are judged more thoughtfully than the people we judge.

I'm also not sure why admiration is a prerequisite for watching or enjoying the play or film. There's a lot to learn from flawed people. Maybe more than the (seemingly) purer ones.
That’s a lot of maybes....

And all I’m saying is that it humanizes slave owners. Whether or not it glorifies them, I don’t really have an interest. I totally get it if people enjoy it though, and I get that I’m probably missing the bigger picture.



That’s a lot of maybes....
The maybes are to account for specific people, but the fact that history will render harsh new verdicts on old actions is pretty close to ironclad; it happens over and over, and no generation is spared. You have your glaring blind spots, right now, and I have mine. Guaranteed. It would be pure vanity to think otherwise. If we survive history's censure it will probably be incidental, and not down to our great virtue and historical foresight.

The standard you're advocating leaves it impossible to safely admire anyone who you share a general culture or time period with. Maybe you're okay with that, but that's what I'm trying to figure out, since you haven't really addressed it directly: whether you understand this implication, and accept it, or whether you actually believe that current generations are going be the only ones without moral blind spots, and the only ones to escape the wrath of hindsight.

And all I’m saying is that it humanizes slave owners.
A very odd objection, that we might inadvertently humanize...humans.

I don't think there's much downside to depicting slave owners as complicated and imperfect people. I do think there's a danger in treating them as sub-human, though, because it lets us feel as if we're of a different moral genus as them. It lets us imagine we're not capable of similar levels of inhumanity, because they weren't human. But they were, and we are.

Whether or not it glorifies them, I don’t really have an interest.
So, to be clear, you haven't seen it and don't really know if (or how much) it "glorifies" them?

Either way, I kind of posted a preemptive counter to this, so I guess I'll just highlight it:
I'm also not sure why admiration is a prerequisite for watching or enjoying the play or film. There's a lot to learn from flawed people. Maybe more than the (seemingly) purer ones.
I assume you've watched films about horrible people before, yeah? Pulp Fiction's protagonists are hit men!

I totally get it if people enjoy it though, and I get that I’m probably missing the bigger picture.
Hard to say. I'm not really clear on what your reasoning is, and how (or whether) you grapple with the objections that have been mentioned. I'm mostly just trying to figure out what the thought process behind this is. I assume/hope it's at least a little more sophisticated than "slavery is bad so I don't want to hear any story about a slave owner."



That’s a lot of maybes....

And all I’m saying is that it humanizes slave owners. Whether or not it glorifies them, I don’t really have an interest. I totally get it if people enjoy it though, and I get that I’m probably missing the bigger picture.
That might be the point. They were human just like the rest of us, not just cardboard cutouts with a Good or Evil sign on them. They grew up in a world that was larger than they were, played by the rules they knew in their time and place and didn't know what a moralizer would think of them a couple centuries out, since they had to live with their world as it was.



Yeah, it's pretty important that we remind ourselves that slave owners, Nazis, murderers, whatever...are all people. If not because they need our sympathy or compassion (though on some level maybe they all do), but simply so we don't fall into the trap of thinking "well, nobody twirling their mustache and cackling around me, so I guess I'm good." Evil almost never looks like that. It's often well-meaning, or just damaged. I think one of the better ways to prevent it is to be constantly reminded of how banal and common it is, and how all people are capable of it.



Hamilton himself is an interesting case because he was born into the West Indies slave culture and may (or may not) be from a mixed race mother. He had a very sketchy upbringing. He opposed slavery AND lived with it, but came to the US to get away from that culture, where things were a little bit better than the islands. Bringing this aspects of his background into the show indirectly by the casting seemed like a good way to address the uncertain aspects of his life and to bring the show to a wider audience.



nothing to rate it, pathetic and worthless
Do you have any tolerance for musicals? Why did you think it was pathetic and worthless? Some rationale would help. I see from your other posts that everything is bad. What do you get out of doing this?