On Wednesday, Jeffrey Seller, producer of Broadway’s smash-hit Hamilton, announced the show would sever its long-standing ties with the Kennedy Center following the Trump administration’s takeover. The dismissal of several administrators caused Seller and Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda to conclude the center had lost its “neutrality” and “spirit of bipartisanship.”
It’s a ludicrous suggestion, of course. The Kennedy Center has long been a taxpayer-funded shrine to cultural progressivism, putting on shows such as the kid-centric Dragtastic Dress-up and Oh God, A Show About Abortion, which begins with the line, “My parents are very supportive. My mom texted me, ‘Kill it tonight!’ and I’m like, ‘I already did, that’s why the show exists.’”
Seller’s statement drew justified fire from conservatives. But it also triggered petty potshots at Hamilton itself.
“I am proud I never fell for the Hamilton hoax. I have literally never heard a single note of this cringefest,” wrote acerbic conservative essayist Peachy Keenan. “Can we stop doing the ‘thugged-out black dudes wearing breeches and waistcoats’ thing please? Get a new anachronism, hacks.”
With all due respect to Keenan, this is a pretty misguided take. It’s the kind of Golden Age, woke-right virtue signaling that will be cringey in a matter of years, if not months.
And worse for the MAGA-loving Keenan, it misses an opportunity to celebrate a cultural phenomenon that led directly to the vibe shift that’s currently ripping through the zeitgeist.
Picture this: It’s 2015. The College Board has just revised the AP U.S. History (APUSH) curriculum to deemphasize the heroism of the Founding Fathers and American exceptionalism and cast America as defined by oppression rather than liberty. The recent death of Michael Brown, which is (and continues to be) misrepresented in the media, has given rise to the Black Lives Matter movement. Monuments of the founders are targeted for vandalism, and numerous cultural institutions are pressured to remove names such as Washington, Madison, and Jefferson from their buildings. Teacher training programs are beginning to adopt concepts and language from something called “Critical Race Theory,” such as “institutional racism” and “white privilege.” Students are increasingly taught what to think about these issues instead of how to think about them, which always boils down to the idea that America is inherently evil.
But at the very same time, in early 2015, a smash-hit Broadway musical debuts that reveres the heroism of the Founding Fathers, humanizing them in a way that emphasizes their courage, dynamism, and exceptional genius. And while it doesn’t shy away from discussing the darker aspects of some of the Founding Fathers — especially Jefferson, who, after all, did own and enslave over 600 people, including his own children, whom he regularly flogged and had sexual relations with — the show, called Hamilton, stresses their virtues.
In Hamilton, George Washington is portrayed as a towering and mythic figure who becomes a father figure for the brash and impetuous Alexander Hamilton. He is revered by the soldiers he commands, and his stoic bravery serves as the moral backbone of the revolution. It’s a stark contrast from the way he is presented in the new APUSH curriculum, which examines Washington’s legacy in terms of “identity” and “power dynamics.”
The revolution itself is portrayed glowingly in Hamilton, despite a few stray mentions of the moral ambiguities that arose from slavery. The heroism of Hamilton and his friends, which begins with booze fests at taverns, party crashing, and skirt-chasing, is a testosterone-fueled thrill ride set to an infectiously catchy “pump you up” rap soundtrack. Scores of young men, starved for any celebration of masculinity in the early woke period, come to memorize every bar about the warrior ethos and brotherhood and honor. It is, perhaps, their only point of encounter with these themes in popular culture.
“Raise a glass to freedom,” they shout to one another at fraternity parties. “Something they could never take away, no matter what they tell you!”
The show, which eventually becomes the highest-charting cast album since Hair in 1969, is ridiculed by woke academics. They call it a “musical about the mythology of the ruling class.” They say it obscures the “white supremacist origins of our country.” They call it an extension of “Founders Chic” that, through its all-minority cast, reinforces a “whitewashed” version of America to a new generation.
GRENELL SLAMS HAMILTON MUSICAL AS INTOLERANT
This is nonsense, of course. Hamilton simply gave some of the most important men in the history of Western civilization their due for turning the world upside down. And this, in turn, planted a seed in many young men to eventually spurn the wokeism of their youth. They may not have realized it at the time — indeed, they probably fancied themselves enlightened for the sheer fact of embracing the all-minority cast — but through embracing the themes of Hamilton, they internalized the very values that would lead them to support President Donald Trump in record numbers.
To the Keenans of the world: Leave the rap out of it. Leave out even the “thugged-out black dudes wearing breeches and waistcoats” if that makes you comfortable. Hamilton helped revive a culture CRT tried to bury. And for this, Miranda and Co. deserve credit, whether they want it or not.