Thinking back? it’s shocking Hamilton was a real musical— and a popular one! It’s almost too transparent with its weird liberal post-racial subtexts. The entire concept? a hot mess. But no one said “no. we are not doing this!”
The American zeitgeist had a hunger in that moment. Like John Henry & Joe Magarac… & the boy George Washington who could not tell a lie— we desperately needed a less ugly history for what looked to be (in the eyes of liberals) a nation that might just be cool after all.
I think everyone has mostly come out of that haze of thinking America could be cool. We produce cool. It’s our most popular export. But the nation is not and never will *be* cool.
@futurebird Personally I think of Lin Manuel Miranda as on track to becoming the next generation LeVar Burton: someone who started off in the pose of a hot young truth-teller about American history but who quickly finds his most enduring contributions in children's media.
