I am begging you to let Hamilton die
or more accurately to stop dragging its corpse
Liberal America, I come before you today, a little bit hung-over from the Emmys, with one simple request: please let Hamilton die. I have just been forced to endure seeing this historically airbrushed monstrosity of Broadway win an Emmy.
An Emmy. For a Broadway show. Which came out six years ago.
Listen, I get it. It makes a certain subset of well-off white liberals feel very fuzzy inside to reimagine a bunch of slave-rapers as a diverse group of young rebels with good intentions. It lets you off the hook for all that capital — economic, political, and social — you’ve built up on the backs of people who look like the cast of Hamilton. You even get to pat yourself on the back for finally liking rap music!
The icing on the cake is that when it comes time to give out awards, you’ve got the Green Book of musical theater ready and waiting to hand a bunch of trophies to without rattling the status quo. Did artists of color create a subversive work of genre television which directly implicates white liberals in their continued oppression? No need to worry! Just record Hamilton for distribution through the largest entertainment conglomerate in the world and nominate it alongside that scary newer work. Hand it another award at the end of the night and use that as a…
