Hamilton: A Cultural Artifact

by Bella Loutfi & Abigail Zaccari

Hamilton has been the hardest show to get tickets to on Broadway since it opened in 2015. It was a smash hit receiving praise from critics and breaking box office records. It received sixteen Tony nominations, winning eleven of them, including Best Musical, and also received a Grammy and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama that same year. Since then the show has opened in Chicago and began its first United States National Tour, both of which have sold just as well, if not better, than the Broadway run. Why do people love this show so much? Why has it done so well not just in the theatre community, but outside of it as well? Hamilton: An American Musical gave us a new take on the story of our Founding Fathers using a diverse cast, strong women, and music that ranges from hip hop to the sounds of classic show tunes.

Hamilton is known for it’s use of color blind casting. Our Founding Fathers, who were white men, are now portrayed by people of color. The only featured white actor portrays the enemy of our Founders, King George III. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s goal was to give a fresh look at America’s past by using the people of America’s present, making the story more relatable to contemporary audiences. This was an intentional decision made by Miranda, who wanted to make the story of our nation’s birth something that everyone can relate to---especially the younger, non-white generation. This casting choice is important in our day in age with all of the racial issues in America. In the entertainment industry the lack of representation has become a hot topic in recent years. Miranda has used his show to give opportunities to actors of color that wouldn’t have otherwise been there.

       

Along with race, the show also highlights immigration. The story is literally about an immigrant who came to the United States seeking a better life and then ended up helping to build the nation. Miranda, like many Americans, has seen firsthand what it is like to be an immigrant in America. His father left Puerto Rico at age seventeen, and has worked to become a Democratic Political Consultant. The show emphasizes the fact that our country was built by immigrants, it’s one of the most important messages that Miranda is trying to get out. We live in a country where our president is suggesting we close our borders to immigrants coming in. Immigrants have been a core piece of America since the very beginning. America is known as the great melting pot. It’s the country people came to in hopes of living their dreams. Immigrants, like Alexander Hamilton himself, came here to live better lives. Hamilton wants us to remember we are a country of immigrants and we have been since the very beginning.

The women in Hamilton are not the traditional colonial homemakers that we might envision them as. They don’t wear white wigs and they don’t sing about providing for their husbands. In fact, they sing about being independent and fighting for their rights. They are essentially the Destiny’s Child of 1776. While Lin-Manuel Miranda could’ve left them out, he chose to put them back in the story and give them a greater deal of importance. For example, Eliza is so much more than just Alexander Hamilton’s wife. Within the show, we learn that she opened a children’s orphanage and fought for the abolition of slavery. In fact, it isn’t just the inclusion of women in Hamilton that makes it so special, but it’s also the debate over whether Hamilton is Alexander’s story or Eliza’s. Yes, we know that Alexander has an entire song named after him and the bulk of the show comes from his point of view, but in the last few moments of the second act, Eliza is pushed forward as the ensemble sings the line, “Who tells your story?” One can’t help but wonder if the intention was to give her the final moment of the show and allow the story to become hers. The inclusion of strong, independent women is just another box ticked in the laundry list of relevant topics that Hamilton covers as it appeals to a vast array of audiences.

Hamilton can be credited with bringing rap and hip-hop into mainstream musical theatre. For decades, musical theatre has maintained its trademarked sound of brass and strings with the occasional electric guitar thrown in. Hamilton has tossed that mold out the window with turntables and complicated rapping rhythms. Hamilton has allowed musical theatre to progress with pop culture instead of maintaining is 100 year stasis. This show has been able to incorporate rap and hip-hop alongside its more traditional musical theatre songs. While we have songs like “My Shot” and the Cabinet Battles, we also get “You’ll Be Back” and “Burn.” The melting pot of genres we get to experience in Hamilton perfectly mirrors the origin story of America complete with men, women, and a whole lot of immigrants.

The show has given a platform to people of color that they didn’t have before. Between the success and popularity of the show, the diverse cast has the ability to have their voice heard and to represent their people, something that is rare in today’s world. Since the election of President Trump in 2016, the cast has used their platform to spread a message of love, equality, and strength. Following the election of our President, millions were in fear of what he would do, especially people of color. His campaign did just about anything but promote equality in America. In November 2016 Vice President Mike Pence visited the show, the cast used the opportunity to express their desire for our new President “to work on behalf of all Americans”. Brandon Victor Dixon, who was playing Aaron Burr at the time, acknowledged Vice President Pence’s presence at the show. He thanked him for coming before saying, “We, sir — we — are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights,” he said. “We truly hope that this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us.” They have also used their platform to pay tribute to things happening in America. Just a day after the tragic shooting in Orlando, the 2016 Tony’s were held. The cast took to the stage to perform the song Yorktown (The World Turned Upside Down), a number the ensemble usually performs holding prop guns. The number was done without the guns to honor those who had died the night before.

It is not difficult to understand why Hamilton has gained such popularity over the last year and a half. It finds a way to appeal to all genders, all races, from Selena Gomez to Mike Pence. Hamilton is a symbol of what is important today, even though it is set 1776-1804. It focuses on race, feminism, the absurdity of politics, and the ebb and flow of popular music. These are all topics that are increasingly relevant today. As Hamilton continues to sell out night after night in city after city, it offers a new perspective on the story we thought we knew so well: the story of us.

The Pop Culture of Jeans

by Joe Coates & Kaze Murego

One of the most notable fashion clothes in American culture is “Blue jeans”. Jeans has influenced so many Americans over time and have come a long way from being worn as work pants to a fashion necessity. We now wear jeans for different occasions with all types of colors, fits, and styles. Jeans has influenced the people of our era because of some associations that were given to jeans. Jeans add to our course conversation because everything is always being sold in some kind of way. The ads sell us extraordinary stories so we are convinced into buying the product. Advertisements also sell us imaginary lifestyles so we fell the need to buy certain things to look like certain celebrities or to have a specific swagger. If we understood pop culture, we would see that everything that we use, wear, and do is considered is influenced by the past. A lot of our activities have a long history behind just as blue jeans.

It all began in the 1850’s around the time of the California gold rush. Levi Strauss made work pants that were durable and sturdier for the miners. As his jeans gained more popularity, they became a daily wear for farmers, miners, lumberjacks, rancher, and cowboys. The pants were reputed to be tough, comfortable, and affordable. Although jeans were originally made for male workers, in the 1870’s, western women who worked alongside men began to wear men’s jeans. First, they started wearing jeans just as a sexual revolt, then they became sports clothes, and later used as casual wear. About Eighty years later, In the 1950’s actors and actresses began wearing, what they called, “Denim jeans”. Jeans started being worn by celebrities such as James Dean, Elvis Presley, and Marilyn Monroe. All in which were trendsetters for other celebrities and thousands maybe even millions of fans. In the 1970’s, designer jeans made an appearance in high-end shops. Calvin Klein promoted his jeans as refined sportswear. About ten years later other companies followed behind releasing jeans as a new natural style for our American community. In the 90’s, the style of jean started to impact our society in a great way. Baggy jeans wear associated with thugs or rappers and skinny jeans were for young white boys, or skateboarders. The different styles of jeans were each given a specific lifestyle that we all end up believing is true about our community.

It is safe to say that jeans are one of the major inventions that relate to American pop culture.  The American history itself explains well enough how jeans became a major role in the lives of Americans. With pop culture mostly aiming for the younger crowd,  jeans have really affected how people dress, carry themselves, and mostly how they all look at others based on their jeans. For example, baggy jeans are for tougher guys, while if you wear skinny jeans your sexual preference could be questioned. This goes to show how just like everything else that relates to pop culture it influences the communities’ mind on what they perceive that style is for specific social groups.

The evolution of jeans in American pop culture shows how consumerism has turned what was originally intended for the working class into a fashion necessity. 

The Name of the Game...

Hello and welcome to the ongoing class blog for the two sections of the Fall 2017 course "Pop Culture America" at Millikin University. In this course, which fits into the larger first-year Critical Writing, Reading, and Research sequence, my students and I explore the semiotics of American popular culture. That is, we are examining the many aspects of our entertainment and consumer culture, and asking questions about what these might signify in terms of our larger cultural values and norms.

As part of the class, we often read articles that discuss the "deeper meanings" behind our popular culture. But we also realize that popular culture is not just the subject matter of academic literature -- rather, it is the stuff of our everyday lives. Thus, in order to enrich and expand our class discussions, I have assigned my students to look to the popular culture that surrounds them for artifacts that they feel reveal something significant about who we are as a society and what we believe. I have asked them to "curate" these artifacts of pop culture: alongside the item itself -- be it song, film, advertisement, social media, etc. -- they are to explain the larger ideas they see at work in the object, and to discuss the implications of the values and norms they feel are being reflected and reinforced, whether for better or worse. This blog continues similar ventures from 2015 and 2016.

I look forward to what is to come in the following weeks and months. One of the great pleasures of teaching for me has always been how much I can also learn from my students, and I have high hopes that this project will offer me -- and all of us -- a deeper glimpse into how we relate to (and are shaped by) the ever-changing world of American popular culture.