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1. What's the deal with this canon anyway?
Hamilton is a hip-hop musical about, you guessed it, the life of Alexander Hamilton. It's "a story about America then, told by America now", and is based off of Ron Chernow's biography, which generally portrays Hamilton in a positive light.
Due to some of the anachronistic elements and multiple deviations from the historical Hamilton's life, I regard the canon itself as an AU.
2. The characters, including Hamilton, look and sound different from their historical counterparts. Why is that?
In short, the predominantly non-white cast reflects "America now", and also adds an extra layer of racial commentary on a meta level that wouldn't exist otherwise.
3. How is this going to be reflected in your threads?
The Founding Fathers are clearly white in the narrative, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. As far as I see it, it's not entirely different from performances like Star Trek in the Park, where anyone, regardless of race or gender, can play iconic characters like Spock or Kirk.
There are also renditions of Peter Pan where the titular character is obviously played by a woman, but there's no confusion among the characters or audience regarding whether Peter Pan is actually a boy or not. Lin-Manuel Miranda himself has said he would love to see community and high-school renditions of his musical cast women to play roles like Hamilton or Aaron Burr.
Based on these examples, I think it's pretty clear that the idea is that, although the narrative is fixed, the way we retell it doesn't have to be, and we can add more to a performance by watching other people portray iconic roles in their own way.
For that reason, Hamilton as a character is white, and other characters will perceive him as such. At the same time, I'm taking him from a canon in which he was portrayed on stage by Lin-Manuel Miranda, so this is naturally reflected in my icon choice.
4. Why all the modern vernacular? Can my character notice that?
It reflects the manner of speech used in the musical. Your character is absolutely free to point it out or notice in threads. ICly, Hamilton will readily chalk it up to his translation device parsing through whatever he's saying to make himself clearer/more relatable to his conversation partner.
5. Is there a way I can opt out of threading with Hamilton?
Sure! Just fill this out:
All comments to this post are screened.
Hamilton is a hip-hop musical about, you guessed it, the life of Alexander Hamilton. It's "a story about America then, told by America now", and is based off of Ron Chernow's biography, which generally portrays Hamilton in a positive light.
Due to some of the anachronistic elements and multiple deviations from the historical Hamilton's life, I regard the canon itself as an AU.
2. The characters, including Hamilton, look and sound different from their historical counterparts. Why is that?
In short, the predominantly non-white cast reflects "America now", and also adds an extra layer of racial commentary on a meta level that wouldn't exist otherwise.
3. How is this going to be reflected in your threads?
The Founding Fathers are clearly white in the narrative, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. As far as I see it, it's not entirely different from performances like Star Trek in the Park, where anyone, regardless of race or gender, can play iconic characters like Spock or Kirk.
There are also renditions of Peter Pan where the titular character is obviously played by a woman, but there's no confusion among the characters or audience regarding whether Peter Pan is actually a boy or not. Lin-Manuel Miranda himself has said he would love to see community and high-school renditions of his musical cast women to play roles like Hamilton or Aaron Burr.
Based on these examples, I think it's pretty clear that the idea is that, although the narrative is fixed, the way we retell it doesn't have to be, and we can add more to a performance by watching other people portray iconic roles in their own way.
For that reason, Hamilton as a character is white, and other characters will perceive him as such. At the same time, I'm taking him from a canon in which he was portrayed on stage by Lin-Manuel Miranda, so this is naturally reflected in my icon choice.
4. Why all the modern vernacular? Can my character notice that?
It reflects the manner of speech used in the musical. Your character is absolutely free to point it out or notice in threads. ICly, Hamilton will readily chalk it up to his translation device parsing through whatever he's saying to make himself clearer/more relatable to his conversation partner.
5. Is there a way I can opt out of threading with Hamilton?
Sure! Just fill this out:
All comments to this post are screened.
