Hamilton has been on Broadway for 10 years now and so my YouTube feed is affected by this. My sister really liked it when it came out and so did I tbh. I used to watch a lot of animatics about it (and other musicals) on YouTube.
Anyway…this algorithm induced trip down memory lane got me thinking and I feel like there is a version of Hamilton where he is looked at much more negativity…or as a kind of like “guy who makes it and then forgets where he comes from” kind of story.
Like…it’s somewhat there in the final production, he gets called out, but the narrative is still fundamentally on his side, but there is more in the cut and unfinished stuff that I think highlights this more.
It’s interesting that Burr is portrayed as this opportunistic figure that either doesn’t have beliefs or is fine with bending them in service to some greater motive while Hamilton his opposite when Hamilton seems to betray every one of his beliefs at some point throughout the play.
He starts the play as a revolutionary rabble rouser complaining about taxes on tea, but by the second act he is part of the establishment and taxing whiskey. The Whiskey Rebellion is alluded to a little in the final show, but there is an entire cut/reworked song where him and Washington crush the rebellion basically.
There is also a cut Cabinet Meeting rap where the issue of slavery is brought up and Hamilton, like for most of the play argues against it, but eventually ends up acquiescing for political and personal convenience.
I think one of the most glaring examples of this that made it to the end product is when Jefferson calls Hamilton out for all but abandoning Lafayette when he argues not to support the Revolution in France even though in the first act he tells Lafayette “we will be with you”.
I feel like with some of the cut and unfinished stuff there would really have been a theme of Hamilton in some form betraying all of the friends he had in the first act in some form.
Lafayette and France, Laurens and Slavery, Mulligan and the little guy.
Idk I feel like something is there that was at some point consciously scrapped.
This isn’t even getting into the infidelity in his personal life or him agreeing to the duel that would take his life even though his wife had just gotten over the death or their son who died in one.
Idk Hamilton is just a kind of slimy, hypocritical character and I don’t think the narrative calls him out on it enough or really how the narrative works in light of these facts.
I don’t imagine many people here have seen the musical or care to think about it, but Idk where else to ramble about something like this either so I’m subjecting you to it.