Hamilton — Mythology, Misogyny, and Martyrdom
By: Allison J. Van Tilborgh
Tags: Religion, Music, History, Politics, Film

Mythology

For nearly 250 years, efforts have been made to add these key figures such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and even Benjamin Franklin, into an American Pantheon. These ‘gods’ have states and cities named after them, statues erected in their likeness, and have found their way into our textbooks as infallible heroes.

Statue of Ben Franklin. The Washington Monument. The Jefferson Memorial.

Increasingly, I’d like to imagine that the American collective is in a phase of re-examining the character of our Founding Fathers. There is more discourse surrounding their status as slave-owners or wealthy tycoons. This deconstruction also has to do with disassembling the fundamental American values of ambition, free-market enterprise, and even racism.

Instead of challenging the character of our Founding Fathers, I believe that Hamilton positions itself as a love letter to them, particularly to its namesake. The main characters are portrayed as heroic, ready to lay their lives down for the revolution.

But what exactly does their revolution stand for? Hamilton implies it has something to do with ‘freedom,’ a stance most Americans would corroborate. In The Story of Freedom, some of the more fanciful and heart-warming lyrics of the play are sung, “Raise a glass to freedom / Something they can never take away / No matter what they tell you.” This is even reprised in Hamilton’s last words later on.

But that isn’t true, is it? Freedom is something that can be taken away.

The Founding Fathers who are imaged to stand for the value of ‘freedom’ in their mythologies, do not in fact believe in absolute freedom. They owned slaves for their benefit, or at the very least, support the system that perpetuates slavery. Washington’s teeth were slaves' teeth.

Another value of The Story of Freedom is one of ‘legacy’. Around a table, Hamilton and his friends enjoy some drinks. Mulligan and Lafayette suggest having ‘another round,’ seemingly content and in-the-moment. Hamilton, instead of agreeing, imagines how future Americans will remember this evening (They’ll tell the story of tonight). This suggests that Hamilton, and perhaps some of his political peers such as Washington who makes similar comments, care more about how well people will remember them than the actual experience of life now. It’s an ascetic obsession.

This asceticism also ties into another value perpetuated in general American mythology which is ‘unquenchable ambition’. Our beloved Founding Fathers were ambitious, nothing was enough for them. They only wanted the best for our country. We are told to be like them, to want to grow up to be President or a CEO or marry rich. Even though it is ambition that kills Hamilton, it remains a noble trait.

These popular characters and popular values are integral to the mythological ‘canon’ of the founding of the United States of America. Likewise, these stories, people, and values seem to sneak their way into Hamilton in a fairly positive light. This is an American musical after all.

However, I would expect a modern production to reexamine the problematic dimensions of this hypocrisy, self-obsession, and insatiability. Instead, Hamilton, the focal character of the play, doesn’t critique any of these values. He is the living embodiment of them.

It is difficult to watch the Hamilton production without seeing it as an affirmation of this hazy, shallow value-system perpetuated by the mythology of America’s founding.

The Schuyler Sisters from the Broadway production of Hamilton.

Misogyny

I watched this play for the first time with my partner. After Satisfied was performed, I turned to him and said, “I sure hope there are female characters that do something other than swoon over Hamilton.” I was sort of hoping for a Founding Mothers' storyline that would support the Founding Fathers' backbone we are familiar with. But instead, my hunch was correct.

The women in Hamilton are used purely to support or contrast the men in each scene.

Eliza loves Hamilton, marries him, has a kid with him, and ‘lives to tell his story’. She is not important because she built the first orphanage. She is important because she’s Hamilton’s wife.

Angelica loves Hamilton, and Hamilton sorta has the hots for her too, but they agree not to do anything about it. Angelica is almost given a feminist storyline (because I guess she’s done some Thomas Paine reading), but instead, she gets married off to a man she doesn’t like, moves to England, and comes back to fully illustrate how bad Hamilton ends up getting.

Maria Reynolds literally just has an affair with him. One second she’s weak and helpless, next, she’s a lustful temptress.

Peggy is there for comic relief and apparently doesn’t have a personality.

It would be one thing if the play had no women… perhaps I could justify that this was because they were seemingly absent from this part of history. Maybe Hamilton is trying to criticize this absence of women in our accounts. But there are women. And, unfortunately, they’re all incredibly shallow characters, unable to stand on their own two feet.

Burr Shoots Hamilton. Internet Archive Book Images.

Martyrdom

There are so many parallels between Hamilton and my favorite play of all time, Jesus Christ Superstar.

There are two main characters. One of them is good, a savior figure, blessing mankind. One of them is bad, short-sighted, and kills the other.

Like Hamilton, Jesus is obsessed with self-image and legacy until the final moment. Like Burr, Judas, is tempted by the new looming ‘institution’ which corrupts him, and subsequently kills his counterpart. They both begin as a sort of friend and later become enemies.

In Jesus Christ Superstar, both Jesus and Judas become martyrs. Jesus dies because the State does not like the idea of a charismatic citizen with the ability to inspire hope in subjugated peoples. Judas dies because he cares for his homeland so much that he would rather push Jesus to ‘stop his shenanigans’ than see Jerusalem in flames. It is this decision, which arguably he had no choice in, that wracks him with so much pain that he hangs himself.

Hamilton is also depicted as a martyr from the beginning of the play. The play condenses the historical Hamilton’s 47 years into a 2.5-hour production; an honor to his legacy, a good legacy. He repeatedly tells us he is willing to die for his country — though, he doesn’t deserve to die. In the beginning, it is in the context of literal war. In the end, it is a type of ideological war. He is more or less upset at Burr’s ambition; Hamilton and Burr have swapped places. Even though Hamilton shoots up, Burr still shoots him and he dies. He’s not throwing away his shot.

But aren’t martyrs supposed to be role models? Saints? People with strong, self-less values?

As discussed before, Hamilton instead is the embodiment of some of the key American mythological tropes: a shallow belief in freedom, an obsession with self-image and legacy, and an unquenchable ambition. It is these unhealthy attributes that kill him — not some noble cause. And in the end, he does not die for anyone or anything. He puts himself in this position because he can’t get over himself. Even in a few of his last thoughts: “If I throw away my shot, is this how you’ll remember me? / What if this bullet is my legacy?” Luckily right before he dies he is able to wisen up and think about more pressing things… like his wife.

Hamilton does not seem to acknowledge the toxicity of this martyrdom complex. The music tempo, tone, pitch — everything — seems to indicate that we are meant to feel an astounding loss, a loss likened to the killing of a saint.

Burr is told he better hide. Similar to Judas, who historically we know very little of, Burr tells the audience, “History obliterates / In every picture it paints / It paints me and all my mistakes… He may have been the first one to die / But I’m the one who paid for it.” Because of the martyrdom complex, not only are the lives of his loved ones shaken but so is the legacy of his comrade.