#it's smth that's divorced from fandom so no matter what i'm into | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bookshelfdreams · 7 months

Note

Hey I like a lot of the takes you have regarding the pirate show so I wanted to ask for your opinion on smth that's been bothering me for a while:

I have a deep seated dislike for Hamilton. Twinkifying the fucking founding fathers, romanticizing slave abusers and overall villainizing the wrong people while others (Hamilton at the front naturally) gets sung at. Speaking of singing - I really hate it. Shipping (i want to repeat) the founding fathers, the blatant white washing bla bla bla. Anyway those are all known problems and better people have said it smarter before and that isn't really my point

It's the fact that a friend of mine recently brought up that Ofmd pretty much is the same and I shouldn't scream so loud in my glass house. Inaccurate historically speaking, the blatant ignoring of the slave owning that the real Stede and Edward did and so on and so forth. Minus the singing perhaps if we ignore Frenchies and Izzys

So. Does it make me a hypocrite to like ofmd so much but despise the mere mention of Hamilton? It's a thing I'm really stressed about lately and that kind of ruined my joy about finally getting season 2. I would love to hear your opinion. or that of your followers for that matter.

Thank you 😊

oh thank YOU because I do feel that this is an interesting thing to examine and we do not talk about it enough.

I have never seen Hamilton, or listened to the songs (except some snippets). I have never been involved in the fandom. I really, really can't speak to what the musical itself did wrong and right. But I will say this: There was a reason it got as popular and received the critical acclaim that it did. I can't speak to how it addresses the systemic injustice baked into the USA from the very beginning, and I do have a suspicion that it glosses over a lot of uncomfortable truths. But I also feel it is important that we divorce the source material from the fandom it spawns because ultimately, Miranda isn't responsible for Hatsune Miku Binder Jefferson, or the whole hivliving debacle.

Just as David Jenkins isn't responsible for the handwaving of slavery in fanworks, or the great Izzy Hands Debate, or whitewashing in fanart, or shitty, racist headcanons of the characters of colour, or whatever deranged scandal is yet to come to light. This is true for all fandoms; criticizing fandom dynamics is a very different conversation from criticizing the canon.

Let's focus on the canon here, though, because defending the fandom is pointless, and not something I want to do. Curate your experience.

The first thing to say is: If you like ofmd but don't like Hamilton, that's not hypocritical at all, that's first and foremost a matter of taste. Things are good when we like them and bad when we don't. We don't have to find objective reasons for it.

If the fact that the historical Stede Bonnet was a slaveowner, and the historical Blackbeard also participated in the slave trade, are dealbreakers for someone, that's valid. People have every right to be uncomfortable with that. The conversation could end at this point, if we want it to (I don't because I love to hear myself talk).

If we look at the historical figures a little closer the first stark difference is the cultural context in which they exist. The founding fathers seem to be extremely mythologized in the american consciousness but also, are understood to be real historical people. The founding myth is fundamental to the way in which the USA perceives itself (that is, as a beacon of freedom and democracy), and it's pretty hard to reconcile that with the bloodshed and human misery it was founded on. It's uncomfortable; and it's not just an American problem. Every western nation/former colonial power has quite literal corpses in their closets they'd rather not talk about (just so you don't think I'm getting on a high horse about the famed Erinnerungskultur here; go ask a german person about Lothar von Trotha and what he did to the Nama and Herero to receive a blank stare). The difference is, that the founding fathers are too prominent and too important to just not talk about, so instead, they are sanitized to a degree that can be straight up historical revisionism.

That's not Miranda's fault. Nor is it the fault of any one particular piece of historical fiction, biography, documentary, or what have you. But it is the context in which Hamilton exists and, from what I understand, a culture to which it contributes. Especially since it's based on a biography of the real Alexander Hamilton, and (again, to my understanding) claims to tell a more or less accurate story.

Pirates, on the other hand, are perceived completely differently. They are mythologized, but not for ideological reasons, not as state-building propaganda. Pirates are more like folk heroes; cultural icons (near) completely divorced from whatever historical figure once lived. They are "real" in the sense that they are based on real people, but engaging with them, from the start, has a layer of removal from reality that engaging with figures like the founding fathers hasn't. Blackbeard is from a saga. George Washington is from history.

ofmd, specifically, makes clear at every turn that what we are told is a fictional story that has very little to do with any real events. It's openly anachronistic, it has absurd internal logic. Life-threatening injuries are walked off. There's actual magic. Dinghies are treated like spawn points in a video game. Everything, from the costumes to the vernacular to the story beats, tells the audience that none of this is real.

You wouldn't accuse, idk, A Knight's Tale, or Mel Brooks's Men In Tights of whitewashing history. I feel like ofmd plays in a similar league; it's a comedy very vaguely based on history, and it makes sure the audience knows we are not about to be told anything true. If you watch ofmd, you know this isn't about the real, historical Stede Bonnet or Edward Teach.

So. Let's examine the actual story, yes? The story that is told here is anticolonialist, antiracist, and challenges oppressive power structures as much as is possible for a production like this. It addresses these things and condemns them, both explicitly and in its underlying message. (I'm not gonna explain all of this, enough ink has been spilled about it by people smarter than me)

I do not know what Hamilton is about at its core. I know Our Flag Means Death is about authenticity in the face of the whole world telling you there's something wrong with you. It's about resisting dehumanization and reclaiming your personhood. It's about love, in a radical, system-destroying way, about breaking the cycle of abuse, about healing, and finding joy.

Yes, the real historical figures it's based on were all horrible people. Again, if that's a dealbreaker, that's fine. I'm not trying to convince anyone who is deeply uncomfortable with that fact; it's perfectly understandable.

However, for me, personally, the story as a whole is so far removed from reality, and so firm in its message, that I feel this is forgivable.

(Oh, and a lat aside, I also feel like likening ofmd to Hamilton seldom seems to come from a place of genuine criticism. Often it seems to be more along the lines of "Hamilton is cringe, and if I say ofmd=Hamilton ppl will be too embarrassed to defend it" which yk. feels kinda disingenuous to me.)

#oh also im a white european so yk limited perspective here #i do encourage people with different perspectives to join in the conversation!#or like link the things youve already written on this because i know people have talked about this before #i just kindly ask you to leave your 'ew cringe' arguments at the door. thanks.#our flag means death #anonymaus #message #thoughts

187 notes · View notes