Something Like a Spark: The Un-revolutionary Revolutions of ‘Hamilton’ and ‘The Hunger Games’
Lin Manuel Miranda is on the beach. The wind. The sun. The saltwater smell. The sun. The copy of Rob Chernow’s 2004 biography of Alexander Hamilton. The wind. His laptop, somewhere in the distance. The saltwater smell.
Beautiful.
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Remember when Hamilton first came out? Tickets were going for thousands of dollars, that was crazy. It was wild, it was a FRENZY.
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When The Hunger Games first came out it made a then-record-breaking $155 million in the box office.
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The middle school locker room war fought it’s first battle at the release of the Hunger Games. The Peeta fans had the benefit of the canonical confirmation. The Gale fans had the whole childhood friendship thing — they were not to be underestimated. Canonical confirmation — it only goes so far. To be honest, I think it fell to whether or not you were a Liam Hemsworth kind of girl or a Josh Hutcherson kind of girl. I had authority, because I read the books, but lacked investment, because I was a huge lesbian. One of the girls broke a ponytail holder over it. Casualties. Sabotage.
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We fixated on the romance, but I’m not sure if that was the point.
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The weird thing about our fanatical middle school consumption of The Hunger Games is that we managed to slog through all that depressing war stuff. There’s a lot of it.
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The Hunger Games is the story of an imagined war, somewhere far far away. It imagines poverty and tyranny and violence. I sometimes wonder if our imagination isn’t simply plucking from our life. As if, somehow, somewhere, there actually may be poverty and tyranny and violence.
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We fixated on the romance, and actually, I think that may have been the point.
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In the far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far,far, far, far, future, there could be a Revolution. Let’s imagine it goes like this:
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“From the Treaty of the Treason: In penance for their uprising, each district shall offer up a male and female between the ages of 12 and 18 at a public “Reaping.” These Tributes shall be delivered to the custody of The Capitol. and then transferred to a public arena where they will Fight to the Death, until a lone victor remains. Henceforth and forevermore this pageant shall be known as The Hunger Games.”
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A long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, time ago there was a Really Famous War. A Revolution.
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Another thing about Hamilton, is that it’s about the American Revolution. Another imagined war, another fatal cataclysm of poverty and tyranny and violence.
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Say it out loud. Revolution. It’s so beautiful. It just fits so well in your mouth, weaving behind and in front of your teeth. You know, it derives from the French revolucion “course, revolution (of celestial bodies)” . The constant shift of the planet from day to night to day to night to day until it stops orbiting one day (I’m not sure when). Change. The rising of the sun.
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I’m gonna be straight with you, none of this dancing around it. Hamilton, with all it’s lily-white source-people, is an allegory for modern racism in America. The creative team made the pointed decision of an entirely non-white cast (save for King George). The author chose to write it in “hip-hop” (musical theater-y hip-hop, but nevertheless) the music of people of color. There is a repeating refrain of “Rise up,” notably in the phrase “When you’re living on your knees, you rise up” insinuating that all oppressed people (not just the founding fathers) might find within its text the power the rise up. When Puerto Rican Lin Manuel Miranda raps:
And? If we win our independence?
Is that a guarantee of freedom for our descendants?
Or will the blood we shed begin an endless
Cycle of vengeance and death with no defendants?
He’s not just speaking of the future of American people generally but the seemingly endless cycle of systematic violence against people of color that is built into not only the bedrock of our nation but the structure of our modern life. And that’s just “My Shot,” the whole show is a goldmine of these little double meanings, even if you for some reason wanted to ignore the structural clues of it’s allegorical life. If you want to read more about it, in an essay perhaps, I’m sure someone will write one. I just wanted to be upfront about my intentions. No smokescreens here.
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Even without all the messy allegory, there’s still that literal overthrow of the oppressive ruling class in Hamilton.
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The Hunger Games is the literal overthrow of the ruling class, without any of the window dressing, the rap.
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I, personally, have never overthrown any government.
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Oh you want to know what The Hunger Games is a metaphor for? Well tough shit, it isn’t.
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I’m not trying to speak for my twelve year old self, but I’m fairly certain the overthrow of the oppressive ruling class wasn’t on my mind.
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It’s about these kids, who compete in those, those death games from before. And they end up becoming revolutionaries and overthrowing the oppressive ruling class or whatever. There’s also romance, which is nice. Some characters die, but not the big ones.
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As you read the books or watch the movies, you’re actually seeing the games happen, through the main character. And at the same time, you’re watching the people in the world watch the games happen. In a way, you’re looking at a funhouse mirror of yourself. You can imagine that you wouldn’t be so absurdly cruel as to watch a death match of children from your couch while eating Cheetos, as you perch on your couch, with your Cheetos.
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I’ve been thinking about the theaters, the ticket prices.
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If you have two to five hundred dollars lying around, go see Hamilton right now. Sit down in your seat, in the air conditioning (thank fucking god because fucking Time Square in fucking New York in fucking July after a whole fucking day in this fucking city and its fucking grime and the fucking homeless guy on the fucking train with his fucking song and the fucking rat you might’ve seen out of the corner of your fucking eye all to see this fucking play), on the velvet cushion. Look with your real eyes in real life and see the beautiful faces of the actors as they sing like birds and rap like birds as well. Wow.
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Ok, if you’re short on cash you can watch The Hunger Games on your laptop or the library computer for a price that fluctuates based on your willingness to dip your toes into the magical world of pirated movies. The games are actually —
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(I lied. I think I might’ve watched the games, might in the distant future, fingers coated in that fluorescent orange. I might follow my favorites and send them little gifts as they kill each other.)
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— super interesting. Engrossing. I mean, you assume Katniss will survive because she’s pretty obviously the point of view character and it is a trilogy.
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What do I know about Revolution?
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My personal history with revolution:
1st grade: Revolutionary war.
2nd grade: Revolutionary war.
3rd grade: Revolutionary war.
4th grade: Revolutionary war. We did a fun simulation this year. Yardsticks as muskets.
5th grade: Revolutionary war.
6th grade: Revolutionary war. And The Hunger Games.
7th grade: Revolutionary war. A flirtation with Les Miserables.
8th grade: Revolutionary war.
9th grade: Revolutionary war.
10th grade: Revolutionary war. Hamilton. But same difference right?
11th grade: A.P. Revolutionary war.
I don’t know if they covered it senior year? I took Psychology instead of history.
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I don’t know what’s real! What does it mean when someone dies? What does it look like? Where does it hurt?
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Picture a Revolution in your brain. Close your eyes. No really. Wait, open them so you can read this. Are there muskets? What the fuck is a musket?
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This is my last story:
I hear the marches from my window and I want to scream with everyone at once, in harmony. But often I don’t.
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I don’t have any other stories. I don’t. All I have are sentences.
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The American Revolutionary War was a very long time ago. And The Hunger Games are very far into the future. I’m balancing on a timeline like a tightrope, squinting in either direction and I can’t seem to —
I guess I’ll have to take their word for it.
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Maybe the Revolution is like cold silk, slipping along your hands as you hear the birds with your real ears in real life.
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Violent overthrow of the ruling class — thoughts?
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Well then, why are you watching!
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Well then, who are you rooting for!
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I’m not sure. I don’t know. I don’t know.
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I like the main guys, the Hamiltons and the Katnisses, the brave scrappy underdogs. I want them to WIN!!!!
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What would happen if I saw them in the flesh, sweating and angry and mid-fight? What would I do?
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I could never —
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I could never be —
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I could never be a —
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Who would I die for? What would I die for?
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Only the unimportant ones die, but there certainly seem to be an awful lot of those. 25,000. Ish.
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And in middle school? From the air conditioned seats of the Broadway theater? Maybe I wouldn’t die for anything. Maybe my life is permanent, padded by all the things I have.
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I want you to tell me. I want you to tell me why we’re watching these little spectacles. I want to know where the revolution lives inside me, inside you. I want to know who dies and why. I want to know who wrote them down. I want to know if there ever has been a real revolution and I want to know who won and why and if it was worth it. I want to feel something like a spark, from so far from the battle grounds.
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I sometimes watch the news and feel like a lighter run down of gasoline. Like I am part of a world that just clicks over and over and never catches.
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It’s not that there’s nothing to revolt against, because there’s so much, there’s too much. It’s just that we’ve never seen past the safe side of the fourth wall. We’re too afraid of the smell of smoke. We’d rather watch from the couch. We can’t be the match. That we’re too far gone.
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When Hamilton was at its peak, no high school theater was free from the echo of it’s soundtrack, the theater-y caucasian voices tagging along in tandem. When The Hunger Games was at its peak it was the new Twilight, the romance of this five years of pre-teens. Maybe it was just over. Maybe we got bored.
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I feel caught between the celestial dream of a revolution and an unbearable reality. I feel too far to the middle of the timeline. I feel like an angry knife, dulled on some sandstone in the unrevolutionary desert.
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I think that when the world fades away, it will be because we ran out of lighter fluid. Like a fly in amber, I will be caught in the moment of indecision.
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Not really. I think that when the world fades away, it will be because I cared more about the romance or the air conditioning or the music than the people.
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Not really. I think it will be because the characters were already cast, the scrappy underdogs frozen in prose, and I am not one of them. They are too far away, too perfectly framed, too dystopian and impossible.
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If I don’t hit publish, it is because I am too sad to freeze this in time as it is, to make it immortal
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But I can’t see the future.
