not to be that dumb theatre ho but, to this day it still upsets me to see the same general shallow commentary on hamilton being rehashed because of the cringey parts of its fandom.

of course hamilton isnt a perfect musical, but many people seem to forget about the part where a puerto rican man decided to reapropriate an inspiring american narrative he discovered in a biography and gave it to dozens and dozens of other PoC (many of whose careers immensely profited from the unusual spotlight) in a usually predominantly white scene, and in the process created over 2 hours of absolute bangers after bangers which overall form a satisfying and emotional story, all of that topped with great acting and a genuine love for the arts.

Can we please stop pretending that all Hamilton created was (mostly white, mostly teenaged) kids “stanning” hideously racist old white dudes. Lin-Manuel gets tweets from POC saying “my kid had the confidence to go for school production because they saw someone who looked like them in a leading role in Hamilton.”

Stop fucking pretending that Lin-Manuel’s legacy is cringey white kids “stanning my trash son Jefferson uwu” you racist-ass motherfuckers. Hamilton fans are also POC that are so grateful and happy to see themselves on the stage, and love that A BROADWAY MUSICAL is so wonderfully and unapologetically not white.

As a longtime theatrical person (who is xerself white), I feel like Hamilton is, easily, the RENT of the 2010s.

RENT reinvented much of Broadway—Jon Larson’s insistence on $20 “lottery” seats for the two front rows allowed broke college kids, low-income families, and budgeted-to-death folks to enjoy real live theatre for the first time (a concept other shows, including Hamilton, have adopted). This is also how the really classist “theatre dress” concept started to break down—you could toss out one kid in jeans and a tee shirt, but what did you do when half the theatre was kids in jeans and tee shirts? RENT also drew attention to the then-contemporary and very large intersectional problem of poverty-meets-AIDS, and actually won awards for its sympathetic and complex portrayal of HIV/AIDS-positive folks.

We also saw a move away from the Hammerstein/Sondheim/Webber model following RENT; while all of these composers have their merits, RENT showed that a relative unknown, not from a rich or classically-trained background, could produce an amazing show not bound by classical music styles and leitmotifs. How much did this change things? Enough that Avenue Q and Wicked might have existed without RENT, but Hadestown, Great Comet Of 1812, and, yes, Hamilton, probably wouldn’t have, at least not in such a way that we could all enjoy them. Imagine a world where Broadway was nothing but Disney, jukebox musicals, 1960s revivals, and Phantom of the Opera. Depressing, no?

What RENT did for broke-ass students, Hamilton did for actors of color: it challenged the concept, down to its very bones, that “urban” music styles can’t be theatrical and generative (consider Hamilton’s rap battles in Congress and the showtunes/R&B mashup that is Schuyler Sisters, for example—will anybody argue that these aren’t great theatrical moments that also show off genres usually associated with people of color?), and that people of color aren’t “expressive enough” or “don’t show well enough on stage” to be cast in major, non-tokenized roles.

Further, it provided a rich wealth of quotes that ensure it a place in long-term theatrical canon; my favorite is “and when my time is up, have I done enough? Will they tell my story?”, but there are easily half a dozen more WHAM lines like that I can think of. That means that for a long, long, LONG time, the show that will define the latter half of the 2010s (if not the whole decade) in terms of Broadway theatre is a show in which every role except King George went to an actor of color, many if not most of them Black—and not an Uncle Tom, magical negro, or Mammy among them. All just….PEOPLE, playing roles of dignity and humanity.

Like RENT in the 1990s, and HAIR in the 1970s, and Porgy and Bess in the 1930s where it all began, Hamilton rewrote a very basic tenet of theatre. History has its eyes on Hamilton, and the legacy it has created.

me: *breaks down crying in the privacy of my own home*

my brain: you’re faking your emotions for attention. you’re just doing this because you think it makes for a cool personal narrative

'White guy stupidity' is a GOP feature, not a flaw.

yall my world was just turned upside down i just found out the mongols used colors for directions and west was white and thats the best proposed theory for why belarus is called belarus ie white [west] russia

@iceandbone

#TURNhaikus on twitter

Ok, so I stole this idea from The Mindy Project fandom. I wrote the first of  the #TURNhaikus and while it’s not great at all…it’s a start. I know the writers in our fandom alyssavonkirkbride and luckysilverbell could do better for sure.

But everyone: get on twitter and add your own #TURNhaikus. Make them serious, funny, whatever…just make them! 

Reblog to spread the word…and then go make some #TURNhaikus.

amctv chaunceylabelle faster-than-asparagus-is-cooked fuckyeahturn fuckyeahjjfeild fyeahsethnumrich jj-feild jjfeildd jackswynand jjfeilds lobsterwarrior letsbewanderers ladyhistory mr-culpeper major-ben-tallmadge mornnen majorjohnandre neitherfields spycurious sothisisthehobbit turn-tv

EDIT: to add a few more #TURNhaikus tweets

ABC's "Forever" is essentially Fox's "New Amsterdam"

From the first commercial for ABC’s new show “Forever” I was struck by the incredible similarities between this show and Fox’s short lived “New Amsterdam.” I watched the pilot for “Forever” today. Let’s examine the similarities…

- main character is a man whose lived for hundreds of years due to an inability to die.

- main character has endured many “deaths” in every way imaginable yet still survives.

- show is set in NYC and the main character has watched it change over the centuries and now works for/with the NYPD (NA - homicide detective) (F - medical examiner)

- Both received their immortality as a result of standing up for an oppressed/victimized person (NA - standing between an attacker and a young native american girl) (F - standing between an enslaved man and his captors on a slave ship to America)

- Both characters have an old man as a friend/confidant who actually ends up to be his son who has outgrown him. (I saw this coming from the second this character was introduced)

- Both have a wealth of knowledge about death from their extended lives and inability to die which they use to be experts at their jobs.

- Both had that one true love who they outlived and never got over. (mother of their son.)

- Both become involved with a woman through their work who they fall madly in love with and who teaches them to “truly live again.”

- Both pilots revolved around a criminal and a NYC subway train, which sets off the chain of events that lead to the story unfolding in the show.

- main character is played by a good looking European man with a unique name (New Amsterdam - Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) (Forever - Ioan Gruffudd)

I’m sure the similarities do not end there. It seems to be a complete recycling of this show. I can’t be the only person who has noticed the similarities! Has anyone else noticed any others? 

This is so adorable 🥰

If you don't love British panel shows, I'm seriously judging your life choices.

So which Pride and Prejudice should you watch?

(Disclaimer: They’re all wonderful in their own way.)

BBC Mini Series from 1995:

Pros:

Cons:

Pride and Prejudice 2005 (with Keira Knightley)

Pros:

Cons

Lizzie Bennet Diaries (Youtube)

Pros:

Cons:

I honestly can’t speak highly enough of any of these, especially the Lizzie Bennet Diaries which is just such a unique take on the series.

Okay, but I must complain about the blatant erasure of 

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Pros:

Cons:

Overall, this version of Pride and Prejudice is a tie for my favorite (the other being the 2005 Keira Knightley version, which I feel accurately “translates” the  the book into the more visual format of film). Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is an absolute disaster of a film that somehow manages to parade about so gloriously in its own absurdity that it becomes a work of genius brilliance.

 UPDATE AS I HAVE NOW SEEN

Bride and Prejudice (2004)

Pros:

Cons:

As I wrote this while watching it, I did my best to keep it in the same vein as the others which I wrote at least a few hours after watching. And since @dareyoutoread-blog did the Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies so well, I won’t be repeating it on my own.

And thank you @primarybufferpanel for telling me it exists!

Unleashing Mr. Darcy

Pros

Cons

Overall: Every inch of what you’d expect of a hallmark movie.

So who's going up do Austenland?

Reblog if you’re part of team “I want to talk to you but I’m terrible at ooc communication and I think you find me annoying and I don’t want to bother you.”

Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers | Battle of Helm’s Deep

My favorite scene in a film ever. Full stop.