Hamilton and class

Abstract

Abstract Using an intersectional Marxist analysis, this brief article surveys issues of, and related to, class in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hit musical Hamilton, including questions of aesthetics, race, narrative, politics and history, as well as how class impacts access to the musical. Sekellick argues that, through its use of hip hop and colour-conscious casting, Hamilton deploys the affects and aesthetics of people of colour, as well as of revolution, to give an otherwise conservative bootstraps narrative about a white founding father a progressive feeling sheen. The author reads Hamilton as a neo-liberal version of America’s founding myths, a retelling of the American dream to suit diversified capitalist and political classes.