Why Hamilton: An American Musical is So Much More Than Good Music.
Mia Cappuccitti-Gutierrez
I sat in my 11th Grade AP US History class on the morning of February 18, 2021 and smiled, as I heard the opening riff to my favourite Hamilton song blast through my teacher’s laptop speakers.
As I’m sure millions of kids were in 2016, I was completely and utterly obsessed with the incredibly famous musical, Hamilton. It opened the world of Broadway to a younger generation; one that was otherwise not interested in Broadway in the slightest. It transformed Broadway into the talk of pop culture. Something that had never previously happened. I was listening to phenomenal music while getting versed in United States history. The soundtrack made me interested in it, in a way that nothing had ever made me so interested in anything before. Hamilton defined a new era of musical theatre.
This article is the story of my particular journey with Hamilton.
I cannot fully express the impact that Hamilton has had on my life.
Although that seems incredibly cheese-y and far-fetched, it’s true. The music moved me, helped me build friendships, helped me during my move to to my new school, helped define the girl I was, and helped me find her again after losing myself in the sea of social conformity that is being a middle-schooler.
If you met me in grade 7, I was simply intolerable due to how deep my obsession with Hamilton ran. I would quite literally walk up to someone and along with reciting my name, my introduction would include some form of, “do you listen to Hamilton?”
Before moving schools, my friend group at my old school was the definition of “theatre kids.” We were obnoxiously open about our love for musicals whether it was Hairspray, Dear Evan Hansen, Guys and Dolls, or Hamilton. We would spend any car ride we took together scream singing it with the windows down with our various pieces of Hamilton merch on. We didn’t care what anyone thought; we were completely and unapologetically ourselves.
I went from having 4 best friends at the school I’d been attending for my entire life, to being thrown into a new, huge school, in a town I didn’t live in, where it seemed that everyone already knew each other.
To say I felt out of place is an understatement.
I refused to walk to class in the morning without my dad, I would wait to get out of the car until the last possible minute, I stopped keeping track of the amount of time I spent crying in the bathroom throughout my first couple months at school. But through it all, I had Hamilton. Something so beautifully consistent in my life; a little piece of my old friends and school that I could carry with me in this new, uncomfortable environment that I had been thrown into.
And consistent it was. Through the good and bad. Even after I got over the initial hump and made new friends and began to love this new school I was in and everything it had to offer me.
What everyone saw was a girl with a bright coloured backpack and a terrible haircut and braces — the 7th grade archetype — walking down the hallway with headphones. What they didn’t know was that I was back in the 1800s, rapping with Alexander Hamilton, Burr, and the Schuyler sisters.
As 99% of people can attest to, age 14 is a year of change, whether it’s from fear of beginning high school or other, it’s an age where almost anything that seems to matter is fitting in and solidifying your place in the practically “Victorian Era” social hierarchy that is middle/high school.
This period of time changed me immensely. I let myself get consumed by the idea of fitting in. I did everything in my power to push my Hamilton obsession to the very depths of my being, because to me, nothing was worse than being seen as that strange theatre girl with a weird obsession. I went from last the thing I cared about being what anyone thought of me, and advertising the most unique parts of myself, to replacing the music I loved so much with mascara and PINK clothes. With this, I lost a piece of myself that had been so important to me for so long.
Although I may be discussing losing Hamilton in particular, losing Hamilton represented so much more than simply not being so outwardly crazy about a soundtrack I liked. It represented losing the individuality that made me who I was, and the pieces of my personality that made up what used to be my favourite parts of myself, whether it was my questionable fashion choices, handmade phone cases, or Harry Potter. How I was unapologetically loud, didn’t care about how I looked, and so outwardly passionate about the things I loved (Hamilton and other).
I was told so often how weird the things I loved were and was judged for how loudly I expressed my love for them. And eventually, I let myself believe they were.
My grades dropped, as my focus switched from school and Hamilton to making sure I was wearing my uniform the “cool” way and wearing the right colour scrunchie. My worst nightmare went from failing a test, to showing up to school without my eyelashes curled.
Sometime, though, in grade 9, I sobered up from the drug that was the incessant need for validation from my peers, and (extremely) slowly, but surely began to become my old self again. I realized that I hated who I had become. I yearned to sing loudly again in the car to the Hamilton soundtrack with my dad on the way to school, instead of sitting silently next to him snapchatting people who only brought me down. I began to become the Mia who cared most about being involved in everything, working as hard as she could. The Mia who listened to whatever music she wanted, wore whatever she wanted, said what she wanted, without fear of judgement or being an outcast.
I once again became the Mia who recognized that being an outcast was better than losing yourself altogether.
I realized, that if I continued on the path I was on, I would be “throwing away my shot.”
Hamilton became an integral part of all my playlists again. I vowed to myself that I would never let it not be. I felt like me again.
So, there I sat in my AP US History class on the morning of February 18, 2021 smiling, as I heard the opening riff to my favourite Hamilton song blast through my teacher’s laptop speakers. I smiled, because what no one knew, watching me loudly sing through the song that morning in class, was that Hamilton represented so much more to me than good music or a 21st century way of teaching history. Me still having the entire soundtrack memorized and being able to sing it in the same classroom, in fact, the same seat, that I sat in while listening to Hamilton quietly with red puffy eyes in M1 and sat in while I acted dumb on purpose in front of my peers and online shopped for the latest trend instead of listening in class. Well, it was something that showed me just how far I’d come. I smiled when I heard the song because I could feel 12-year-old me beaming down at Junior me, as the Hamilton played out loud just as I would have played it in grade 7.
I smiled as I could feel 14-year-old me beaming down at 17-year-old me because instead of listening to it on the lowest possible volume praying that no one could hear me listening to it, I sang out loud in front of my whole class; something that 14-year-old me simply would not have had the courage to do.
Whether you appreciate this musical or not, I wrote this for anyone who feels trapped by social pressures. It’s okay to be loud and proud about what you love. It’s what makes each of us so incredibly colourful and unique. Aaron Burr sang it best, “I am inimitable, I am an original.”
I pray that no one gives up the parts of themselves they love most to please the copy-and-paste teenagers around them the way I did.
Whatever your “Hamilton” is, I hope you hold onto it forever.
