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By: Joe Jodoin
Eight years after the original Cloverfield was released in 2008, a new iteration of the movie has hit the big screen, but surprisingly, not as a sequel. Just by watching the trailer, there seems to be no connection to the original whatsoever. Producer J.J. Abrams has said that 10 Cloverfield Lane is “a blood-relative” to the original. I was very interested to see the movie and figure out how these two seemingly unrelated movies are connected.
A lot about this movie has made me very excited. First of all, nobody even knew this movie existed until the first trailer dropped in January. The trailer was also fantastic, and left a lot of mystery surrounding what the film was really about. Abrams has even described this film as his “mystery box”, which worked very well in generating excitement and buzz around it.
I felt terribly conflicted walking out of this movie, since overall I really enjoyed it. However, calling it a Cloverfield movie was completely unnecessary. It pretty much contains no connection to its 2008 predecessor, and it seems to have just gotten the title 10 Cloverfield Lane to generate more buzz and make more money.
You’re not supposed to know too much about the plot going in to this movie, as the mystery and surprise are the movies biggest strengths.
A girl gets into a car accident. She wakes up in a bunker with two men who say there was a chemical attack and the outside world is uninhabitable. But one of the men seems to be more than meets the eye, and our protagonist begins to wonder if staying with her captor is even more dangerous than life outside the bunker.
About 90 percent of this movie is filled with tension, scares, and nail-biting scenes, mainly driven by John Goodman’s performance as the unhinged man who built the bunker. His performance stands out, but is complemented by great directing from first-time director Dan Trachtenberg. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is excellent as the female protagonist, and her character provides the lens through which the audience experiences the movie. John Gallagher Jr. is the third person in the bunker, and plays one of the construction workers who built it. These three actors are the only lead actors in the movie, and all three of them do excellent jobs keeping viewers entertained.
While a majority of this movie is incredibly well made and enjoyable, the ending is where things fall apart. Without giving away spoilers, there is a silly twist that makes what’s left feel pretty much pointless. The twist forces a completely different tone on the rest of the movie and takes away all the tension without an amazing payoff.
Not everyone will hate the ending as much as I did, but I’m sure everyone will love the bulk of the movie. I won’t say anything else, because the less you know about this movie, the better. I don’t think it will by as re-watchable as some other movies this year, because a lot of the fun comes from not knowing what will happen next, but I definitely think this movie is worth seeing.
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Every year, I naively await the Oscars’ Best Animated Feature Film. Every year, Disney proves itself to be the most powerful force in the animated world, and every year, I nod and grudgingly agree as yet another Studio Ghibli film gets sidelined. With Pixar’s Inside Out setting the bar for animated films this year, Mark Osborne’s The Little Prince was released at the Cannes Film Festival with relatively minimal fanfare. However, I’ve been anticipating this adaptation for a long while, and when it was released for the English-speaking audience late last year, I welcomed it with open arms.
Antoine Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince is dearly loved by the world of children’s literature, and for good reason. It’s intent on driving home the relevance of childlike wonder in the face of the many facets of adulthood, all while retaining a heartfelt charm that never gets old. Osborne’s version maintains all this, but with a twist.
Instead of adapting the book scene by scene, this Little Prince introduces a young girl whose life has been scheduled perfectly to the very seconds by a helicopter mom. The family moves in next to a former aviator — the same aviator from the original story, only much older and quirkier. Priorities start shifting for the unnamed little girl as she gets to know the story of the Little Prince from her neighbour, all of which innocently reminiscent of the aviator’s own experience in Saint-Exupery’s book. The two storylines, old and new, are laced together for the first half, with the distinction made by the animation style. The girl’s daily life is computer animated, while the aviator’s narration of the story of the Little Prince is executed in lovely stop-motion that really cemented the emotional groundwork of the film for me.
Antoine Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince is dearly loved by the world of children’s literature, and for good reason.
This first half gives way to a storyline that wholly belongs to this film alone, and the result is something that can make or break the film depending on who’s watching. I chose to go into it with the intention of loving it no matter what, and while I didn’t ultimately love some of the changes they made, I liked them enough to allow them to pull at my vulnerable heartstrings. Osborne set out with this film to make his own personal statement about family and parent-child relationships, and make a statement, it did. The problem is that I’m not sure exactly what that statement is.
I love Saint-Exupery’s Le Petit Prince, and it might be my longstanding loyalty to the original story speaking here, but the one flaw of the film for me is that its original plotline fell short of where it really needed to be. Instead of growing into whatever they were trying to prove with the added story, the film reiterates the same monotonous mantras from Saint-Exupery despite blatantly being determined to distinguish itself. The moral of the story became something repetitive and not unlike anything we’ve ever heard before, and the repetition became something that bordered on ridiculous. It stripped away the emotional brilliance that could have been maintained if handled carefully, and while all was not lost at the end of the day, the rescue can only be credited to Hans Zimmer and Richard Harvey’s beautiful score. Osborne’s The Little Prince is a movie targeted towards children, but for a film that preaches about the importance of childlike imagination, it severely underestimates their capability to understand subtle thematic messages in what was otherwise a lovely film. It beats you over the head with the same message, explicitly stated through the little girl, and while nice at first, it was something the second half of the film could have done away with, or at least managed better.
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By: Joe Jodoin
Remember three years ago when some over-the-top Die Hard rip-off came out of nowhere, and it actually turned out better than the last couple Die Hard movies? Well that movie got a sequel, full of more of the same mindless action. London Has Fallen is a fun throwback to the simplistic but entertaining action movies of the late 80s, early 90s period of cinema. Think of the classics with Schwarzenegger, Stallone, or Van Damme, full of graphic violence and cartoony explosions. This film will at least provide a short period of escapism for action lovers, but not much else for other audiences.
The story follows Islamic terrorists who carry out an attack at the British Prime Minister’s funeral, in order to kill most of the world’s leaders, including the American President. The only man who can protect the President is Secret Service Agent Mike Banning, and the two men travel around London fighting countless waves of terrorist bad guys. The plot is incredibly unrealistic and silly, but serves to create many over-the-top fantastical action sequences.
Olympus wasn’t a movie that I thought needed a sequel, and London isn’t a movie that needs to be seen, but it’s a movie that can be enjoyed if you’re bored on a summer afternoon.
Gerard Butler does a decent job in the lead role, but has to play a very cliché character with no great lines. Aaron Eckhart plays a boring and wooden prime minister, and Morgan Freeman’s role solely involves sitting in a chair and speaking in a monotone voice. However, because the action takes the spotlight, none of these strange decisions are bothersome. It never became mind numbing or boring, and despite a complete lack of emotional investment, I was having fun watching it.
Even though the movie is technically a sequel to Olympus Has Fallen, this really doesn’t matter as the prequel is never referred to at all. Olympus wasn’t a movie that I thought needed a sequel and London isn’t a movie that needs to be seen, but it’s a movie that can be enjoyed if you’re bored on a summer afternoon and want to relax and watch some mindless action for an hour and a half.
Overall, the movie lacks sophistication and elegance, but it makes up for it in gleeful brutality. Be prepared going into this film that there will be many plot holes and countless clichés, and by no means is the movie well made. This is just a good cure for boredom. It isn’t a movie for everyone, but hopefully you will know what you’re getting into if you decide you want to watch it.
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When the list of nominees for the 2015 Cannes Film Festival came out, I was as excited for Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth as I was for Mark Osborne’s Le Petit Prince. Having closely watched both Roman Polanski’s 1971 Macbeth and the modernized 2010 British television adaptation, you’d think I’d be tired of the play by now, but Shakespeare’s Scottish tragedy once again proves itself a whirlwind of a masterpiece regardless of how it’s delivered.
If I had to describe the film in one word it would be “desolate.” The film begins in the silence of a haunting funeral, and while a battle cry eventually breaks the startling quiet, the monotony is never quite shaken off. For most of the movie, lines are murmured under breaths, sound effects are scarce and background music far in between, and the end result produces scenes eerily reminiscent of the earliest days of Soviet Montage. With scenes flashing by — shots of the three witches, brief flashes of the apparitions — without a single note or word in the background, Macbeth is almost suffocating in its dark and dismal emptiness as the strange sombre mood is maintained to the very end.
Director Justin Kurzel, however, uses the monotony in the first half to his advantage. As with the battle cry shattering the silence in the film’s first act, this pattern continues in its most significant scenes. A personal favourite is the subdued music that underlines Macbeth’s soliloquy as he walks, dagger in hand, to King Duncan’s room — music that escalates to a discordant peak as the stabbing scene plays out, effectively silencing the actors and drowning out the sounds of the struggle. By the end of the scene, the music fades, the film plunges back into its unsettling silence, and Macbeth’s bloody hands and King Duncan’s dead body soundlessly dominate the screen. The dissonance of quiet and sound reappears in the second half, when the loud cries of “Hail Macbeth!” are juxtaposed with the silence in between each cry. The startling juxtaposition frames the movie in a psychological context I haven’t seen in another adaptation, with Macbeth’s rapidly loosening grasp on reality spiralling blatantly out of his control with each sudden burst of sound in what is otherwise a silent scene. This time, it is not Macbeth unleashing the sounds of fury, and instead he is the one left in a suffocating, artificial silence.
With Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart and James McAvoy all having previously tackled the controversial role of the thane-turned-king, Michael Fassbender is the last of the X-Men Professor X and Magneto quartet to take his turn at Macbeth. Fassbender’s Macbeth is fierce and savage, more unhinged than Patrick Stewart’s war period Macbeth and devoid of Jon Finch’s complex vulnerability in the 1971 film. This Macbeth is beast-like even in the deafening silence. By the last act, however, he is despaired and half-gone, his furious soliloquies that are usually spoken in rising volume are instead delivered barely above a whisper. The end product is mystifying, as rare as it is to see a Macbeth whose madness was not depicted to equal rabid screaming, and with this, Fassbender makes the role his and his alone. Alongside him is French actress Marion Cotillard, whose own Lady Macbeth is quiet but terrifying. She plays the role with a subdued, tender weariness, and her exhausted delivery seals the fatigued atmosphere of the film.
What this version appears to lack in consistent cacophony, it nevertheless made up for with its diegetic elements. Scenes alternate between high contrast and low contrast, and the film does not hold back in the required depiction of brutality. Kurzel’s Macbeth is not hesitant with its visual design and symbolism is laid on thick. It plays with symbolic colours, from the dark blacks and browns of Macbeth’s scenes to the blood red saturation of the finale that ultimately defined the film for me. Death hangs above the narrative constantly, setting up for the intended catharsis Macbeth’s death is meant to trigger. As the film reaches its end, the music rises, and the colours become increasingly saturated, until the dark red credits start rolling on screen.
For all that the movie was remotely and desolately silent, it kept me on edge. I was always leaning in to see more and hear more, and with that in mind, I’d like to say Kurzel’s Macbeth delivered more than it disappointed. “It is a tale told by an idiot,” goes one of the most famous lines in the play, despairingly whispered in this one, “Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” What this adaptation of Macbeth appeared to lack in sound, it made up for in silent fury, resulting in a version that may be a walking shadow of the story, but one that definitely does not signify nothing.
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By: Joe Jodoin
As the first movie from Disney Animation since 2014’s Big Hero Six, Zootopia is a welcome return for the studio. The film possesses many of the same qualities as Disney’s other classics: top-notch animation, lovable characters and a powerful message for children and adults alike.
The film takes place in a world of anthropomorphic animals, and follows a young bunny named Judy Hopps. Judy has wanted to be a police officer her whole life, but after finally getting accepted to the force, she faces discrimination and exclusion from all her coworkers for being nothing but a cute little bunny. To prove herself a worthy cop, she sets out to solve a conspiracy involving 14 missing mammals, and enlists the help of a con artist fox named Nick Wilde to help her solve the case.
The brilliance of this premise is that it contains so much potential. It can work as an amalgamation of crime drama tropes, a parody of modern lifestyles in an anthropomorphized world and explore serious discrimination problems that people face in the real world. For the most part, Zootopia achieves all of these things, but also bites off more than it can chew.
The voice cast is incredible, featuring the voices of Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman, Idris Elba, J. K. Simmons and Alan Tudyk among others. Goodwin is the voice of Judy Hopps, and has a vast majority of the dialogue in the movie. She does an incredible job, and it’s almost impossible to imagine anyone else as the voice of Judy. The film definitely would not have been nearly as good if it wasn’t for her incredible vocal performance, in scenes that are both heart-wrenching and heart-warming.
The story is definitely more about what it takes to overcome discrimination, and the importance of treating everyone as equals, than it is about a conspiracy. The film satirizes racism with incredibly strong parallels between how different species of animals treat each other and how people of different skin colors treat each other. It also tackles sexism and stereotypes, arguing that a woman can do anything that a man can do. In the film’s third act, it goes even further, and shows how people can be discriminatory against a certain group without even realizing it because of how engrained stereotypes are in our collective consciousness. The way it confronts real world issues in such a blunt and powerful way is the main reason this film could go down in history as a Disney classic.
Furthermore, the attention to detail in Zootopia is astonishing. When Judy goes to a neighbourhood of mice, she looks like a giant relative to all the buildings. However, she looks tiny when at the police station, since everyone there is a larger animal like a rhino or elephant. The way the movie works with scale and environment is very clever. More highlights include scenes from the trailers, such as the sloth scene at the DMV, the godfather parody scene and a fox committing a con with popsicles and a fake baby.
Sadly, due to the film’s incredible scope and amount of potential, it can feel disjointed and jumbled, moving from one place to another every few minutes. It is normally a good thing when a film has a fast pace, but Zootopia moves so fast that it stumbles often. Some scenes will be working very well, but then will move onto the next scene too quickly. This takes away from some of the emotional impact that the film aimed to have, and also made it less funny as it was almost exhausting keeping up with everything that was going on. To put this in perspective, the villain isn’t even revealed until the last 15 minutes of the movie, and the whole climax, denouement and conclusion all occur incredibly fast. It would definitely have been more enjoyable if it was over two hours long, but that’s not the worst complaint to have about a movie.
Overall, Zootopia is a fun and original addition to the Disney cannon, and is almost impossible not to like. It has a great message that all kids should hear, tons of pop-culture references and a balance of character and heart. However, the whole isn’t quite as strong as the sum of its parts, making it feel like a minor disappointment.
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By: Rafik El Werfalli
For over 60 years, the Indigenous population of Canada has been denied the freedom of choosing where to live. Under a government-run “pass system,” Indigenous peoples were forced to live on reserves. Any who wanted to leave required written documentation — a pass — issued by their reserve’s government-appointed “Indian agent,” that outlined the reasons for and duration of the leave.
First introduced by Sir John A. Macdonald in the 1880s, the pass system restricted the rights of the Indigenous people of Canada and was implemented without going through Parliament.
Alex Williams’ new documentary film, The Pass System, explores the history of the government effort to further segregate and limit the freedoms of Indigenous communities. Williams highlights the different perspectives on the discriminatory system and includes stories of First Nation Elders from these Indigenous communities that illustrate the impact of the system on their lives.
Williams was raised in Treaty 6 territory, Saskatchewan, and grew up in a society that he saw as racist. Growing up in a low-income neighbourhood, he witnessed many people that were pushed out economically. According to Williams, “social and structural racism” was common in his hometown.
“[The pass system] was intended to keep people of colour out and control the indigenous population, restraining and confining them to reserves as much as possible,” he explained.
Ian Mosby, a Postdoctoral Fellow in the L.R. Wilson Institute for Canadian History at McMaster University added, “Canada has a problem with their attitudes towards indigenous people, not just the government, but also Canadians themselves. We need to really look deep down at dealing with this issue and dealing with the structural racism that Indigenous people faced and are currently facing.”
“Canadians in general have been taught a very selective version of their history and many historians have been working to change that.“
Williams agrees with Mosby. “Canadians in general have been taught a very selective version of their history and many historians have been working to change that,” said Williams. “I am hoping that it can be some help in understanding the roots of this very Canadian kind of racism, colonization and genocide.”
Mosby added that many Canadian aren’t aware of their past and don’t realize the true scale of racial segregation and discrimination that Indigenous people have and continue to experience.
The film has received wide coverage, including from the Toronto Star and CBC. The film has screened at numerous locations including the Toronto International Film Festival, Vancouver International Film Festival and at least 20 more screenings across Canada.
“This is a story that I think is really important for people to know, and hopefully come to this documentary, and hearing from the director, people will start to get a sense of how much they don’t know about Indigenous people” said Mosby.
The Pass System will be screened at McMaster University on Mar. 4 at 2:30 p.m. at the Michael DeGroote Centre for Learning and Discovery (MDCL) in room 1105.
Photo Credit: Toronto International Film Festival
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By: Joe Jodoin
This movie isn’t a groundbreaking artwork. It doesn’t subvert the audience’s perceptions of superhero archetype. It doesn’t even have a clever sense of humour or any breathtaking special effects. However, a Deadpool movie doesn’t have to have any of these qualities to be a success because that’s not why we love Deadpool. Deadpool is a foul-mouthed, juvenile sociopath, who takes nothing seriously and constantly breaks the fourth wall to let us know he is perfectly aware of what the audience is thinking. In that respect, Deadpool is exactly the kind of movie the character deserves.
I was first introduced to Deadpool just over 10 years ago, when I began reading X-Men comic books. He was never my favorite character, but he was the kind of character that provided essential comic relief through the use of meta-humor that I found myself craving when the drama of the more serious superhero epics got overwhelming. Right now we live in an age of Hollywood cinema where most audience members consider dark and grounded to be essential characteristics of a good superhero movie. The miracle of Deadpool is that it has arrived at the perfect time; not only to provide much needed counter programing from your typical superhero movies that take themselves so seriously, but it reminds audiences that superheroes also have a fun side, providing escapism through high entertainment.
Deadpool’s character has always been someone people either love or hate and it has been largely due to this controversial sense of humor.
Deadpool has received a generally positive response from film critics, but occasionally gets criticized for being the exact film that it ridicules. It has one of the most typical superhero origin stories ever conceived, with an upbeat but tormented protagonist, and a one-dimensional villain with no character development. There is the standard love interest, standard comic relief and sidekick characters, and standard cameos from other superheroes that some fans will recognize from other movies.
The storylines shows that this typical narrative is so overused because it works. The villain is underdeveloped so the lovable hero can get more screen time; the love interest gives the film heart; the comic relief calms you down after a brutal torture scene or a draining action scene. It reminds us that the reason superheroes exist is to provide escapism from daily life, and Deadpool is its ultimate manifestation.
The actors all do a fantastic job, espectially Ryan Reynolds, who was born to play Deadpool. He has previously tried to play other comic book characters such as Hannibal King or Green Lantern and has been perfectly serviceable, but his performance as Deadpool ranks among the greats such as Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man, or Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine. Stefan Kapicic as Colossus was another major standout of the film. The character of Colossus has already been featured in three other X-Men movies, but on none of those occasions was he ever done justice. In Deadpool, he is portrayed as a big brother-like figure to the other X-men, who also has a heart under his shiny metal exterior.
The movie’s lewd sense of humour is another defining aspect, although whether it is a good or bad thing will be up to the individual viewer. Deadpool’s character has always been someone people either love or hate and it has been largely due to this controversial sense of humor.
Overall, this movie isn’t perfect, but I loved every single scene. You can pick apart this movie for things like its cheap special effects, countless dick jokes, or lack of originality, but those are exactly what make this the perfect Deadpool movie.
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By: Joe Jodoin
After its premier at the 2015 Sundance Festival, The Witch is finally out in theatres nationwide. I wasn’t looking forward to this movie very much, as I find most horror movies are poorly made in their reliance on jump scares, and have clichéd characters.
The Witch, however, completely blew me away. By relying on atmospheric horror, the film creates a depressing, unsettling environment that slowly builds tension and dread over its brisk 93-minute runtime.
The movie takes place in the 1630s, a time when people actually believed witches were real, and follows a family who is ostracized by their church and forced to make a life for themselves on the outskirts of a creepy forest. This proves to be a more difficult task than they thought, as all their crops mysteriously die, and their baby boy suddenly disappears into thin air. The family soon learns that a witch is behind their bad luck and they must find a way to survive its incredible torment.
The plot is very simple, but Robert Eggers’ direction is what makes it so special. The whole tone and atmosphere of the film makes watching it creepy, chilling, and quite unpleasant to watch at times. Be forwarned that this is not a movie that is “scary” in the typical sense of the word. It doesn’t make you scream or jump or be afraid to sleep at night. Instead, it just crawls under your skin and lingers on long after it ends.
Eggers also crafted the film with incredible attention to detail. All the sets, clothing and dialogue are accurate to the time period. A lot of the dialogue was actually taken from diaries and real life accounts of witches from the 1600s. This brought a realistic dimension to the story and made it very easy to become invested in the family’s wellbeing. However, the origins of the dialogue also made it difficult for a modern audience to fully comprehend it, which took away from my enjoyment of the film.
Despite that one flaw, The Witch has raised the bar for the modern horror genre. If more films followed suit, we could start to take the horror genre seriously once again. I would recommend watching The Witch if you want to finally see a film that subverts all horror clichés, while also presenting a dark and disturbing work of art.
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By: Joe Jodoin
Hail, Caesar! had everything going for it — a great trailer, a great premise, an incredible cast, and the beloved Coen brothers serving as both the writers and directors. Sadly, the movie just doesn’t work. It has some redeeming qualities of course, but it’s just not entertaining or memorable enough to warrant a recommendation.
Hail, Caesar! constantly switches between being comedic and being dramatic, but it doesn’t succeed at either. While at times the movie is funny, these times are few and far between.
The movie takes place in the 1950s, and loosely revolves around the daily life of Eddie Mannix, a Hollywood ‘fixer’ for Capitol Pictures, played by Josh Brolin. His job is keep the actors and movies free of controversy. This leads to Mannix interacting with all sorts of different characters, one of which is the lead actor in a big Roman epic called Hail Caesar, a Tale of Christ’s Life. The actor, played by George Clooney, is kidnapped by some extras, leading to the main mystery of the movie.
Unfortunately, the movie’s plot just consists of a bunch of different sub-plots, none of which are very interesting. None of the stories have a decent resolution, so you are left feeling very unsatisfied when the film ends. The movie also doesn’t use all of the talent it has. This is noticeable especially when looking at Jonah Hill, who was in all the trailers and promotion but only had five lines in the movie.
Hail, Caesar! constantly switches between being comedic and being dramatic, but it doesn’t succeed at either. While at times the movie is funny, these times are few and far between. This movie is truly unlike any other movie that I have ever seen, but even though originality is usually a compliment, Hail, Caesar! ends up being entirely forgettable.
Despite the movie’s many weaknesses, it has some partially redeeming qualities as well. The best aspect by far is that it succeeds at being a love letter to classic Hollywood cinema. It pays tribute to every different kind of genre film, and pays respect to the thousands of people involved in making each one of these movies a reality. There was also a neat message about how the problems Hollywood faced back in the 50s are essentially the same as they are today.
In addition to Brolin and Clooney, the other big standout of the film is Alden Ehrenreich, who plays an actor struggling to transition from the Western genre to making his first sophisticated drama. He has never had any substantial movie roles in the past, but if this movie is any indication, Ehrenreich is incredibly talented and looks to have a huge career ahead of him.
Overall, I’m really disappointed to hate on a film that was clearly made with so much passion and effort. This is one of those movies that sounds great on paper, and if anyone could have pulled it off, it would be the Coen brothers. Sadly, some screenplays just don’t translate well onto the big screen, and I just can’t say this is a film worth watching.
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“It’s the story of America then,” said Lin-Manuel Miranda about his newest Broadway brainchild, Hamilton in an interview with The Atlantic, “Told by America now.”
Broadway does not have much of a history of diversity, but this time, there’s change in the air. With five-time Tony Award winner Fun Home being the first musical to feature a lesbian central character, NBC’s The Wiz Live! dominating the viewership with its all black cast, and with Miranda’s incredibly diverse Hamilton leading the cavalcade, it’s definitely taking steps to change that, stat.
Hamilton is a story centred around American history. It is the tale of Alexander Hamilton, one of America’s very distinguished and very white founding fathers — who happens to be, in this stage adaptation, played by a Puerto Rican. The musical chronicles his rise and fall from power, a modern tragedy Aristotle would have approved of, with significant historical figures making up the rest of the cast. The narration begins with a rap by Aaron Burr (played by African-American Leslie Odom, Jr.) and ends with an epilogue sung by Alexander’s wife, Eliza (played by Chinese-American Phillipa Soo). Between the beginning and the end is a story that does not disappoint and a soundtrack that never bores, all while trying its best to simultaneously stay true to history and load up on even the most obscure of references.
Still not clear on what the hype is about, exactly? I can take several guesses. One, it’s a Broadway show, yes, and while I do love myself an impressive show tune a la Book of Mormon’s “I Believe,” most of the songs in Hamilton sit right at home in the hip-hop genre. Boasting raps that are as eloquent as they are catchy, and as fast as they are poignant, the show distinguishes itself from the well-known belting of Phantom of the Opera’s Christine and the distinctive melodies of Les Miserables. Two, save for a single character, the whole cast is in fact also comprised of people of colour. In addition to Odom and Soo, former American President Thomas Jefferson is played by Daveed Diggs, who’s also praised for one of the fastest rap solos in Broadway history in his other Hamilton role as the Frenchman Marquis de Lafayette. Alongside Diggs is Christopher Jackson as George Washington, and Okierete Onaodowan is America’s fourth President, James Madison. Three, the musical is very careful in its references to historical facts, but at various points also pays homage to current events, even if that calls for several significant cameo roles or subtly satirical lyrics. Why is everyone so interested in Hamilton? Historically semi-accurate raps, America’s first ever presidents played by people of colour, or current events called out in the form of raps — take your pick.
In light of the recent release of Oscar nominations and the backlash that followed against the lack of diversity (yet again), Hamilton serves as an example of just how misled all the excuses and justifications Hollywood has attempted to scavenge in response are. Hollywood is particularly fond of the “no one will watch it” excuse, the notion that somehow a diverse cast won’t attract as broad an audience as a white cast would. Though musicals are in many ways different from the film industry, Hamilton nonetheless begs to differ. It reached record-breaking sales before its Broadway premiere, and tickets remain sold out until the very end of 2016. The diverse representation has been widely acclaimed, and save for the inevitable outspokenness of those that are personally offended by seeing George Washington played by a biracial man, the cast has received nothing but praise for their spectacular performances of equally spectacular songs. If a show like Hamilton, despite being so strictly about well-known white historical figures, can afford a little wiggle room and repurpose a story with an angle that majority of filmmakers are hesitant to touch, Oscar-worthy or not, then why can’t others do the same?
While I do love myself an impressive show tune a la Book of Mormon’s “I Believe,” most of the songs in Hamilton sit right at home in the hip-hop genre.
Broadway still has a long way to go, but what shows like Hamilton, Fun Home and The Wiz Live! prove in receiving reception better than what anyone expected is that the business excuse is starting to get a little old. It’s about time Hollywood stopped operating under the notion that whiteness is a human default and therefore a storyline must, and instead realize that there is as much potential in the three-way link between cultural excellence, diverse representation, and whatever profitability the cinematic industry seeks.
Better find a new excuse soon, Hollywood.
Photo Credit: Joan Marcus
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