Ever since my sister came home for her fresh-
man year Winter Break with a song called “Sat-
isfied,” “Hamilton” has been a part of my life. 
I met one of my closest friends because of it, I 
passed AP US History because of it and (sort of) 
passed AP Government because of it. I even got 
a chance to see the Chicago cast a few summers 
ago because of how much I loved it. As much as 
I loved that show, I knew it was nowhere near as 
incredible as the original cast’s show was. That 
same friend I mentioned before got to see the 
original cast’s show in New York and told me 
how amazing it was, and how much it meant to 
her to see the show with its creator Lin-Manuel 
Miranda in the starring role. So when I heard 
that Disney+ was going to be releasing the origi-
nal Broadway cast’s show, I was elated, posi-
tive that it would be one of the most incredible 
things I would ever see. I was right.
Getting to see the show from a couple hun-
dred rows away from the stage does not com-
pare to seeing the movie that Disney+ released. 
I got to see the heartbreak on Angelica’s (Renée 
Elise Goldsberry, “The Immortal Life of Henri-
etta Lacks”) face during “Satisfied,” the good-
natured teasing between Laurens (Anthony 
Ramos, “A Star is Born”), Mulligan (Okieriete 
Onaodowan, “The Super”), Lafayette (Daveed 
Diggs, “Wonder”) and Burr (Leslie Odom Jr., 
“Murder on the Orient Express”) in “Story of 
Tonight (Reprise),” the genuine tears rolling 
down Eliza’s (Phillipa Soo, “Here and Now”) 
face during “It’s Quiet Uptown …” The Disney+ 
film combines the best parts of a Broadway 
show with the intimacy of an at-home film. 
Seeing every carefully choreographed moment 
up close, while still having the audience reac-
tions of laughter and applause, makes the show 
a truly unique experience. If Broadway had a 
flaw, it would be that very few audience mem-
bers get the “perfect” view to see every detail 

that occurs onstage. The film removes that con-
cern, allowing any and every viewer to experi-
ence the show in the best way possible.
One might think that you can just listen to 
the “Hamilton” soundtrack and that would be 
enough, but that couldn’t be more wrong. The 
soundtrack doesn’t have Hercules Mulligan as 
Eliza’s and Alexander’s (Lin-Manuel Miranda, 
“Mary Poppins Returns”) flower girl, it doesn’t 
have Eliza’s heart-wrenching scream in “Stay 
Alive (Reprise)” and it doesn’t have the magic 
of a true Broadway show. Broadway is all about 
exaggeration; neither the soundtrack by itself 
nor a movie version of the show could capture 
what the actual Broadway performance does. 
However, you get live, in-time reactions from 
both the cast and the audience when you see 
the recorded performance of “Hamilton.”
But the real genius of “Hamilton” is that you 
learn something beyond the history of Alexan-
der Hamilton’s life when you watch it. Onstage, 
you see a version of America that we don’t have 
in real life. A version that we can work toward. 
There are women who vow to make “women 
a part of the [Declaration of Independence’s] 
sequel” in “The Schuyler Sisters,” there are 
people of color in positions of power — such as 
Christopher Jackson’s (“Bull”) George Wash-
ington — which is a step towards change (even 
if it isn’t enough) and there is a president who 
knows when it’s time to step down. It’s not a 
perfect America by any means; there is infi-
delity, murder and mourning. But it truly is a 
story of America’s history told by Americans 
today, as Lin-Manuel Miranda intended. The 
show has historical inaccuracies, to be sure, but 
those almost don’t matter in the grand scheme 
of things. You could read about the founding of 
America any time to get historical facts, but a 
textbook doesn’t provide hope for change the 
way that “Hamilton” does. 

6

Thursday, July 9, 2020 
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
ARTS

MUSIC NOTEBOOK
MUSIC NOTEBOOK
Gil Scott-Heron and 
‘60s campus politics

Before “The Revolution Will Not be Tele-
vised,” Gil Scott-Heron was a member of the 
Black & Blues. Following the summer of 1969, 
he returned to Lincoln University where he 
and fellow musician Brian Jackson worked on 
combining jazz arrangements with poetry. As 
members of the Black & Blues, they laid the 
foundation for their future work as a duo and 
solo artists. A lot of their work centered on the 
civil unrest and animosity Lincoln students 
had towards the university at the time. Given 
its small, rural setting, the intensity didn’t par-
allel those of other HBCU campuses like How-
ard University and Morgan State, but students 
with different beliefs directed their anger 
towards the conservative administration. And 
Scott-Heron was at the center of Lincoln’s pro-
test culture. 
Protests broke out on campus after a stu-
dent, Ron Colbert, died from an asthma attack. 
He was taken to the infirmary the night before 
when his inhaler wasn’t working, only for it to 
be closed. The administration denied respon-
sibility, erroneously claiming that Colbert died 
from marijuana use. Students’ rallied under 
demands for the institution to provide essen-
tial medical services. Scott-Heron gathered 
students at the school chapel the following 
morning and called for the student body to 
boycott classes. They rallied around demands 
he drew up for a 24/7 infirmary, a fully 
equipped ambulance and a replacement for 
the on-campus physician Dr. Davies. Colbert’s 
death was merely the tip of the iceberg. Several 
students had misdiagnoses from Dr. Davies, 
the infirmary wasn’t open around the clock 
and students were dying as a result of these 
limitations. After a week, the administration 
replaced Davies and Scott-Heron called the 
protests off. Things didn’t calm down on cam-
pus, though; students demanded the school’s 
president, Dr. Marvin Wachman, be replaced 
by a Black president. After students relentless-
ly pressured trustees, protested and circulated 
a petition, the administration named Herman 
Branson the first Black president of Lincoln 
University. The protests at Lincoln didn’t end 
though. Injustices towards Black Americans 
still endured on campus and beyond and stu-
dents refused to stay silent.
Scott-Heron had initially feared he couldn’t 
pursue music alongside activism. He found 
compromise in embedding his activism into 
his artwork. His writing often harkens back to 
his experiences at Lincoln. Following Lincoln’s 
administration for helping the FBI collect 
surveillance on its own students, Scott-Heron 
captured students’ collective rage in his poetry: 
“But something else was happening / and stu-

dents weren’t supposed to know / Lincoln’s 
state relationship included COIN-TEL-PRO / 
As now that you’ve got background and a / cer-
tain point of view / I’m awarding you a schol-
arship to go with me to Lincoln U.” The plot 
of his dystopian second novel, “The N***er 
Factory,” is centered around campuses turning 
young Black men into obedient members of 
bourgeois society. 
However, most notable in his work is his 
style of music. The basis is the work he did 
early on with Jackson, turning poems in spo-
ken word songs over Blues music. In many 
ways, this music became the basis for hip hop 
and rap music that would emerge in decades 
to come. No song has embodied this legacy 
better than “The Revolution Will Not Be Tele-
vised.” The title speaks for itself, but there’s 
often some confusion, in part because people 
misconstrue the nature of the medium. Why is 
it not enough to sit at home and watch cover-
age of protests on the television? Or “plug in, 
turn on and cop out” over social media and 
the internet? For one thing, you’re not really 
wary of the revolution if you’re not living it. No 
matter how “unbiased” the news touts itself 
to be, the content is curated and presented 
with many pieces of the story missing. This 
goes beyond the liberal or conservative slant 
of any particular media distributor. Rather, 
this results from both journalists’ and editors’ 
individual biases as well as the influence of a 
looming white supremacy, especially given an 
over three-quarters white U.S. workforce of 
newsroom employees.
There’s an obvious passivity to staring at 
a screen, and when people aren’t willing to 
engage in actions that lead to change, they 
don’t do anything to help any cause. The televi-
sion also exists for purposes that have nothing 
to do with the revolution. The song’s pop cul-
ture references illustrate this point: “[The rev-
olution] will not star Natalie Woods and Steve 
McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia” to “The 
theme song will not be written by Jim Webb 
or Francis Scott Keys.” These parallels to white 
American culture showcase the blithe, white 
lens of the television screen — how could any-
one expect anything different from the news it 
broadcasts? 
Gil Scott-Heron speaks from a first person 
point of view; he was very much a part of “the 
revolution,” from the protests he led on his col-
lege campus to the poems, songs and books he 
released throughout his career. In a video from 
1990 that recently made its rounds across the 
internet, he describes the revolution not as 
something people can see or talk about, but 
something they must experience:

DIANA YASSIN 
Daily Arts Writer

A beloved musical 
comes to Disney Plus 

Read more at michigandaily.com

SABRIYA IMAMI
Daily Arts Writer

Read more at michigandaily.com

FILM REVIEW
FILM REVIEW

