Dear Everyone Associated With “Hamilton”

The Richard Rodgers Theatre, 226 W. 46th Street, New York City

Dear Creative Team and Cast of HAMILTON,

I had not imagined that when I finally got to see the show on November 17, 2016 that we would be in a period of shocked horror and mourning. I had so hoped to wait in line for your autographs with joyful crowds.

I have been thinking about all of you in the past week because you are bringing your full spiritual and creative selves to the work of inspiring people and you haven’t had any time off for a death in the family since last Tuesday night, but I know many of you are feeling like there has been one. Me, too.

Your cast album has been on my exclusive play list for at least six months and I have fan-girl’d on Twitter, watched all the #Ham4Ham videos on YouTube and followed anything Hamilton-oriented I could find. I have said to fellow members of the clergy that one reason this show is such an extraordinary, ground-breaking cultural phenomenon is because it is not only a brilliant artistic achievement on every level but that its creators (led by Lin-Manuel) very intentionally created COMMUNITY around it.

The community that you have all so generously created around “Hamilton” the show and the spirit is the community that looks like the America I love and believe in. The first time I heard “My Shot” playing on a college radio station (Best of Broadway on WERS, Emerson College in Boston) and heard, “I’m joining the rebellion/’cause I know it’s my chance/to socially advance/instead of sewing some pants,” I was in my car. I had to pull over and just listen to every word and every voice and every instrument and not do anything else but that or else risk an accident!  I immediately drove back home and downloaded the entire recording and spent the next several hours listening to it. It was like, “Cancel all my appointments! I just downloaded ‘Hamilton!’”

I knew the show was hip-hop inspired. I knew it was a multi-racial cast. I knew I would think it was cool (I loved “In The Heights”) but I did not anticipate that it would hit me in my heart and soul like it did. “Hamilton” instantly became the soundtrack for my ministry and work for social justice with partner organizations (many of which advocate for immigrants – who do get the job done), my life in an extremely diverse neighborhood, and my hopes and dreams for my country in the midst of the rise of Trump.

I am also a theatre person. The disciplines that I have learned through performing have stayed with me in my work (stuff like: Take care of your instrument. Don’t ever phone it in. Keep studying your craft to improve it. Make quiet time for your soul every day. Trust the holy energy that is working through you. Respect its intensity. Eat your vegetables. Don’t skip warm-up). But you guys. You guys are the Olympians. You are the champions. You are the magic-makers whose sweat and water bottles and cough logenzes backstage the audience will never see and whose quick costume changes they will never think about. You are the stars.

I simply want to thank you for all that you are giving of yourselves in the telling of this story and for holding up to audiences what America really does look like – not just its future but its NOW. I want to thank you for all the time you have dedicated to the young people who are inspired by this show, who have fallen in love with history through it, and who can see themselves as leaders because of it.

This coming Thursday night, my two best friends and I will be in the house. If you feel extra beams of admiration and adoration coming from ORCH (Left) G 17, it’s just me shining back at you.

Your obedient servant, V. Wein

The Reverend Dr. Victoria Weinstein

 

Intersectional Feminism, Twitter Trolls, Amy Schumer’s “Formation” Parody And Me

I saw the hashtag #AmySchumerGottaGoParty pop up in my Twitter feed yesterday. It was started by Feminista Jones, who posted a short video of herself reacting to Schumer’s parody of Beyonce’s “Formation,” which, if you didn’t know, was a huge event when it came out, generating countless think pieces and becoming an instant phenomenon. Within minutes, Black Twitter was popping with negative reaction to Schumer (yes, there is such a thing as Black Twitter. It’s a free education in white supremacy, go learn).

On Twitter, I watched in “oh my god she ditint” disbelief grainy footage of Amy Schumer tossing sweaty, crimped hair and trying to twerk. It was painfully unfunny. I have been a huge fan of Schumer’s for a long time. I have watched her career with a sense of personal investment like that old female relative who sees you once in awhile, but cups your face in her hand when you’re leaving the family gathering and says, “I’ve got my eye on you. You. You’re a little something.” Then she shakes her finger at your parents. “This one. Quite a something.” And they smile and say, “Yes, yes she is.”

I think Amy Schumer is quite a something, and now I’m shaking my finger at her, because she has made too many really stupid decisions lately.

There is no way that it’s time for anyone to parody “Formation.” We’re still in the bad, ugly, evil thick of the reason it got made in the first place. I don’t think there’s ever going to be a time for a white artist to parody “Formation.” I’m aware that Beyonce and Jay-Z gave their permission, but permission isn’t endorsement. For all we know, Beyonce and Jay-Z are laughing their heads off now saying to each other, “Yep. Look at all this backlash. Pass the hot sauce.”

I get it: comics are irreverent. Comics know that sacred cows make the best burgers. Amy Schumer is great at cooking up those burgers. She usually knows exactly what she’s doing in sending up pop culture. This time, she was appears to have been either too lazy or too entitled to consider the implications of reducing Beyonce’s “Formation” to a fun, sexy twerkathon. The video not a dance party, did she miss the drowning police car at the end, or was it more convenient to ignore that and all the other references to police brutality against African Americans? Watching Schumer enact her drunk-white-girl schtick to its phrases set off air raid sirens of White Lady Cluelessness in my head.

When Roseanne Barr sang the national anthem off key while grabbing her crotch, a lot of us thought it was tacky and ineffective as comedy or political commentary, but since the national anthem belongs to all Americans, it’s fair game for all Americans to parody. Everyone can comment on it, protest it, kneel during it, adore, abhor or ignore it. It’s our shared song.

Not all songs belong to everybody, and some songs quite obviously belong to a particular group. When that group is an oppressed, traumatized minority and that song is an anthem of strength, power and resilience, it’s a monumentally insensitive and ignorant decision for someone outside that group to appropriate it for yuks.

To those who argued that Black women are in Amy Schumer’s video, it’s not for me to speak to that. This is what Feminista Jones said [please click on images to enlarge them]:

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But freedom of speech! Yea, I know. I’ve heard of that. Artistic freedom and — and — and the comic’s subversive role in society! Yea, I’ve heard all about that, too. I’ve heard it from the boys who defend rape jokes and from Schumer’s white friends like Lena Dunham who pulled a grotesque, racist blooper fairly recently (during an interview with Schumer) by publicly accusing Odell Beckham, Jr. of being a misogynist for not giving her the attention she felt she deserved at the Met Gala. When she finally issued an apology to Mr. Beckham (who had never spoken to her and had no idea who she was), she qualified its sincerity by tweeting to her bud, “Glad the outrage machine roars on though, right?” Oh, okay, Mayella Ewell. Please go study some history and learn about what has happened to black men in America who were accused of paying too much attention to/not enough attention to/not enough respect to white ma’ams. And stop grinding on hot black men you don’t know and bragging about it. Your joke about “grinding on” Michael B. Jordan is super gross on too many levels to go into, but no one should have to explain it to you.

Amy Schumer and Lena Dunham’s shenanigans are Exhibit Z in a very long history of why black women so often leave the “feminism” room in disgust. Feminism isn’t just about how men treat women but how women treat other women. Who high-fived the “Formation” parody in the writer’s room, I wonder? I wonder who is in that writer’s room in the first place. There are so many other iconic videos Schumer could have parodied.

So I fired off a few furious tweets.

Amy Schumer is dead to me.

I was  a HUGE Fan of @AmySchumer until she enrolled in the Lena Dunham Academy for Insufferable White Women.

There is no possible excuse for not to know the cultural significance of for black women.I hope this ruins her career.

God knows I’m hyperbolic, but I totally don’t wish that so I deleted that Tweet and edited the last line to read,

“I hope this hurts her career.”

My tweet got picked up by some internet news websites and appeared in on a television clip somewhere. Cue the trolls.

Now, this “Formation” parody backlash happened mere days after Schumer insulted Donald Trump at her show in Tampa, Florida, causing 200 or so audience members to walk out. She had just published an open letter in response, which was likely to be appreciated by the Trumpsters just as much as her original comments. The letter is more peevish than funny and she sounds tired and fed up, but the ultimate burn is that she got these people’s ticket money.

The actually, genuinely funny thing that happened next was that the same Trump fans types who were dragging Amy Schumer for criticizing their Cheetoh-In-Chief lined up on my twitter feed to defend her! That’s how much integrity and moral clarity these people have.  Unfortunately, almost every one of these doofuses copied Schumer on their Tweets to me, so her mentions have been full of “@peacebang.” Sorry, girl!

Lots of eggs, lots of guys with guns in their avis, all the usual drama queen  who twist every comment into a Wolf Blitzer-level Situation. That’s what trolls do.

Continue reading “Intersectional Feminism, Twitter Trolls, Amy Schumer’s “Formation” Parody And Me”

Urban Decay’s “Razor Sharp” Ad

Urban Decay, a make-up company I adore and have written about many times in positive terms, produced this ad [click to enlarge]:

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Rightly called out for going over the edge of their self-description as a brand that sells “make-up with an edge,” UD Tweeted a baloney explanation about how they always use swatches on the arm.

I’m not buying it. Someone being paid good money decided to pair a single female arm in corpse-hued nail polish with razor cuts reminiscent of self-harming next to the product and approved that copy. These decisions are not arbitrary: advertising costs a lot of money and needs to generate a lot of money. It could have been handled differently.  Take a look at how, because every single one of the images I will share come from UD’s own Instagram account. which someone is also being paid to manage.

They could have used a neutral background with no human arm, as they did in these two cases:

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They could have shown several arms in relaxed or even fun hand formations. They’ve done it before:

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They could have shown the wrist only: an image much less evocative of cutting one’s wrists. They could have shown an open hand.

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They could have swatched the colors farther apart and gone way down the arm as they did here. In fact, the swatches would have been easier to see that way.

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They could have shown their product on actual eyes. They don’t always use the swatch design in their promos. I know. I’m a super loyal customer.

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The image they did use is a lone female’s arm in a pose that is nothing but evocative of wrist-cutting.  The position of the hand, the length and placement of the swatches  — it’s wrist-cutting. The coy, “edgy” copy for the ad confirms it.

It’s wrong, and Urban Decay should stop explaining and start apologizing.

As I said, I’m not buying their apology. As to whether I’ll be buying their make-up again, that remains to be seen.