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The past month has been an unprecedented one, including for the entertainment industry. Global health concerns brought TV and film sets to a halt, with movie theaters closed and new releases pushed back. A bunch of projects have also arrives in homes early, including Universal's Trolls World Tour. Disney recently announced that the Hamilton movie is being released a year early over on Disney+, but there's one concern: what about the movie's cursing? The House of Mouse's streaming service was intended to be family-friendly, but there are a handful of F-bombs and other curses in Lin-Manuel Miranda's Pulitzer Prize-winning musical.
Lin-Manuel Miranda is known for bringing rap and hip hop to Broadway with his Tony winning shows In The Heights and Hamilton. The latter blockbuster musical tells the tale of the founding fathers with modern music and a diverse cast of actors. And while there's the potential for Disney+ to edit the curses out of Hamilton, I'm hoping they leave the material as is.
Disney+ has already edited a few projects on the streaming service to make it more family friendly. By comparison Hamilton has much more adult material, as there are a slew of curses that leave the characters' mouths, starting from its opening number. But there are a few reasons why Hamilton should be the exception, the first of which being why the movie was produced in the first place.
The Hamilton movie isn't a movie by traditional standards, but a filmed performance of the Original Broadway Cast. This footage was shot back in 2016, before the principal cast of the musical started departing. The goal no doubt was to help to preserve Hamilton as it originally was, and share the magic with audiences who weren't able to get to New York City or afford the extremely expensive ticket prices. Censoring movie would stop it from being truly authentic to the Broadway experience, and would take away from the specificity of Lin-Manuel Miranda's writing.
Speaking of writing, many of F-bombs and other curses in Hamilton come from the show's many songs with rap. So if Disney+ decided to bleep out the more adult lyrics, it would also alter the very complicated rhythm and musicality of Lin-Manuel Miranda's score. The cast of Hamilton is required to spit some fire, with certain roles requiring very fast paced rapping that would be bogged down with bleeping.
The Hamilton movie was originally set to get a full theatrical release. The movie's producers (including Lin-Manuel Miranda) were seemingly determined to see the show on the big screen, although something must have changed along the way. While Hamilton won't be released in the way it was originally intended, I'm hoping that at least the material won't be altered while on Disney+. But only time will tell.
Hamilton is expected to arrive on Disney+ on July 3rd. In the meantime, check out our 2020 release list to plan your next trip to the movies.
