| dc.description.abstract | In this research, I perform an analysis of black womanhood in Hamilton’s character Angelica Schuyler. The musical recounts the life of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton and is applauded for its multi-ethnic casting of white historical figures, thereby communicating a message of racial equivalence. My research question is: how can the concept of the Oppositional Gaze be utilized to unveil representations of black womanhood in Angelica Schuyler from Hamilton? The Oppositional Gaze was introduced by bell hooks as black women’s critical spectatorship to resist and interrogate white patriarchal cinema. Theory on the Oppositional Gaze, its intersectional fundament and stage representation literature are discussed in my theoretical framework. I utilize Mieke Bal’s work on concept analysis to manifest a concept-based performance analysis to analyze Hamilton through the Oppositional Gaze. To properly answer my research question, I propose three sub-questions to constitute the following chapters.
In my first chapter, I elaborate on the Oppositional Gaze’s relation to its predecessors, centralizing authors grounded in gaze studies. Laura Mulvey’s work proposes the Male Gaze from a psychoanalytic perspective regarding the position of the universal woman. Next, Manthia Diawara discusses the black male spectator’s resisting spectatorship in relation to misrepresentations in white mainstream cinema. Finally, I discuss how both works compare to hooks’ Oppositional Gaze, highlighting correspondences and differences.
I then progress to musical theatre studies in Chapter 2, where I situate hooks’ Oppositional Gaze in (musical) theatre theory to modify the Gaze to analyze Hamilton. First, I introduce the Oppositional Gaze to musical conventions derived from Millie Taylor and Dominique Symonds and incorporate the Oppositional Gaze into musical narrativity. Next, I discuss Maaike Bleeker’s work on absorption and theatricality as strategies of spectatorship and clarify how these strategies function in relation to the Oppositional Gaze when spectating theatre.
Adding the above-mentioned theory as tools to my analytic belt, I move on to my analysis in Chapter 3. Here, I present black womanhood in Angelica Schuyler by elaborating on three identity types categories through which her role is manifested, constructed by visual, musical and lyrical signs. In the first category, I show how Angelica is positioned as an Other due to her role as a hardworking intellectual. Subsequently, I discuss Angelica’s role as a progressive feminist, which results in discrimination in Hamilton’s story world. Thirdly, I attest to how Angelica’s supportive and self-denying role brings her to a subordinated position.
Concluding, these results fashion an answer to my research question: Hamilton constitutes black womanhood in the role of Angelica Schuyler through three identity types that narratively position her as Other. The production admittedly does not negatively represent the black woman yet ultimately perpetuates white patriarchal structures in the story world by Othering the black woman. In theatrical moments, one’s Oppositional Gaze can see Angelica’s Othered position constituted in this positive representation. The initially valued absence of identity-based oppression in Hamilton is invalidated by the white supremacist discrimination Angelica experiences. Hamilton opens a dialogue about race with good intentions yet does not fulfill its inclusive values. | |
