Hamilton: Why King George Is The Only White Main Character

The musical Hamilton, which is streaming as a movie on Disney+, features a diverse cast portraying real life figures, but keeps King George III white to better fit with the show’s story and themes. Created by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who is of Puerto Rican descent and also stars as its titular character, Alexander Hamilton, one of the core aspects of the musical is that its cast includes people of color playing white historical people. While it is important for representation, Hamilton also has a key story reason for doing this, as it’s about the United States of today telling the story of the U.S. then, and helps frame the nation’s birth as a story (and celebration) of immigration.

This also ties in with why Hamilton features rap and hip-hop as its predominant musical styles, rather than the more traditional show tunes would typically expect from a Broadway production (although the show’s songs smartly combine a myriad of different genres and styles). Again, it’s about rooting the story in different cultures and telling the stories of people of color who may otherwise have been left out of the narrative, but were very much a part of it. However, there are still a few white characters to be found in Hamilton, such as Samuel Seabury, but the most important in terms of stage time and story is King George, played by Jonathan Groff.

There are a few reasons why King George is white in Hamilton, which again fit in with the musical’s grander ideas. Much of Hamilton‘s story centers around the United States’ bid for independence; it’s to leave the Old Word Order behind and start a new one in the image of George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and the other Founding Fathers. By making these figures into people of color, they’re re-framing that story; at the same time, King George being white helps provide a much clearer delineation between the two. Like Seabury, King George is a relic of what was before; someone who wants to keep the status quo because it works for him, rather than change it for the better of others.

By having King George be played by a white actor in Groff, Hamilton has a great visual representation of this divide. It’s true that King George is also one of the villains of the piece, as much as there are any, but the musical is more complex and layered than that. The dissonance between what King George represents and what Hamilton, Washington et al do is also represented by his singing, which is done in the style of British Invasion songs. While that itself was inspired by rock’n’roll and blues, British Invasion is more commonly associated with white artists, such as The Beatles, and much like having people of color rapping, the musical choices combine well with the character to better serve the narrative.

Hamilton may skim over some of the truth of its own history regarding slavery, as it largely puts its central figures as those pushing for freedom rather than getting into George Washington’s own issues on the subject. But that works, and it means King George being white again fits the broader themes: he is the one aiming to keep all of the United States under his control; he refers to them several times as his subjects, and his intent is clear in that he thinks he owns them. With Hamilton in part a story of freedom, it further makes sense for the King to be white. Of course, it’s likely the show could still be just as great with a person of color playing the role, but it does work particularly well this way, while there’s also the not-so-insignificant matter of Groff himself being brilliant as King George, no matter how much he spits.

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