Conservatives want to burn flags too; plus, the power of a singing POTUS
BRITTANY LUSE, HOST:
Hello, hello. I'm Brittany Luse, and you're listening to IT'S BEEN A MINUTE from NPR, a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident.
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LUSE: This week, we're connecting the dots between a mass email, a neighborhood dispute and political dissent. I know, I know. How are all these things connected? Well, we're going to find out with New Hampshire Public Radio's Nick Capodice and Hannah McCarthy, who host the Civics 101 podcast. Nick, Hannah, welcome to IT'S BEEN A MINUTE.
HANNAH MCCARTHY, BYLINE: Hi, Brittany. So glad to be here.
NICK CAPODICE, BYLINE: Delighted to be here.
LUSE: Oh, delighted to have you both. OK. So all the things I mentioned are connected by one symbol, which has a whole holiday on the calendar this week. Do you all know what it is?
MCCARTHY: What is Flag Day?
(LAUGHTER)
LUSE: Ding, ding, ding. You are right. Friday, June 14 is Flag Day, which celebrates Congress adopting the American flag in 1777. But we're not here to celebrate Flag Day. We're here because flags are making a lot of headlines this week.
Earlier this year, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was criticized for having an upside-down American flag flying in front of his house after January 6. Now, that was back in the news this week for a very specific reason we'll come back to because there is another flag in the news this week, brought to you by the Colorado Republican Party, which sent out a mass email with the headline God hates Pride - Pride, of course, being LGBTQ Pride. June is Pride Month. They also tweeted, quote, "burn all the #pride flags this June."
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LUSE: Hannah, Nick, you've both looked deeply into the history and meaning of flags in politics. Starting with the flag at Justice Alito's house, Nick, can you explain what someone might be trying to say when they fly an upside-down American flag?
CAPODICE: An upside-down American flag has been used since we were created as a nation to signify distress. You know, ships would have an upside-down flag if they were being attacked or if they were sinking.
LUSE: Oh.
CAPODICE: Over the years, that symbol grew to represent I am in distress. I don't like the way things are headed. So anti-war protesters flew upside-down flags during the Vietnam War. I know a lot of people who flew upside-down flags in the wake of the Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade.
So what I think is really interesting about the Alito upside-down flag is, you know, traditionally, more progressive people have protested by flying upside-down or burning the American flag. Upside-down flags were brought to the Capitol on January 6. Upside-down flags were tweeted by members of Congress after the 34 felony counts were laid against former President Donald Trump. This is a rather new thing.
LUSE: That is so interesting. I am still thinking about the logistics of flying an upside-down flag when your ship is sinking. I'm like, I don't know how...
(LAUGHTER)
CAPODICE: Get it up there.
LUSE: ...I don't know how you switch that one up (laughter). You know, Alito has said the upside-down flag at his house goes back to a dispute between his wife and a neighbor. That has all led to calls for Alito to recuse himself from the Supreme Court cases involving January 6. He's refused. And this week, a documentary filmmaker released audio exchanges with Justice Alito and his wife that the filmmaker recorded without their knowledge and while pretending to be a supporter.
Now, pretending to be someone else is viewed as unethical by journalists. And NPR has also not been able to confirm the authenticity of the recordings, which are edited excerpts. However, in one excerpt, Alito's wife can be heard complaining about a Pride flag she can see from her house and how she wishes she could raise other flags in opposition to it.
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MARTHA-ANN ALITO: I made a flag in my head - this is how I satisfy myself. I made a flag. It's white, and it has yellow and orange flames around it. And in the middle is the word vergogna. Vergogna in Italian means shame.
LUSE: Now, there are many flags flown by conservatives at this current moment - the don't-tread-on-me flag, the thin blue line flag, the Confederate flag. What do you think it says about conservatives right now that they're so interested in flying many different flags?
MCCARTHY: So the thing about flags that's really fascinating to me, Brittany, is that, essentially for as long as we've flown them, they have been both this incredibly direct and clear form of communication and a badge of honor. So it's a way of, you know, saying, this is my identity. This is my purpose. And as a society, as we have become more and more complex as people, they have become a little more nuanced as well. They have started to represent movements. They've represented whole nations. But we always come back to the same idea that they are an assertion of purpose and identity, that I belong to somebody with a very clear purpose and a very clear message.
CAPODICE: Flags are a quick and easy and powerful way for you to indicate to somebody else, I am with you, or I am against you. I am someone you can turn to. I am someone you should run away from. Yes, we are - and I'm tired of talking about it - but we are in a hyper-polarized environment right now, where people are looking for friends and allies. I think the growth of the flags, and, you know, the big uptick in their sale is because people are looking for ways to connect with people who are, quote-unquote, "on the same side" as them.
LUSE: OK. I want to turn to the other flag in the news right now, the Pride flag. The flag in and of itself is such an interesting example of a flag because it started off as just a rainbow. And then it was revised to include black, brown, pointing towards racial inclusion. And then there was the addition of the trans flag into the Pride flag - pastel blue, pink and white to emphasize trans people. And now, there's a new yellow circle on a black triangle to include intersex people. It's constantly evolving to be more inclusive as a symbol. You know, inclusivity is a central tenet of sexual and gender liberation. But, you know, the Colorado Republican Party is now calling for this flag to be burned. It's interesting, since the history of flag burning has generally come from progressive causes. Here, we're seeing conservatives calling for flag burning. Nick, what does that say about our current political moment?
CAPODICE: So when people started hanging up upside-down flags in response to Biden's inauguration and then at the attacks on the Capitol on January 6, and most recently, The Heritage Foundation and Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeting upside-down flags, in my understanding, Brittany, this is, like, the first time I've seen where the political far-right are using flag desecration. I hadn't seen it before. Reverance for the flag for the last 50 or 60 years has been a more, you know, GOP-side thing to do. But this is new, the fact that an American flag was not just brought to the Capitol during the insurrection but used to beat a cop. We have to consider that we are in unprecedented times.
LUSE: I want to talk about the right-side-up American flag for a second because it has also evolved in meaning over time. And for a while now, I have to say it has felt like the political right has had a stronger attachment to the American flag than the left.
CAPODICE: In 2018, Pew Research did a study and found that Republicans are two times as likely - two times as likely - to have an American flag in their homes than Democrats.
LUSE: Wow. Wow, wow, wow. How did we get here?
MCCARTHY: Yeah. So after the 9/11 attacks in New York, American flags were flown absolutely everywhere around the country. And they were a way of saying, I stand in solidarity with this nation. I stand for and behind the continuation of this nation. I am a part of it. I support it. I am with it. And over time, it seems that that message also sort of bled a little bit into nationalism, right? I am for America and America first and America only. And then something really interesting happened. In 2007, it was noted that former President Barack Obama was no longer wearing the compulsory American flag lapel pin that almost all politicians wear.
CAPODICE: They were everywhere. They were everywhere.
MCCARTHY: In so many cases, they still are. And when asked why he was no longer wearing it, he said, you know, he used to. And he felt that specifically in the years following 9/11, he felt that that pin was a stand-in for actual patriotism, that it was lip service, that it was a symbol that someone was a patriot, regardless of what their actual politics were, regardless of what they were actually doing for America, promising for America. This pin was a stand-in.
Then if you jump ahead to former President Donald Trump's first campaign - right? - in 2016, the American flag was everywhere at the rallies, everywhere at the campaign events, on every piece of merchandise alongside the Donald Trump flag as well. And this man, he loves that flag, right? He embraces...
LUSE: Right.
MCCARTHY: ...Literally that flag. He kisses it. He says, I love you, baby. And so many of his supporters, in turn, I think, really took up this flag, not necessarily as explicitly a symbol of Americanness, but also a symbol of supporting this candidate, Donald Trump. And I think you see a lot of Americans who look at that and say, OK, well, that's become associated with this one candidate and this one candidate's beliefs. But I think that's where we see that association shift. And then just one last thing. You know, during the Black Lives Matter protests, you also had counter-protesters showing up to these protests and flying the American flag in counter-protest, essentially asserting, I'm an American, and what you are doing is un-American.
LUSE: Is un-American.
MCCARTHY: Yeah, yeah.
LUSE: You know, thinking about flags and how they evoke so much meaning for us, even taking, for example, the American flag, to bring things back around. I mean, there are many Americans who have so much discomfort, so much sadness, so much grief about our country's history that it would be beyond the pale for them to own an American flag. Happy to live here, but feel that the flag represents too much. But the American flag, specifically, it's a symbol that has evolved meaning so many times. Nick - and I know you've heard from people who are wrestling with that meaning right now - how are you seeing people grapple with the evolution of the American flag's meaning?
CAPODICE: A listener wrote us as soon as he listened to our flag episode, and he's someone who said that he took his flag in after the 2016 election - right? - because of what you were mentioning. He felt like the country didn't represent him anymore. And then he said he decided to bring it back out, tattered and all. He said it was a very rumpled, very old flag. The side that is in the minority should not be the side that gets to say, I am the one who controls the flag that represents us all.
MCCARTHY: There's this movement happening wherein people will fly the American flag next to their Pride flag. They will fly the American flag next to the flag that represents their ideals, next to a Black Lives Matter flag. They're going to say, this is my version of America. This is what I am supporting. I am going to fly this flag. This is the nation that I want, and here are the values alongside it that I think this nation should represent.
LUSE: Well, Nick, Hannah, I have learned so much here. Thank you both so much.
MCCARTHY: Thank you, Brittany.
CAPODICE: Thank you, Brittany. It's been a pleasure.
LUSE: And as a thank you, I'd like to teach you something by playing a game with you both.
CAPODICE: Uh-oh.
LUSE: Can you stick around for a tiny bit longer?
MCCARTHY: Oh, yeah.
CAPODICE: You bet your boots we can.
LUSE: Oh, wow. I'm like, I don't know if I want to bet my boots. I'm like, hopefully, I can keep them. Well, we'll be right back with a little game I like to call But Did You Know? Stick around.
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LUSE: All right, all right. We're going to play a little game I like to call But Did You Know?
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LUSE: Here's how it works. I'm going to share a story that's been making headlines this week. And as I give you some background on the story, I'll also ask you trivia related to it. But don't worry - it is all multiple choice, so the right answer is going to be in there somewhere. And the first one to blurt out the right answer gets a point. The person with the most points wins, and their prize is bragging rights. We're all in public radio.
CAPODICE: (Laughter).
LUSE: You know, we cannot give away free cars.
MCCARTHY: (Laughter).
LUSE: This is not "The Price Is Right." This is not "The Price Is Right." Are y'all ready?
MCCARTHY: Oh, we're ready.
CAPODICE: Ready as I'll ever be.
LUSE: So y'all probably know this Sunday is Father's Day. But how much do you really know about dad day? Let's find out. Which of these cities was the first to celebrate what would one day become known as Father's Day?
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LUSE: Was it A, Spokane, Wash.; B, Boise, Idaho; or C, Little Rock, Ark.? Y'all look perplexed.
(LAUGHTER)
MCCARTHY: C, Little Rock, Ark.
CAPODICE: I'm going to say B, Boise, Idaho.
LUSE: Well, (laughter) unfortunately, y'all are both wrong.
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MCCARTHY: (Laughter).
LUSE: The answer is A, Spokane, Wash. According to historians, a woman in Spokane, Sonora Dodd, was inspired by Mother's Day, which was a holiday long before Father's Day. She wanted to honor her single father, who raised her and her five siblings by himself, in the same way. So she got the local YMCA to help her out. And in 1910, they held the first documented Father's Day. Can I please get a collective aw?
CAPODICE: Wow.
MCCARTHY: Aw.
(LAUGHTER)
CAPODICE: I was raised by a single dad. That story means a whole lot to me.
LUSE: Oh, my God. Oh, my God. That's really sweet. Oh, my gosh. Do we need to pause this game so we can all go call our father figures? Like, is that what we need to do?
CAPODICE: (Laughter) I think so. I think so.
MCCARTHY: Probably (laughter).
LUSE: All right. So Dodd's story would reverberate across the country and become the basis for what we now know as the official Father's Day. So which of these presidents, inspired by Dodd, passed the law to make Father's Day a national holiday? We're bringing in presidents now. So I'm looking at y'all like, maybe you know. I don't know.
CAPODICE: (Laughter).
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LUSE: Was it A, Calvin Coolidge; B, Lyndon B. Johnson; or C, Richard Nixon?
MCCARTHY: Oh. I'm going to say LBJ.
CAPODICE: I've got to say - the guy must have done something that I stand by - I'm (laughter) going to go with Richard Nixon, C.
MCCARTHY: Careful there, buddy.
LUSE: (Laughter) All right. Well, Nick, you bet your boots on the right one.
CAPODICE: Whoo (ph).
LUSE: The answer was C, Richard Nixon.
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LUSE: In the 1920s, Coolidge did pass a resolution to, quote, "establish more intimate relations between fathers and their children and to impress upon fathers the full measure of their obligations" - that's vague. And in 1966, Johnson did sign an executive order that the holiday be celebrated on the third Sunday in June. But it was under Richard Nixon in 1972 that a law was officially passed, establishing the national holiday. Does that make Nixon daddy?
(LAUGHTER)
MCCARTHY: Oh.
LUSE: Oh, I don't know.
CAPODICE: America's daddy.
MCCARTHY: Oh, I don't know.
LUSE: (Laughter) I don't know.
CAPODICE: I don't know if I'm resigned to that. Yeah.
LUSE: All right. To recap the score, Hannah, you are still sitting pretty at 0 points. And, Nick, you got 1 point. All right.
CAPODICE: All right.
LUSE: So without further ado, the final question. Supposedly, the first recorded use of the word dad was in the 1500s. And probably long before then - and certainly ever since - dads have been making jokes. When was the first recorded use of the term dad jokes?
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LUSE: Was it - (laughter) I love to see the eyes widening - was it A, 1787; B, 1887; or C, 1987?
MCCARTHY: I would say 1887.
CAPODICE: I'm going to say C, 1987.
LUSE: And Nick...
MCCARTHY: Ah.
LUSE: ...You took it for the win. The answer...
CAPODICE: Oh.
LUSE: ...Is the year I was born...
MCCARTHY: Oh.
LUSE: ...C, 1987.
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LUSE: So in The Gettysburg Times, writer Jim Kalbaugh made an impassioned plea to please preserve the, quote, "dad joke," begging that the genre not be banned, but instead revered and preserved, which tees up very nicely for either of you to share your favorite dad joke.
CAPODICE: I got one.
MCCARTHY: Nick's got a lot of them.
(LAUGHTER)
CAPODICE: Well, I'm a dad, Brittany. I - It's the law. So Brittany, how do you know when a joke is a dad joke?
LUSE: I don't know. How?
CAPODICE: When it's a parent.
LUSE: (Laughter).
MCCARTHY: Ah.
CAPODICE: And as the kicker, when does a joke become a dad joke?
LUSE: I really don't know. When?
CAPODICE: After the delivery.
MCCARTHY: Ah.
LUSE: (Laughter).
MCCARTHY: That's so rab (ph).
LUSE: Oh, my gosh. Well, that is it for But Did You Know for this week. Congratulations, Nick, on your win. And also, happy Father's Day.
CAPODICE: Yeah, likewise.
MCCARTHY: Happy Father's Day.
CAPODICE: Happy Father's Day, everybody.
LUSE: That was New Hampshire Public Radio's Nick Capodice and Hannah McCarthy. You can hear their podcast Civics 101 wherever you get your podcasts. I'm going to take a quick break. And when I get back, we're getting into the trend of putting presidents in musicals and what that says about what we think of their power.
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LUSE: Stick around.
My big question this week is, what can singing presidents in Broadway musicals tell us about how we view our leaders and their power? And a quick heads up. This segment contains brief descriptions of sexual violence that may not be suitable for all listeners. The Tony Awards are this weekend. And to commemorate the occasion, I want to talk about a theater tradition that has me scratching my head - singing presidents.
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HOWARD DA SILVA: (As Benjamin Franklin, singing) Mr. Adams, I say you should write it.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSICAL, "BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character, singing) Governor Andrew Jackson.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSICAL, "HAMILTON")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character, singing) George Washington's going home.
LUSE: There are a lot of presidents on stage and on screen. Obviously, there's "Hamilton," but also "1776," "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson," "Newsies." The list goes on. And some of these shows take some very interesting artistic liberties. It's not just that these poetizes (ph) belt out show tunes. The way they're characterized says a lot about how we like to look at our history and our leaders. To break it all down and help me understand what's beneath the melodies, I am joined by playwright and theater critic Sarah Jae Leiber.
Sarah Jae, welcome to IT'S BEEN A MINUTE.
SARAH JAE LEIBER: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
LUSE: My pleasure. OK, so we all know "Hamilton" for better or worse, depending on who you ask. But presidents have a weird place in American musical theater. Can you tell me about some of the shows that feature our nation's leaders that came before Hamilton?
LEIBER: Sure thing. There's a bunch of different examples that you can go with, going really, really, far back in time to, like, a musical about FDR that premiered during his presidency called "I'd Rather Be Right."
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JAMES CAGNEY: (As Franklin D. Roosevelt, singing) When I was courting Eleanor, I told her uncle Teddy I wouldn't run for president unless the job was steady.
LEIBER: And then you have little presidential cameos in something like "Hair" that does happen to depict Abraham Lincoln.
LUSE: Right. Played by a Black woman, right?
LEIBER: Always played by a Black woman, in my experience.
LUSE: My sister played that role in high school. I think that's the only reason (laughter) I remember that.
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LORRI DAVIS: (As character, singing) Our forefathers, I mean, all our forefathers, brought forth upon this here continent a new nation. Oh, come on.
LEIBER: One of the big ones that made me start thinking about how weird this is as a feature of American musicals is "Annie." Franklin Delano Roosevelt appears in "Annie" as a character. He shows up to talk to Daddy Warbucks about what Daddy Warbucks, who was a billionaire, can do to, like, help the country get out of the Great Depression.
LUSE: Wow.
LEIBER: Annie charms him and sings, "The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow."
LUSE: Right.
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TAYLOR RICHARDSON: (As Annie, singing) Just thinking about tomorrow. There's a way...
LEIBER: Annie's plucky optimism is sort of what sets the new deal in motion in the narrative of "Annie."
LUSE: Yes, yes. I remember that from AP history. So to talk more about these presidential representations, you said in a tweet that some of these portrayals of presidents are bizarre.
LEIBER: Yeah.
LUSE: Can you say more about what makes some of them bizarre?
LEIBER: Sure. Yeah. There's two in particular that are bizarre in the same way that I really wanted to talk about.
LUSE: Please.
LEIBER: So Teddy Roosevelt shows up in "Newsies" towards the end. He wasn't the president, but he was governor of New York during the historical newsboys' strike. But of course, "Newsies" was written long after he'd cemented his presidential image. And anyway, his entire function in "Newsies" is to be one, be a deus ex machina for the plot and talk to Joseph Pulitzer about fairer wages for the newsies. But the other thing that he's on stage to do is imply that he is sexually active.
LUSE: Oh, what?
LEIBER: Like, outside of his marriage. Like, there is a nightclub singer character, and she leaves with Roosevelt in a very suggestive way.
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AISHA DE HAAS: (As Medda Larkin) Come along, Governor, and tell me about the back seat I've been hearing so much about.
LEIBER: And it's sort of similar to how Thomas Jefferson is depicted in "1776." He's very quiet, except for when he's making out with his wife. He wants to finish seceding from England so that he can continue making out with his wife.
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WILLIAM DANIELS: (As John Adams) Now, then, sir, will you be a patriot or a lover?
KEN HOWARD: (As Thomas Jefferson) A lover.
DANIELS: (As John Adams) No.
HOWARD: (As Thomas Jefferson) But I burn, Mr. A.
DANIELS: (As John Adams) So do I, Mr. J.
LUSE: That is so weird. I mean, there's so much weird about what you just said.
LEIBER: Yeah.
LUSE: The Thomas Jefferson characterization in "1776," is especially weird when you consider...
LEIBER: Yes.
LUSE: ...The realities of what perhaps Thomas Jefferson may have referred to as his romantic life, but the rest of us would refer to as assault on a Black female slave.
LEIBER: Exactly. Who is this for (laughter)? Who are we trying to protect by making him a soft-spoken guy who loves his wife? And when he is called out specifically for slave owning, he just gets very quiet. And he says, like, I've made a pledge to free my slaves.
LUSE: That is so - I'm sorry - like, the levels of that are so ridiculous. I mean, there's, like, Thomas Jefferson's assault on Sally Hemings, a teenage enslaved girl that he impregnated many, many times. And so it's really strange to, like you say, depict him as a wife guy, who has...
LEIBER: (Laughter).
LUSE: ...All of this quiet regret over slavery when he didn't even free Sally Hemings in his lifetime, nor upon his death.
LEIBER: No.
LUSE: Everything about that is just so wild. But, I mean, it's interesting also to think about, like, how we want to see these people. (Laughter) Why is it so important that...
LEIBER: (Laughter).
LUSE: ...We think of them as these, like, virile guys who can get with a lot of women? Like, why do you think that is so appealing to people who are creating these musicals that feature presidents?
LEIBER: I think that virility is also shorthand for, like, masculine health. And I think masculine health is how you prove to audiences that the United States is actually doing really great.
LUSE: So there's these American presidents in American theater, but glorifying leaders goes back even further to the Old World. Can you talk about that?
LEIBER: I think the most easily accessible example of that comes from Shakespeare. Shakespeare was writing not contemporary to the leaders of his time, but a lot of the history plays that he wrote were of different kings of England that had been predecessors of the current monarchs.
LUSE: Interesting.
LEIBER: And James, in particular, was his benefactor. He funded Shakespeare's art. And while not all of these depictions were flattering, he was careful not to offend. So I think at best, when we are depicting presidents in musicals, we're sort of taking a cultural temperature and trying to understand the politics of the presidency. But I think at worst, it just comes off as somehow more undignified because they're not paying us.
LUSE: (Laughter) That's a pretty good point.
LEIBER: And it's - like, I wonder about FDR in "Annie" specifically because I did a deep dive into the "Annie" comic actually a little while ago and learned that the guy who created the "Annie" comic hated FDR so bad that when FDR was elected to his fourth term as president, he killed Daddy Warbucks in the comic and said that he died of despair.
LUSE: What (laughter)?
LEIBER: Yeah. So the guys who were writing the musical, I wonder why they chose to depict him in this, like, sort of glowing light. But I think it might be because FDR also funded the Federal Theater Project.
LUSE: Right.
LEIBER: I wonder if that's why they chose to depict him that way.
LUSE: Could be. And actually, that makes me think about how Broadway functions in our modern political landscape. Like, when "Hamilton" came out, you saw all these political power players go to see this show. I mean, who can forget when Mike Pence went to "Hamilton," right? The actors on stage - basically, they were speaking out against his policies because...
LEIBER: Right.
LUSE: ...He'd just been elected as vice president.
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BRANDON VICTOR DIXON: We are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet...
(CHEERING)
LUSE: But, you know, lots of political power players were in the audience. I mean, the cast of "Hamilton" performed at the White House when Obama was in office. And now political leaders, it seems, are starting to be actually behind some of these historical productions, like Hillary Clinton being a producer behind "Suffs," which is a musical all about the suffragettes. What do you make of this?
LEIBER: (Laughter) I think that it is an easy way for politicians to see and be seen. Hillary Clinton specifically producing "Suffs" is fascinating to me because it sort of feels like she's rerouted her presidential hopefulness into becoming an EGOT.
LUSE: I mean, she already does have the Grammy. Yeah.
LEIBER: Exactly. I wonder if that's because short of political power in this country, it's the safest and easiest way to, like, have power.
(LAUGHTER)
LUSE: Yeah. I mean, if you're already famous, yeah, you definitely have access to that kind of power without breaking too much of a sweat. OK. I wonder, what do these musical presidents say about how we view presidents culturally?
LEIBER: We depict presidents the way that we do for a couple of reasons. And I think one of them is that we, as, like, subjects of an empire, want to see who is ruling us. And I think we are interested in showing them as deeply relatable. I also think that we can put FDR in "Annie" and show that it's the Great Depression without actually having to depict the Great Depression. I think a lot of the times, it's shorthand for larger political moments.
LUSE: One of the things that came up as we were preparing for this conversation with you - our editor mentioned that she thinks that there's also something really powerful about a chorus, which I feel like - whether it's "1776" or "Newsies" or "Annie" or "Hamilton" famously, a lot of these casts have a lot of people in them standing on stage, singing these big, blood-pumping anthemic songs together. And so that singing together - that harmonizing together - that kind of lends itself to this mythmaking of American togetherness or the portrayal of America having oneness under one leader.
LEIBER: Oh, I think that's really interesting, especially considering things like - this is not a musical that portrays a U.S. president - but the way that "Do You Hear The People Sing?" from "Les Mis" has become sort of...
LUSE: Yeah.
LEIBER: ...A one-size-fits-all political anthem.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSICAL, "LES MISERABLES")
CAST OF LES MISERABLES: (As characters, singing) Do you hear the people sing? - singing the song of angry men? It is the...
LEIBER: Lots of people use it at lots of different rallies. I think it speaks to the power of theater, and I mean that in both a positive way and a negative (laughter) way.
LUSE: (Laughter).
LEIBER: When you are in a space where you're listening and watching a story unfold on stage, you are also uniquely situated to be emotionally manipulated. And that's why the best musicals work. And it's also why the worst musicals are the most dangerous.
LUSE: So I want to talk more about how people have tried to reimagine the singing president. Let's talk a little bit more about "Hamilton." Honestly...
LEIBER: (Laughter).
LUSE: ...I've never even seen "Hamilton." I don't think I've...
LEIBER: Really?
LUSE: ...Listened to any of the songs. No. I started telling people that I had seen it because it became enough of a thing in New York...
LEIBER: (Laughter).
LUSE: ...Where I realized if I said I hadn't seen it, then it's like, oh, well, you've got to see it. And then that starts off a whole 20-minute conversation. So I started lying after a while.
LEIBER: (Laughter). Sure.
LUSE: That's how popular and powerful this show is, OK? And "Hamilton" was marketed as a kind of reclamation of American history by people of color. And since then, we've actually seen other versions of recasts in American history, like the all-women and non-binary revival of "1776," which, to me, I'm sitting here like, what does that mean?
LEIBER: Right.
LUSE: You know? I don't really see how that shifts the meaning of that musical. But sure, I feel like these shows were making an attempt at putting different kinds of people in the imagination of American power. But as we discussed, those imaginations aren't really based on anything real anyway.
LEIBER: Right, they're not. But I think that what "Hamilton" was doing was well-intentioned. I don't necessarily think that we are politically in the same place to accept it now as many people were in 2015, the era of sort of optimistic retellings of American history where you are placing people into those stories that were written out intentionally is sort of over. Maybe a more effective way of telling these kinds of stories that have been erased from the historical record is maybe writing different stories. We haven't really talked about "Assassins."
"Assassins" is a Sondheim musical that tells the story of every person that has ever taken a shot at the president or tried to kill the president. And we hear about why they wanted to shoot the president. And it's sort of, like, refracting what all of these other musicals are doing. I think it is telling the story of how a citizen feels living in the country at the time of this president's reign. And I think the story there is in what they are lacking, what responsibility they are placing on the president to improve their own individual lives.
LUSE: Speaking of new stories versus old stories. It seems like we have a lot of old stories being repeated out on the stage right now. A lot of the different plays and musicals that were huge this year are based on stories that already existed in some way. I'm thinking about "The Notebook," "The Outsiders," "Back To The Future." We have "Suffs" about the suffragettes on Broadway right now, and there's another play coming soon that's seemingly inspired by Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
LEIBER: Right.
LUSE: I wonder, does American history function as, like, another form of recycled IP?
LEIBER: (Laughter) I do think, in some ways, it is. If IP is something that functions to both tell us the same story to make a quick buck and also to re up copyright on popular stories. I think American history is IP. I think they are all part of a larger American narrative, and they are all part of a larger American mythology.
LUSE: Gosh. And it's, like, the same way that if there's a new "Smurfs" movie or new "Trolls" movie, part of the reason why studios are so interested in those is because the audience does not have to buy into anything new.
LEIBER: Right.
LUSE: Is there enough in the story that they recognize that they'll...
LEIBER: Right.
LUSE: ...Buy a ticket and sit down? But instead of us growing up watching a certain cartoon, we could be learning these stories in history classes from K-12.
LEIBER: Right. I think it goes back to what we were talking about, about politicians being the producers on these shows. If we look at American history as intellectual property and our politicians as people who are funding that intellectual property, like, what is actually the difference between that and propaganda?
LUSE: Asking the real questions, Sarah, you are asking the real questions. I want to talk about one more show. It's called "Oh, Mary!" which is...
LEIBER: Yes.
LUSE: ...Going to Broadway this summer. It's more of a play, but the lead, Cole Escola, as Mary Todd Lincoln does absolutely sing in this show. I had the pleasure of speaking with Cole earlier this week, and while I think some of these other musicals take a historical approach to prop some of these historical figures up, "Oh, Mary!" takes an ahistorical approach to lampoon the Lincoln family's respectable image. The show makes Mary a raging alcoholic who wants to be a cabaret singer and makes Abraham, like Abraham Lincoln, an evil gay schemer who's plotting on Mary's misery. What makes that approach feel different?
LEIBER: I think that is the way to do it, acknowledging the ridiculousness of history by putting it in front of you. And maybe it looks outsized, but, like, look at these other enormous lies that we've been told about American history on stage. What is actually the harm of acknowledging the silliness? Big silly satire is maybe the only way to speak truth to this kind of power on the stage.
LUSE: Sarah, thank you so much.
LEIBER: Thank you so much for having me.
LUSE: Thanks again to Sarah Jae Leiber. You can find her work on her Substack newsletter, You Are My Biggest Fan.
This episode of IT'S BEEN A MINUTE was produced by...
BARTON GIRDWOOD, BYLINE: Barton Girdwood.
ALEXIS WILLIAMS, BYLINE: Alexis Williams.
LIAM MCBAIN, BYLINE: Liam McBain.
COREY ANTONIO ROSE, BYLINE: Corey Antonio Rose.
LUSE: This episode was edited by...
JESSICA PLACZEK, BYLINE: Jessica Placzek.
LUSE: Engineering support came from...
TIFFANY VERA CASTRO, BYLINE: Tiffany Vera Castro.
LUSE: Our executive producer is...
VERALYN WILLIAMS, BYLINE: Veralyn Williams.
LUSE: Our VP of programming is...
YOLANDA SANGWENI, BYLINE: Yolanda Sangweni.
LUSE: All right. That's all for this episode of IT'S BEEN A MINUTE from NPR. I'm Brittany Luse. Talk soon.
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