Should we #CancelHamilton? Discourse of the enslaved in the broadway musical Hamilton

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this thesis is to examine how criticism of the Broadway musical Hamilton is received and argued about when it comes to the representation of certain characters. The overall research question is How are discursive productions of historical retelling and identification created by the musical Hamilton? and it will be answered by dividing the question to How does the debate surrounding Hamilton affect discourses around enslavement and slave owners? and How does the musical represent women of colour?. The material consists of seven Reddit threads, three articles and tweets. Theoretically, the thesis will analyse how the representation and identification of the musical is viewed and argued about by the audience. Additionally, queer feminist durationality and ambivalence will be used to understand how time and the colonialism affects the relation between the past and the present discourse of slavery. Methodically, the thesis is sectioned after three characters that are central in the debate, and will be analysed after Stuart Hall’s writing on Michel Foucault’s discourse. The conclusion shows that the musical affects certain historical discourses in how it chooses to represent slavery and which characters gets identified as slave owners, and by the historical Black enslaved woman who does not get represented at all.