Posted on November 20th, 2016 by Adam-Troy Castro
As President-Elect, Donald Trump is already demonstrating that he has absolutely no idea how to ignore or finesse a small embarrassment until it goes away, and giving those of us appalled by his election reason to hope for the results when, as happens to all Presidents, he suffers a major public relations crisis.
Now he’s urging his followers to boycott HAMILTON, thus giving further publicity to the show whose actors gave Mike Pence a firm talking to.
What is darkly amusing about this is that he appears to have absolutely no idea what a boycott is or how it works.
To successfully boycott something, you need to have a history of using it.
The Montgomery bus boycott, during which the black population of that city refused to ride segregated buses, was as effective as it was because black people had been using the buses before, and the system actually did depend on their financial support. It wouldn’t have been successful if the boycott had only gained traction among folks who drove to work in their own cars.
The boycott of Barilla pasta, during which users of that food staple stopped buying it out of disgust for racial comments from representatives of the company, made its sales plummet. It wouldn’t have been successful if it only gained traction among folks who never ate gluten.
The boycott of the Dixie Chicks by radio stations that had previously been playing their music put very real pressure on the band. It wouldn’t have been successful if it had only gained traction on the weather channel.
On the other hand, if you never ever go to the movies and only see the ones you do see on free TV, then virtuous declarations that you’re boycotting Mel Gibson accomplish nothing but make you look stupid.
I’m a science fiction and horror writer who has often blogged about political subjects. From time to time some troll who misspells as many words as possible announces to me that he’s never heard of me anyway and that he will be boycotting my work. I examine this position statement, calculate the infinitesimal odds that this fellow ever would have picked up any of my books – especially when internal evidence documents that he likely picks up damn few and pays for even fewer – and, despite desperately needing more sales, lose not a moment’s sleep. He is not boycotting me. He is simply attaching an ideological tag to his prior total unfamiliarity with me.
And so we have HAMILTON, a raging hit stage musical sold out for years in advance, that you likely cannot get a seat for even if you walk up to the box office with a couple of thousand dollars to burn for the purpose, a show so successful that the merchandise store is a permanent installation in the theatre district.
Donald Trump thinks that he can terrify the folks behind it by urging his supporters to a boycott when HAMILTON could run for years and be the most successful musical in history if its entire ticket-selling lifetime captured just one tenth of a percent of the people who voted for Hillary.
It could be damn successful selling tickets only to those for voted for Gary Johnson.
And that’s not even the silly part.
His call to boycott HAMILTON assumes that his supporters nationwide are all about going to see Manhattan hip-hop musicals at four hundred dollars a pop.
They aren’t. The occasional Pence anomaly aside, many of them would sneer at the very idea – let alone the cost – of buying a ticket to a Broadway show, any Broadway show. That’s not a slam on them in particular. It happens to be true of most people. The majority of folks who live in Manhattan and surrounding boroughs have never bought a ticket to a Broadway show, ever. It’s a rarefied pastime, both culturally and financially. Not to mention that almost all of America, and therefore most of the Trump electorate, is not in any geographical position to go. If you live in Montana, seeing HAMILTON is likely not in your weekend plans. It just isn’t.
Of those Trump voters who do make it to Manhattan from time to time and would buy a ticket to some Broadway show, most wouldn’t race to buy a ticket to this particular Broadway show. Can you imagine the folks you saw at those rallies wetting themselves at the idea of seeing early American history re-enacted with a racially diverse cast? That’s the Trump Demographic, all right!
But what’s going to happen is that they’re all going to receive his call for a boycott and sit right at home before the flickering light of their televisions and congratulate each other for boycotting HAMILTON, a show they wouldn’t have seen even if they had been transported to Manhattan, handed a pair of free tickets and a backstage pass, and offered a blow job by the world’s greatest practitioner of the art if they went. The self-congratulation for boycotting this musical is going to be loud even among those who don’t even buy tickets to movies at their local multiplex, at one-fiftieth the cost. Look at me, I’m making a major point!
It’s really like me, the guy who has despised Trump for years, thinking he’s personally making a major point by declaring that he’ll never buy a condo in a Trump building. Yeah. Like the opportunity will ever come up. What’s hurting his enterprises, still, is aversion to his businesses by people horrified by the prospect of him as President, who were contributing to his bottom line before. Not me. My “boycott” means nothing.
Look at me, I’m boycotting the Russian ballet.
Nobody putting on a Russian Ballet knows it, but give me a high five.
“I’m boycotting HAMILTON!”
Yeah, yeah. Good luck with that. Let me know how it works out.
What Trump is offering his followers, with this imbecilic charge, is the chance to feel unified against their continued lack of support of an enterprise they wouldn’t have supported in the first place.
Tags: Assholes, Dixie Chicks, Donald Trump, Hamilton, Life Wisdom, Mel Gibson, Mike Pence, Race, Republicans, Theater, writing | Category Life Wisdom, Politics
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
November 20th, 2016 at 11:17 am
Thomas Clay Jr.,
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
November 20th, 2016 at 11:17 am
Only because I suspect they’ll like it: David Gerrold, Janna Silverstein, Keith DeCandido
Comment By: Frank Schildiner
November 20th, 2016 at 11:17 am
It’s proving and excellent distraction from Jeff Sessions and Trump U settlement.
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
November 20th, 2016 at 11:17 am
True.
Comment By: Mountain Jane Laurel
November 20th, 2016 at 11:17 am
Even stupider still is their “boycott” of Starbucks.
http://theslot.jezebel.com/trump-supporters-are-boycotting-starbucks-by-heroically-1789176407
Comment By: Becky Kyle
November 20th, 2016 at 11:17 am
LOL because they want to hear Trump’s name called out over and over and pay for the privilege. DUMDEDUMDUM
Comment By: Frank Schildiner
November 20th, 2016 at 11:17 am
I’m hoping they protest my books the same way. Buy hundreds of copies lol
Comment By: Christopher Bennett
November 20th, 2016 at 11:17 am
What I’m wondering is, why was Pence even at the show? Did he not know what it was about?
Comment By: Frank Schildiner
November 20th, 2016 at 11:17 am
When has information ever been important to him?
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
November 20th, 2016 at 11:17 am
He likely knew it was supposed to be good. I won’t go so far as to say he couldn’t have enjoyed it, but he does strike me as the guy who sees the one major hit show everybody’s talking about, rather than poring through the listings and finding something perhaps a little more prominent that he might like more. (When we stop by Broadway, we generally do research before and during, and thus have a full wish list. We were unable to see HAMILTON, of course, but the one we were sad at not being able to get into was THE FRONT PAGE. And, really, you folks need to see SOMETHING ROTTEN while you still have a chance.)
Comment By: Barb Padgett
November 20th, 2016 at 11:17 am
I wonder how he and his Secret Service detail got all those tickets for a sold-out show?
Comment By: Christopher Bennett
November 20th, 2016 at 12:17 pm
Steve Jarrett : Reportedly Pence had left his seat before the statement but listened from the lobby or something.
Comment By: Katherine Walsh
November 20th, 2016 at 4:17 pm
One of the Broadway websites received a statement from him – he was apparently there with his daughters and their cousins. He did hear it all, and was not offended, saying the actors were very respectful. Although he did question the venue for issuing the statement so publicly.
Comment By: Glenn Hauman
November 20th, 2016 at 5:17 pm
“Did he not know what it was about?”
Sure. It’s a show about a sitting Vice-President shooting his political rival dead and still serving out the rest of his term. Clearly the subject matter had some appeal to him.
Comment By: David J. Loftus
November 20th, 2016 at 7:17 pm
I have seen it suggested by one of my more conservative (but highly discerning) friends that it’s not an outlandish theory to suppose that Pence specifically went to “Hamilton” expecting and intending to provoke some sort of flap like this, in order to divert attention from the $25 million Trump University settlement and Bannon appointment.
How many other folks do you know who show up for a “quiet night of entertainment at the theater” with a small fleet of oversized black vehicles, an EMS bus, an escort of a dozen New York City police officers, and another half dozen security in military gear and armed with semiautomatic weapons?
Comment By: Karen
November 20th, 2016 at 10:55 am
I continue to believe that all this hoo-ha is just his way of distracting everyone from the 20-some-million dollar settlement of the lawsuits against Trump U on Friday. Nobody’s talking about that important fact — but everyone is talking about this trivial one.
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
November 20th, 2016 at 11:17 am
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6KufeXgdo4
Comment By: Barb Padgett
November 20th, 2016 at 11:17 am
Comment By: Tim Reynolds
November 20th, 2016 at 11:17 am
Well said!
Comment By: Russ Weasel Laughlin
November 20th, 2016 at 12:17 pm
So, the producers and cast will never have to accept Trump $$$ in exchange for their performance labors. That still puts them up on the thousands who have labored for his benefit, yet were stiffed on payment entirely.
Comment By: Stacy Grover
November 20th, 2016 at 12:17 pm
Snort.
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
November 20th, 2016 at 12:17 pm
Giving the devil his due: Mike Pence’s only statement on the issue was that he wasn’t at all offended.
Comment By: Dave Meyer
November 20th, 2016 at 1:17 pm
It appears he’s being a good sport about it. http://www.playbill.com/article/mike-pence-enjoyed-hamilton-was-not-offended-by-the-cast
Comment By: Lori Koonce
November 20th, 2016 at 3:17 pm
Someone has to put this administration in touch with proper behaviour. Looks like Pence is stepping up
Comment By: T-Roy Lent
November 20th, 2016 at 3:17 pm
Trump and Pence are different. Pence is a career politician who understands how these things go. The more he complains the worse he looks.
That Trump only set three Tweets says to me somebody took his phone away.
Comment By: John Hudgens
November 20th, 2016 at 1:17 pm
And now Trump supporters are interrupting performances: http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Trump-Supporter-Shouts-Profanities-And-Interrupts-HAMILTON-In-Chicago-20161120
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
November 20th, 2016 at 2:17 pm
Of course. Attack the production with the cast that wasn’t involved with the statement you were pissed at.
God, these people are stupid and dangerous.
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
November 20th, 2016 at 2:17 pm
Yyyyess???
Comment By: Janna Silverstein
November 20th, 2016 at 1:17 pm
Well said, Adam.
Comment By: John Ordover
November 20th, 2016 at 4:17 pm
This was just a well-orchestrated publicity stunt to get HAMILTON some much-needed publicity. Now maybe it’ll sell some tickets around town…
Comment By: John Hudgens
November 20th, 2016 at 4:17 pm
Sure, right, whatever….
Comment By: Patrick RichardsFink
November 20th, 2016 at 4:17 pm
When you’re showing to empty houses, you need any publicity you can get.
Comment By: John Hudgens
November 20th, 2016 at 5:17 pm
Patrick RichardsFink but they’re not showing to empty houses….
Comment By: Marguerite Reed
November 20th, 2016 at 5:17 pm
Yeah, I hear that show is really on the skids.
Comment By: Adina Adler
November 20th, 2016 at 5:17 pm
Patrick RichardsFink when tickets are sold out through next Labor Day, it’s hardly an empty house.
Comment By: Seth Breidbart
November 20th, 2016 at 5:17 pm
Once again, we see that sarcasm doesn’t play on the net.
Comment By: Mark A. Siefert
November 20th, 2016 at 5:17 pm
In ideological fairness, the attempt to boycott Hamilton is about as likely to work as the failed Chick-Fil-A boycott a couple of years back. Sophisticated, health-conscious, sexually tolerant liberals are about as likely to be buy deep-fried chicken burgers from a fast food chain run by Bible-humpers as redneck, Trump-supporting bigots are to see a hip-hop musical featuring non-whites playing the Founders.
Comment By: Ian McDowell
November 20th, 2016 at 8:17 pm
The Chick-Fil-A boycott actually had an economic impact. Campus food courts are an important source of revenue for the company.
Comment By: John Ordover
November 20th, 2016 at 5:17 pm
Mark, Chic-Fil-A’s president did reform his practices exactly as the boycotters wanted; whether there was any relation between them I can’t tell you, but it did wake him up to the issue.
Comment By: Mark A. Siefert
November 20th, 2016 at 5:17 pm
Dan Cathy is still a holy-rolling, anti-LGTBQ piece of shite. As long as that place is run by people who think that a bunch of Bronze Age Middle Eastern fairy tales should dictate who people should act, they aren’t getting a dime from me.
Comment By: John Ordover
November 20th, 2016 at 5:17 pm
What those suggesting a boycott of Hamilton (if this was seriously meant and a real thing) don’t realize is that it’s one of the hottest shows ever to hit Broadway, and that it is already sold out through 2017 with scalped tickets going for multiple thousands of dollars. IT is not like a movie that shows all over and you can boycott, nor does it sell tickets daily or something. 🙂
In that sense, it is like my own “boycotting of Chic-Fil-A” which took place mostly because at the time the nearest one to me was over 500 miles away. 🙂
Comment By: Dave Meyer
November 20th, 2016 at 6:17 pm
It goes on national tour next year, though, so there will be more opportunities to not buy tickets. http://www.hamiltonbroadway.com/tour.php
Comment By: John Ordover
November 20th, 2016 at 6:17 pm
Hey, I’m in NYC and I haven’t bought tickets, because I don’t like musicals.
Comment By: Dave Meyer
November 20th, 2016 at 6:17 pm
And who knows what effect this will have on Hamilton bobblehead sales. http://www.bobbleheads.com/rbs1006/royal-bobbles/alexander-hamilton-bobblehead.html