Welcome back to our queer film retrospective, “A Gay Old Time.” In this week’s column, to mark the July 4th holiday, let’s revisit the musical 1776 to see if it managed to turn our country’s founding into a gay old time.
Today, the United States of America turns 250 years old. Even though this country has had a very complicated and tumultuous history, and celebrating may not feel like the most intuitive thing to do given the political climate, it’s important to remember that at its core, it was founded on ideals of equality, freedom, and opportunity for everyone, regardless of what those currently in power have to say…
How about we take this to the next level?
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To commemorate this milestone anniversary, we decided to celebrate Independence Day in the gayest way we imagine: by watching a musical about the founding of the country. Even if it isn’t the most exciting or engaging movie ever made (spoiler alert: it’s not), it serves as a reminder that—at least in this version told through song—what America represents an evolving set of values that is still worth fighting for.
The Set-Up
In 1969, the musical 1776 opened on Broadway to critical and box office success. With music and lyrics by Sherman Edwards and a book by Peter Stone, the musical imagines the events leading up to the signing of the Declaration of Independence in the titular year, as John Adams tries to persuade his colleagues in Congress to sign. It won three Tony awards, including Best Musical, and ran for over 1,700 performances.
A film adaptation was inevitable, or at least it was back in those days. During the late ’60s and early ’70s, Hollywood was desperate to hold onto the Golden Age of movie musicals that had thrived over the last decade alive (with films like The Sound Of Music, West Side Story, and My Fair Lady), although it was clearly in decline as audiences were losing interest in big budget song and dance routines and were gravitating to the fresher, bolder take of the New Hollywood filmmakers. But that didn’t stop them from trying. So if a musical had proved itself successful on stage, movie rights were promptly bought and a film put into production.
1776 was acquired by Jack Warner himself, one of the few original moguls of the Golden Age of Hollywood still actively working, which perhaps explains the film’s rather classic adaptation approach that feels disconnected to its time. Most of the original cast members of the show reprised their roles for the film, including Boy Meets World‘s William Daniels as John Adams, Ken Howard as Thomas Jefferson, Howard da Silva as Benjamin Franklin, David Ford as John Hancock, and Virginia Westoff as Abigail Adams. Only a handful of non-Broadway actors were involved (including a young Blythe Danner as Martha Jefferson) allegedly after Warner admitted he made a mistake by not casting Julie Andrews in My Fair Lady years earlier.
A History Lesson That Sings
Unfortunately, the film barely justifies its existence as a movie, often feeling like a staid recording of the stage musical. The show is incredibly dialogue-heavy by nature, taking place over just a couple of days in a handful of locations. But in places where a film version of 1776 could have gone beyond the physical limitations of the material, it keeps them contained, with very little innovative staging, camera work, or production design.
Some of the best film adaptations of musicals are those that understand the new ways in which uniquely cinematic tools can elevate the story (see Chicago, Hairspray, or either of the West Side Stories), and unfortunately this one falls short on making any interesting creative choices.
The performances are quite committed, and one can tell that the cast knew these roles inside and out. But none of the characters go beyond the well-trotted archetypes that history has made of them, and the film lacks emotional depth and nuance in making these historical figures feel like real individuals that were, first and foremost, human. And while the songs are well-written, there are large segments of the film that play straightforward without music—and when it does there’s a remarkable lack of theatricality or flair.
We The People
And, no, there’s no palpable sense of queerness in the film. There isn’t even any subtext or insinuation that points to it existing in this world. No homoerotic friendships between the founding fathers, no mention of any men having peculiar tastes, or wives being too close with one another. The element of grandeur or over-the-top-ness that would give a musical its queer sensibility feels tamed and even restrained. 1776 is not a musical that has really made its mark among the queer canon, and the film adaptation makes it clear why, maybe even more than any previous staged version.
That is not to say the queer community cannot find things to relate to in the film. The big emotional climax comes when Thomas Jefferson refuses to remove a clause in the Declaration that would make all slaves equal in the eyes of the law. Although he finally has to give in so as not to lose the Southern state votes, he makes a passionate argument for what America should stand for as it is being born: opportunity, freedom, liberty for everyone.
Although this feels more like an imagined conversation to bring forward more timely themes rather than something that actually happened in 1776, it’s a worthy theme to take out of the show. The idea of fighting for a country that welcomes people of all backgrounds is still painfully relevant today for members of our community, and many other marginalized groups.
In 2022, a new revival opened on Broadway that consisted entirely of cast members that identified as female, non-binary, and trans, giving entirely new context to the characters, historical background, and songs performed. Although it was received with mixed reactions, it shows the power in reinterpreting classic works of history through a more modern lens, in a trend that Hamilton started in 2016. At the very least, this version decidedly took more of a creative risk than this film adaptation did.
Our relationship to the history of the US as queer people is a complex and nuanced one. 1776 is a simplistic—and perhaps too idealistic—imagining of what the conversations that led to the birth of the country might have looked like, with not much thinking outside the box. But what we need these days is to think outside the box. To reimagine what a place truly made for everyone can look like, and to fight like hell to make it happen, just like these men did in a room 250 years ago.
1776 is currently streaming for free on YouTube, and is available for digital rental or purchase via Amazon Prime Video & Apple TV.
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