Andrew Jackson is off the $20, despite a Broadway musical of his own
The Indian-killing President’s sneer of cold command will one day be forgotten
By Asher Kohn
The United States is prepared to say “Bye Felicia” to Andrew Jackson. The seventh president, notorious for leading the systematic destruction of Native life and society in the southeast United States, has been on the $20 bill since 1928. No more. He’s going to be replaced by a Harriet Tubman.
There are many reasons this is the right move. First, and most importantly, a woman ought to be on currency, as is the case in many other countries. Especially a woman as generous and fearless as the early abolitionist Harriet Tubman. And anyway, $20 bills featured a woman as early as 1863, or at least the concept of a woman — Lady Liberty.
Second, Andrew Jackson hated paper money, or really any banking more complicated than “I will give you gold for an enslaved person who can plant cotton.” Lastly, giving Jackson the boot allows America’s new favorite founding father, Alexander Hamilton, to stick around on the sawbuck.
Hamilton re-entered the spotlight thanks to Lin-Manuel Miranda’s 2015 Broadway play. What you might not have known, or might have forgotten, is that Andrew Jackson got his own musical back in 2009. The difference is, Hamilton was an award-winning masterpiece. Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson was really bad.
The emo-inspired satire imagined the orphaned, wild-haired politician as a Dashboard Confessional-style rockstar. A New York Times review called it “goofy,” using emo’s ability to be sincere and ironic at the same time to tell a conflicted story of America’s history. But the stage, a “preposterously overcrowded set, replete with dusty emblems of Americana and specimens of taxidermy” was more T.G.I. Friday’s than Merchant Ivory. Not to mention Bloody Bloody’s ironic racism towards Native Americans, which drew protests.
To give you an idea, Hamilton sets up the emotional weight of the play by describing its protagonist as a “bastard, orphan, son of a whore.” The first words of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson?
I’m wearing some tight, tight jeans and tonight we’re delving into some serious, serious shit.
— Andrew Jackson
Bloody Bloody’s greatest legacy, perhaps, is introducing the United States to Benjamin Walker. The hunky Georgian has gone on to Tumblr fame, and he’s the lead in a new Broadway musical this week: American Psycho. It says a lot about Andrew Jackson that the same actor could comfortably play both the populist president and the psychopath yuppie.
In any case, if Jackson’s departure means not only Hamilton staying, but a woman finally getting her legal-tender due, well that’s all the better.
