Hamilton and The Old Guard

HAMILTON (Disney Plus)

One of the boldest creative choices in the much-lauded Hamilton is that black, brown and Asian people star in pretty much all the lead roles, in keeping with one of the leading themes of the musical itself: ‘who gets to control the narrative?’. It invites the audience to consider how white people have re-told and controlled the historical narrative in the US (and indeed, in Australia) for so long that its worth considering how that has affected our perception of historical figures from our not-too-distant past.

THE OLD GUARD (Netflix)

The Old Guard graphic novel by Greg Rucka

The Old Guard adaptation on Netflix

In Netflix’s The Old Guard (lands on Netflix today) Charlize Theron plays Andromache the Scythian ( or Andy for short), a 6000 year-old immortal warrior who’s been fighting the good fight for eons. Andy leads a tight knit group of dedicated immortal mercenaries that include Booker (Matthias Schoenaerts), a member since the Napoleonic Wars, and Joe (Marwan Kenzari) and Nicky (Luca Marinelli), a gay couple who’ve been in love since the Crusades (though they killed each other for centuries till they realised how they felt for each other). In Afghanistan, U.S. Marine Nile Freeman (Kiki Layne) is killed in combat, resurrecting in time to kill the dude who just killed her. Nile is shocked, confused and traumatised. Andy tracks her down and recruits Nile for her team.