Never Apologize
Why was In the Heights #canceled?
Oh, there is the official reason but that has nothing to do with why it got put on blast by all the major media outlets within twenty-four hours. It wasn’t the real reason the film had its box office burned to the ground and its creator was forced to make a groveling apology.
The Dark Herald will fill you on that a little later.
First the background. In the Heights, was a 2008 Broadway musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda. The basic plot is that Washington Heights, New York City is poor Dominican neighborhood and it’s hot that summer. The corner grocery store owner is the sort-of narrator. There is a whole bunch of concurrent stories going on, the Dominicans (with a few Cubans thrown in) all have poor city people problems.
There are Woke side issues all the DREAMers are being stolen from their beds by Orange Man Bad. And the hot chick Nina is enduring identity problems because she is w-a-a-a-y super smart and ambitious, but she is going to STANFORD, and her Papi is being crushed by her tuition and she knows it.
Side rant: Look Nina, you dumb bitch, either you are nowhere near as smart as you think you are, or you aren’t even looking for a scholarship. I’ll tell you for nothing you could have landed an ROTC full ride by just filling out the application. You would be everyone’s purse puppy hire. Pretending she has to pay tuition is bullshit. Woke bullshit and there is plenty more of that in this movie. Pretending she endures racism at an Ivy is the embodiment of such lazy writing that Miranda had have been sound asleep when he wrote it.
A black out happens (doesn’t seem to have been historical), people sing and dance a lot more.
The basic story is some stuff happens about a poor but nice Dominican Neighborhood. The cast is all Latino. And rich white New Yorkers were deeply moved by seeing this play about people in their city who couldn’t possibly afford to see this play.
In the Heights was optioned by Warner Media and began shooting at the exact same time that Stephen Spielberg began shooting his version of West Side Story, (stick a gigantic pin in that one).
Miranda went on to have a much bigger success with Hamilton. When the cast broke character to lecture Mike Pence (the speech was allegedly written by Miranda) he became a hero to the Baizous or to be more accurate, a pet. Disney scooped up Lin-Manuel, he wrote the some decent songs for Moana and some silly ones for the sequel to Mary Poppins, plus the music score for… Lego Star Wars? Seriously?!?!
Anyway, In the Heights just launched this weekend. During what was supposed to be a routine promotional interview the Director, Jon Chu was suddenly being roasted by some sow for not having enough Black Latinos in this movie. Vox (the crap one), NY Times, The Independent, the WaPo and the rest of the Woketard media was on the attack over this horrifying issue of “Colorism” that no one had cared about before last week. Lin-Manuel Miranda finally apologized for this hideous malfeasance on his part.
That is the official story.
Here is the unofficial story.
Lin-Manuel Miranda was just a pet to the people who run Hollywood and have for generations since its founding. A favored pet to be certain, a fashionable pet no doubt, but a pet none the less. He is not one of them, but Stephen Spielberg is.
I’ve seen commissioned hit pieces before and there is zero doubt in my mind that is what happened to him. The media was in lockstep within a day, that doesn’t happen unless calls have been made and orders have been issued in advance.
Miranda thought he’d be allowed to compete with Spielberg for the same audience. And let’s face it theatrical market for Latino musicals wasn’t a big one to begin with, in the (not-quite) post Covid market there was only enough air in the room for one musical to survive. West Side Story was the designated money maker because its director is hooked in to the Hollywood network big time. So, In the Heights was torpedoed. And the pet was taught that his place was beneath the table begging for scraps.
Never apologize.
