c/o Brazzers.
As if Lin-Manuel Miranda ’02 didn’t already have enough accolades to boast in his prolific early career—a Pulitzer Prize, three Tony Awards, two Grammys, an Emmy, an Academy Award nomination, and a MacArthur Fellowship—he has now achieved what very few playwrights ever have before: a big budget porn parody. “Hamilfton,” featuring former HBO star Katie Morgan and Isiah Maxwell, will premier on the Brazzers network on Wednesday, April 12.
A staple of the porn genre, porn parody typically involves references in either dialogue, costuming, or plot—insofar as porn of any kind has plot—to products of pop culture. While most porn parodies remain obscure, the advent of internet porn has made some of them ubiquitous, such as “Who’s Nailin’ Palin,” a porn parody about the former Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin, played by Lisa Ann for Hustler. The Palin parody sparked several copycats and became a routine punchline on late night comedy and in entertainment news.
Brazzers has been known to produce big budget parodies with some of porn’s biggest stars, lampooning everything from Star Wars to the 2016 Presidential Election to the most recent Scarlett Johansson movie. The production company is one of the largest in the industry, and draws a quarter of its web traffic from India, the site’s most popular country, followed by Germany, France, and the United States.
Morgan, who will ostensibly be playing the titular role, broke out of standard porn stardom when she began appearing in educational videos on HBO during the aughts. She also appeared on HBO’s “Entourage” playing herself, and even made her feature film debut in Kevin Smith’s cult classic “Zack and Miri Make a Porno.”
Morgan’s co-star, Isiah Maxwell, is not as famous in the industry as Morgan, having only appeared in 11 videos for Brazzers. Maxwell also works as a talent agent in the industry, and considers himself a nice guy, boasting a Twitter bio that reads: “Proving nice guys can finish first one girl at a time.”
At the intersection of “Hamilton’s” ‘race-blind casting’ and the porn industry’s problem with latent racism of interracial sex, the casting options for “Hamilfton” were limited, with many notable starlets refusing to perform with black actors. Morgan has been outspoken about problems in the porn industry, including racism in casting.
The teaser for the film sets the stage at the “Battle of Poundtown” in 1769. The premise is that of a performance within a performance (surely Brecht would be proud) wherein Morgan and Maxwell are ostensibly performing an avant-garde theater adaptation for a limited audience. Allusions to the play are present in the costumes of both characters, with Morgan’s look tailored precisely to the non-Schulyer sister female characters in the show, as well as in the choice of the safeword, “Rochambeau.” There’s also an allusion to the popular song “My Shot” that is rather self-explanatory given the medium.
“Hamilfton” appears to be the most notable porn parody of Miranda’s play to date, with the only other one garnering any attention from culture writers being a musical series on WoodRocket, the studio that has produced such cringeworthy porn parodies as Game of Bones, Spongeknob Squarenuts, and Assventure Time.
Jake Lahut can be reached at jlahut@wesleyan.edu and on Twitter @JakeLahut.