why i hate the cinnamon roll trope

[iniquiticity]

(disclaimer: this is my personal view on the trope. if you disagree, that’s fine. don’t send me messages telling me why i’m wrong. i don’t care. if you send me messages telling me i’m wrong, i will reply to each one of them saying “i don’t care. if you send me messages i am wrong, i will reply to each one of them saying “i don’t care.””)


there are two main reasons i dislike the cinnamon roll trope:

running under this assumption: there are 3 humans which get the most cinnamon roll-ization (CR/CRization henceforth)

1) LMM

2) Show Eliza

3) Historical Eliza

extremely short answer: it completely devalues/removes the teeth from righteous anger, and it completely belittles the effort evolved in emotional labor.

extremely long, rambling answer below.

a) cinnamon rolls do not get angry/are not permitted to be angry/have all the teeth taken out of their anger. the CR way to view anger is “ooh! look! s/he’s angry! why did you make the CR angry? what could inspire you to do such a thing? to a person with that face????” Or “awww! they’re angry! it’s cute!” Fuck you, and fuck this attitude, and fuck viewing a person who is righteously angry about something, especially something real, like a puppy getting upset with an orange. sometimes people get angry about things becuase things really suck (see: situation in puerto rico, copies of your work being distributed illegally (please see disclaimer above regarding b-ootleg d-iscourse, an essay i have no intention of writing), or being cheated on by your husband). and righteous anger is the first step into changing those things, and taking that anger seriously and acknowledging real humans are being upset by a thing for good reason is totally a step in the process of acquiring a group of people larger than just the people being harmed by the process (hint: if you are a capital-A Ally, you REALLY should not do this!). putting down someone? saying it’s cute they’re angry? giving this impression that their anger isn’t valid or is ‘cute’ or ‘harmless’? This is a really shitty thing to do to a human. don’t do this. don’t do this to a historical person or a show character (especially a woman who was completely and publicly humiliated by her husband - there’s definitely a weird misogyny layered here when you’re doing it to the wife of a famous historical dude, becuase do we really need to get into how women then - AND EVEN NOW - are not “permitted” by society to be righteously angry about things, with all the various social tools the patriarchy uses) AND REALLY do not do this to a real human being, especially a man with serious, passionate cause, that he is courageous enough about to support under what i’m sure is a completely crushing work schedule.


b) CR-ization completely discounts the value of emotional labor. in our 2and a half/3 efforts, this shows up in different ways.


For LMM: the effort involved in being nice to people at his scale must be fucking MONSTROUS, and while not completely thankless, probably doesn’t get the same value out of it that he puts into it. as fandom has reviewed, there are many ways in which miranda has gone above and beyond any sensible human in his communication and discussion with fans of the play (in the form of commenting on fanart/discussion, doing ham4ham, kissing j groff, etc), and to discount that effort on top of what (again) i’m sure is a crushing schedule of events, emotional labor of doing this play 7 shows a week, planning for the future, writing additional things, AND BEING THE FATHER TO A VERY SMALL CHILD by saying “oh lmm he’s such a cinnamon roll” is freaking disgusting. yes, i’m sure that he does get a kick out of doing these things, but a) imagine thinking to yourself “ok, today i have to a) perform for three hours in this physically, vocally and emotionally intense play, write a bunch for a disney show, take care of my very small children, probably do extra things as well, eat at least two meals today, find some time to sleep, AND find fifteen minutes to collect pippa soo and alex lacamoire and sing and record it” and not dying. personally yesterday i felt accomplished that i went to the beach, bought flour, made a recipe and wrote. and 15000 people didn’t even comment on it. and 99% of 15000 people will go “omg, i love you lmm,” and that’s good. but 1% of 15000 is still 150 people saying to you something fucked up. something you did FOR THEM. and they are throwing it in your face. think about when you did something for ONE PERSON and they were like “oh, here’s this thing i don’t like about this thing you did for me.” now crush yourself under miranda’s workload and multiple that 150x. if you’re not sensible but grateful about miranda’s activity in fandom, fuck you. he is not required to do this shit, and the “aww, cinnamon roll LMM” reads to me as ‘god, lmm’s so cute with how effortlessly he charms the fandom with his hijinx.” very little in life is effortless no matter how it may seem, and coming up with 4 15 minute clips of entertaining the internet - ESPECIALLY ON A BUSY NYC STREET - requires plenty of work. the CR trope makes it seem like this is just some easy-peasy shit. It’s not. Fuck you. Value it for what it is: extra effort.


for show eliza: the incredible lizdexia pointed this out and it makes incredible sense to me: show eliza kind of gets really fucked over. hamilton woos her in Helpless and then spends the better part of the show completely ignoring her (”that would be enough” “non-stop” “take a break”) while he completely fucks their relaitionship and her life (”blow us all away” “say no to this”) only to beg for her forgiveness for fucking everything up. AND SHE TAKES HIM BACK. this is a crazy character strength thing to do - speaks so entirely of what kind of person eliza schuyler was. would you take him back? I don’t think I would. married a dude and then completely ignored me for work, offered our amazing son we love tips on how to get shot (please, no discourse on dueling culture here), then publicly humiliated me with a cheating scandal. FUCK YOU, dude. I’M OUTTA HERE. in the show, we can somewhat-discard cultural pressures and such here, because of the way the situation is presented, which only adds to my impression of how incredibly forgiving eliza was. being forgiving takes a lot of fucking effort. burying the hatchet is hard. anger and spite are easier than love and kindness. and it’s harder the angrier you are. AND ELIZA WAS SPITTING FURIOUS AND WENT STRAIGHT FOR THE THING HAMILTON CARED ABOUT MOST. one of the amazing things about “Burn” is how understated it is, and how VICIOUS it is. eliza is so fucking pissed, she doesn’t need to yell. there’s not a lot of screaming or active rage. she is so fucking past that. AND EVEN AFTER THIS, even after we learn so intently about how mad she is, even after she goes straight for his jugular, SHE STILL FORGIVES HIM. AND SO COMPLETELY SHE FUCKING DEDICATES HERSELF TO MAKING SURE HE IS REMEMBERED AS HEROIC AND REVOLUTIONARY. the core of a human this capable, this forgiving, this kind, this accepting is not a fucking cinnamon roll. it’s fucking STEEL. fuck you for putting this kind of human down with some stupid over-sweet food. No. Show proper respect for a human of this caliber, because none of us are this capable or this amazing.


as for historical eliza: all of what i said above, plus she did this while raising SEVEN FUCKING CHILDREN, getting into spats with John Adams (and j. quincy adams), supported like ten thousand fucking causes, IN THE 1800S WHERE SHE LIVED TO BE 90+. the social pressures on her from all sides, combined with the growing tension in the country, must have been CRUSHING. and she didn’t fucking bow. the quality of this human was incredible. don’t under-value it with this cinnamon roll shit.


That is why I hate the cinnamon roll trope. have a good morning everyone.