The former President of the United States is no longer mentioned in one of the songs called '96,000' featured in the feature film adaptation of the Broadway show.
- June 19, 2021
AceShowbiz - Lin-Manuel Miranda removed a reference to former U.S leader Donald Trump from the song "96,000" in his new film "In The Heights", revealing the ex-President was just a TV celebrity when he wrote it in 2005.
The lyric in the Broadway stageshow was "Donald Trump and I on the links," but the film includes the updated line, "Tiger Woods and I on the links."
Miranda, who wrote the songs for "In The Heights", tells Press Association, "That one that you really can't chalk up to me, the culture changed that lyric (sic). When I wrote that lyric in 2005, he (Trump) was a famous reality TV host and before that he was just sort of a live-action monopoly man. My parents had a Trump board game in the 80s."
"He kind of put his name on everything with gold on it, and so when time makes a fool of the lyric and we're in the middle of this joyous aspirational number, that name rings like a discordant bell, it's like a clang. So school groups were already asking to change that lyric as far back as 2016. We just ratified it for the movie."
Directed by John M. Chu based on the stage musical of the same name, "In the Heights" stars Anthony Ramos, Corey Hawkins, Leslie Grace, Melissa Barrera, Olga Merediz, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Gregory Diaz IV, and Jimmy Smits.
The movie drew criticisms for lack of Afro-Latino actors with darker skin colors. "There's so much Afro-Latinidad in the movie, the beef really was specifically dark-skinned Afro-Latinos in leading roles," Miranda said, "and I totally understand that and I receive it and I just have to do better on the next one."
