Post by Radrook Admin on Feb 1, 2022 12:54:26 GMT -5
West Side Story? The Remake and its agenda.
The film, West Side Story, is based o Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet were two
people fall in love and the social divisions that separate them result in a tragedy. It is filmed in New York and involves a Puerto Rican gang called the Sharks vs an Anglo American gang called the Jets. The Jets want the Puerto Ricans out and the Sharks resist. Maria, a recently-arrived Puerto Rican young woman, meets this fellow named Atone. a former Shark gang member, at a dance, and they immediately fall in love at first sight. She convinces him to try to stop a rumble between the two gangs, he tries it, and winds up killing her brother Bernardo who had just killed his best friend. This leads to Anton getting shot and killed by Chino, Maria's admirer.
I saw the film at age fifteen when living in Newark New Jersey, and identified with it since I was literally living that situation albeit minus the dancing.
However, the first thing that caught my attention, was how extremely dark-skinned all the Sharks were being portrayed. There was absolutely no variety in skin tones, as is invariably typical of Puerto Ricans, who can range from extremely pale, to brown to black, being permitted. No, all were uniformly BROWN. Later. I discovered that they had used makeup resembling dark shoe polish to darken all these actors until they fitted in with the preconceived notion of how all Puerto Rican should look. This despite the protests of Rita Moreno, the actress playing Anita, who was light-skinned, and who felt personally insulted by this ignorant stereotypical imposition.
Ironically, the opportunity to rectify this matter became possible when Spielberg decided to try his hand at a West Side Story remake. However, and unfortunately, instead of rectifying the matter, he seems to have gone out of his way to reinforce the first impression by choosing an African American actress to play Anita and a dark skinned Polish Columbian actress to play Maria. A double whammy of sorts to get his racist point across as effectively as possible.
His excuse? He supposedly could no find a Puerto Rican actresses or dancer to play the role of either of these women, so he chose the Polish/Columbian and African Americanized actress whose father is vaguely described as being partially Puerto Rican, to play the roles. To add insult to injury, this Anita actress publicly admits that she never identified as Latina before this and that she had been rejected by the Latinos as Latina for not being Latina enough culturally before this opportunity presented itself. Those were Spielberg's supposedly-best two choices.
Now, I ask the question, How would Spielberg, who is of Jewish descent, feel if Puerto Ricans were to make a film using actors and actresses portraying Jewish people, all with either naturally extremely long noses, or if not, fitted with prosthetic extremely long noses in order to fit the racist Jewish stereotype? Or how would he feel if a Puerto Rican producer had the opportunity to rectify a previous racist misrepresentation of the Jews in a pervious film, but chose to reinforce it in a remake instead?
The answer is obvious, he would feel deeply offended. Yet, fully aware of what he has done, he expects Puerto Ricans to thank him for this travesty? To accept his meager self-conscious efforts at camouflaging his racism behind a national anthem that Puerto Ricans were never allowed to sing, and no longer even wish to sing even if allowed because because Puerto Ricans no longer desire independence, as he is well aware, but desire statehood instead?
Or that we simply accept his racist because he tells us that he doesn't use captions to translate Spanish dialogues in the film, because he respects Spanish and Puerto Rican culture? Really? Is that what this Jewish producer expects us to do?
If indeed he does, then he is either assuming that we Puerto Ricans are just too plain stupid t see clearly what he has preferred to do, or else that we simply don't care. And to a certain degree, he is right. You see, here in the USA, the number of people who are half PR and half Afro Americans genetically, has become very significant. As a consequence, most of these so-called USA Puerto Ricans, do approve of his decisions in the remake. Why? Simple! Because they perceive it as an affirmation of their own twisted ideas in reference to Puerto Rican identity. It makes them feel culturally accepted by both sides. So essentially, they go right along with the remake's racist flow because essentially, they are racists themselves.
So perhaps based on the notion that he has the full support of the Africanized New Yorikens, he went along with his bigoted plan to reinforce the racism of the first West Side Story version. But is it really that easy? Not by a long shot. You see, unfortunately for him, not all of us are New Yorikens who identify more with African Americans, and not all of us are willing to stand by calmly, with arms folded, as our cultural heritage is being trashed by a Jew who should know better or by anyone else, for that matter. Already there are negative reviews of concerning the remake by Puerto Rican film critics concerning this travesty as indeed there should be concerning a film that should have never been made in this way because it only serves to promotes racist stereotypes, as Mr. Spielberg, being a Jew, descendant of persecuted Jews, should know, and probably does know, but simply just doesn't care a long as the profits can be raked in.
people fall in love and the social divisions that separate them result in a tragedy. It is filmed in New York and involves a Puerto Rican gang called the Sharks vs an Anglo American gang called the Jets. The Jets want the Puerto Ricans out and the Sharks resist. Maria, a recently-arrived Puerto Rican young woman, meets this fellow named Atone. a former Shark gang member, at a dance, and they immediately fall in love at first sight. She convinces him to try to stop a rumble between the two gangs, he tries it, and winds up killing her brother Bernardo who had just killed his best friend. This leads to Anton getting shot and killed by Chino, Maria's admirer.
I saw the film at age fifteen when living in Newark New Jersey, and identified with it since I was literally living that situation albeit minus the dancing.
However, the first thing that caught my attention, was how extremely dark-skinned all the Sharks were being portrayed. There was absolutely no variety in skin tones, as is invariably typical of Puerto Ricans, who can range from extremely pale, to brown to black, being permitted. No, all were uniformly BROWN. Later. I discovered that they had used makeup resembling dark shoe polish to darken all these actors until they fitted in with the preconceived notion of how all Puerto Rican should look. This despite the protests of Rita Moreno, the actress playing Anita, who was light-skinned, and who felt personally insulted by this ignorant stereotypical imposition.
Ironically, the opportunity to rectify this matter became possible when Spielberg decided to try his hand at a West Side Story remake. However, and unfortunately, instead of rectifying the matter, he seems to have gone out of his way to reinforce the first impression by choosing an African American actress to play Anita and a dark skinned Polish Columbian actress to play Maria. A double whammy of sorts to get his racist point across as effectively as possible.
His excuse? He supposedly could no find a Puerto Rican actresses or dancer to play the role of either of these women, so he chose the Polish/Columbian and African Americanized actress whose father is vaguely described as being partially Puerto Rican, to play the roles. To add insult to injury, this Anita actress publicly admits that she never identified as Latina before this and that she had been rejected by the Latinos as Latina for not being Latina enough culturally before this opportunity presented itself. Those were Spielberg's supposedly-best two choices.
Now, I ask the question, How would Spielberg, who is of Jewish descent, feel if Puerto Ricans were to make a film using actors and actresses portraying Jewish people, all with either naturally extremely long noses, or if not, fitted with prosthetic extremely long noses in order to fit the racist Jewish stereotype? Or how would he feel if a Puerto Rican producer had the opportunity to rectify a previous racist misrepresentation of the Jews in a pervious film, but chose to reinforce it in a remake instead?
The answer is obvious, he would feel deeply offended. Yet, fully aware of what he has done, he expects Puerto Ricans to thank him for this travesty? To accept his meager self-conscious efforts at camouflaging his racism behind a national anthem that Puerto Ricans were never allowed to sing, and no longer even wish to sing even if allowed because because Puerto Ricans no longer desire independence, as he is well aware, but desire statehood instead?
Or that we simply accept his racist because he tells us that he doesn't use captions to translate Spanish dialogues in the film, because he respects Spanish and Puerto Rican culture? Really? Is that what this Jewish producer expects us to do?
If indeed he does, then he is either assuming that we Puerto Ricans are just too plain stupid t see clearly what he has preferred to do, or else that we simply don't care. And to a certain degree, he is right. You see, here in the USA, the number of people who are half PR and half Afro Americans genetically, has become very significant. As a consequence, most of these so-called USA Puerto Ricans, do approve of his decisions in the remake. Why? Simple! Because they perceive it as an affirmation of their own twisted ideas in reference to Puerto Rican identity. It makes them feel culturally accepted by both sides. So essentially, they go right along with the remake's racist flow because essentially, they are racists themselves.
So perhaps based on the notion that he has the full support of the Africanized New Yorikens, he went along with his bigoted plan to reinforce the racism of the first West Side Story version. But is it really that easy? Not by a long shot. You see, unfortunately for him, not all of us are New Yorikens who identify more with African Americans, and not all of us are willing to stand by calmly, with arms folded, as our cultural heritage is being trashed by a Jew who should know better or by anyone else, for that matter. Already there are negative reviews of concerning the remake by Puerto Rican film critics concerning this travesty as indeed there should be concerning a film that should have never been made in this way because it only serves to promotes racist stereotypes, as Mr. Spielberg, being a Jew, descendant of persecuted Jews, should know, and probably does know, but simply just doesn't care a long as the profits can be raked in.