The world’s best-known director, Steven Spielberg, is trying to charm his way to an Oscar by singing the same old self-promoting song regarding diversity and representation.
When I heard that Spielberg was remaking the classic film musical ‘West Side Story’, I wondered why the most powerful director on earth would do such a trite thing. Having seen the movie, I still have no idea, except maybe that he was looking for a film where he could most clearly signal his virtue in hopes of getting an Oscar for wokeness.
In 1961, ‘West Side Story’, directed by Robert Wise and famed choreographer Jerome Robbins, featuring music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and starring the luminous Natalie Wood and the glorious Rita Moreno, captured America’s imagination, as well as an astounding 10 Academy Awards.
The original film is great for its time, but it’s been labeled ‘problematic’ by the modern politburo of political correctness due to its alleged stereotypical presentation of Puerto Ricans, including using make-up to darken the skin of actors, as well as committing the mortal sin of casting non-Latina Natalie Wood in the lead role of Maria, a Puerto Rican girl.
Spielberg’s remake keeps the story and setting the same, but in order to get maximum virtue signaling value, he imposes a sort of meta update by projecting the woke politics of our current age onto the production as a way to ‘right the wrongs of cinema history’ or something.
For example, the director boldly declared, “the first thing I said was every single Shark, boy and girl, needs to come from the Latinx communities. And without fail.”
To prove his progressive bona fides, Spielberg also has numerous critical scenes in the film where only Spanish is spoken, but refuses to ever use subtitles in order to “not give English the power”. This tactic dramatically undermines the film and leaves viewers utterly confused.
Another piece of pathetic pandering is that Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner have turned the character ‘Anybodys’, which in the original was a tomboy on the fringe of the story, into a more featured character that is transgender. They even added scenes to beef up the trans aspects of Anybodys, including one where they/them beats up not only a group of Jets but also cops. Apparently in Spielberg’s 1950s New York, trans people have super powers.
The marketing campaign for ‘West Side Story’ is astounding, as every day there’s a cavalcade of articles promoting how politically correct the production was, and how important and noble its representation, diversity and inclusion.