Spielberg’s West Side Story- Page 11

[TonyTilli]

Posted: 1/16/19 at 5:41pm

So lets flip it then: youd be super chill with a half-Black, half-white woman who looks fully white playing Rosa Parks?

[FactsAreFacts]

Posted: 1/16/19 at 6:04pm

TonyTilli said: "So lets flip it then: youd be super chill with a half-Black, half-white woman who looks fully white playing Rosa Parks?"

You do realize that Puerto Rican is a nationality, and African-American is a race, right? You can be Puerto Rican and have any variety of racial backgrounds. While I don't disagree that having a Puerto Rican actress who presents especially white would probably be more problematic in this context, getting upset about someone that still presents as brown and is actually Puerto Rican seems unnecessary to me. But, everyone has their own viewpoints. 

Also, Rosa Parks was a real person, so having someone who presented as white play the role would be a problematic choice as that individual would have to be selected with the express intent NOT to cast someone that fits the part from an authenticity standpoint. 

[TonyTilli]

Posted: 1/16/19 at 6:40pm

It is very clear that my well-meaning point is not being understood, so I'm walking away from this conversation because I am fully tired of defending myself. Fully aware of the differences between a race and  a nationality. All I am trying to get across is that "at least she is brown" should not be good enough and we should continue to fight for accurate representation in film. I have had multiple Hispanic friends, some Puerto Rican, some Cuban, etc. say that they do not see themselves in Ariana DeBose, and I am taking that into consideration. If a Hispanic presenting woman played a role that talks about the experience of being an African American woman, there would be an issue, real person or fictional character. Looking forward to see what she does with the role. 

[darquegk]

Posted: 1/16/19 at 7:14pm

Let's recall, the only thing we know about the Puerto Ricans in the show is that a tossed-off joke in the script indicates none of them are light-skinned or caucasoid enough to "pass." A black Puerto Rican fits this just as well as one with conventional Latinx-American indigenous background- nothing about DeBose seems more or less specifically Puerto Rican than Zegler.

[MikeInTheDistrict]

Posted: 1/16/19 at 7:26pm

I feel like TonyTilli is not aware that black Puerto Ricans exist. They comprise over 12% of the Puerto Rican population. Ariana looks no less Puerto Rican than Carmelo Anthony or Lin Manuel Miranda: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afro-Puerto_Ricans

[ScottyDoesn'tKnow2]

Posted: 1/16/19 at 7:41pm

How do we know Anita can't be a Puerto Rican with some black heritage? There's nothing in the script that says she can't. 

Regarding that poster's post about only seeing white; Asian; and ethnically ambiguous...that's just lies. Half-Asians are hired to play Asians as well, and different types of Asians (who really look different to me i.e. Korean v. Vietnamese) are cast blindly that way all of the time. In Crazy Rich Asians, Henry Golding was given a lot of grief by some in the community for being half-white. They didn't realize that unlike a lot of the actors they were naming to play the part instead (ranging from Korean-Americans to Chinese-Americans), Henry Golding is actually from that specific area of Asia (Malaysia but was a fixture on Singapore television). That didn't matter to them. They wanted someone who looked "full Asian". A lot of Asian-American writers talked about how that talk goes into racial "purity" and brought up the racism within those communities regarding people who weren't "pure" enough.

I attend a lot of progressive-minded conferences and retreats and one issue I'm learning about is the way mixed race people are perceived by both communities and the specific issues they face because they aren't seen as "enough".

Updated On: 1/16/19 at 07:41 PM

[TonyTilli]

Posted: 1/17/19 at 12:13pm

Literally all I am saying is that Hollywood has a bad habit of lumping all "brown" (as another poster put it) people together, not that people can't be a combination of different backgrounds. Not speaking negatively about any race, nationality, etc. Not speaking negatively against Ariana DeBose. Fully understand that Black Puerto Ricans exist, especially since the actress I am speaking about is a Black Puerto Rican. My deeper points that I am making are being taken at face value and being responded to with face value attacks. I work in the industry and notice that clients often ask for Caucasian, Asian, or "Brown", and I think that is a shame. 

[ggersten]

Posted: 5/7/19 at 10:25pm

December 18, 2020.

[gypsy.rose.blanchard]

Posted: 5/7/19 at 10:37pm

Anyone else find it strange that we have so much information on this film than we do about the Broadway revival? Either Rudin has really kept secure tabs on the project or he doesn't have anyone yet. Its even stranger that he announced the leads of the Music Man revival before he has even mentioned the rest of the creative team.

[SomethingPeculiar]

Posted: 5/7/19 at 11:42pm

I've been curious about the lack of info re: WSS, too. It probably comes down to two things:

1) They're waiting to do one big announcement along with the theatre.

or

2) Workshops haven't gone well and elements of the show are being reconsidered.

Updated On: 5/7/19 at 11:42 PM