The Problem With West Side Story

It’s easy to get swept up in the beautiful cinematography and soaring vocals in Stephen Spielberg’s 2021 remake of West Side Story, but does the film fix the racist mistakes of the 1961 film?

West Side Story is a musical adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet that focuses on the 1957 romance between Tony and Maria, which fuels the rivalry between two warring New York City gangs: the Jets and the Sharks. The Jets are a white gang, while the Sharks are originally from Puerto Rico, highlighting a hatred between two groups based on race, culture, and stereotypes. Although in this new adaptation, the hatred seems very one-sided, with it glamorizing pain and trauma for the Puerto Rican characters who lose everything by the end of the film.

While it’s a step up from the 1961 film to see actual Latino actors playing Latino roles, that doesn’t say much. The original film featured one actual Latina — Puerto Rican icon Rita Moreno — surrounded by white people pretending to be Latino and everyone, including Rita, was put in Brown face to give the illusion of Latino representation. Looking back at the film now gives off a minstrel effect. The film swept the Oscars at the time, begging the question: why are we constantly rewarding stories of trauma against people of color? Why are we never celebrating Black and Brown joy? And when it comes to West Side Story, why do we keep trying to tell this story that feels like a parody and insult to Puerto Rican and Latino people? The music by Stephen Sondheim might be beautiful, but even the original lyrics he wrote for songs like “America” were very racist and inaccurate to how Puerto Ricans feel about their island.

ANITA
Puerto Rico . . .
You ugly island . . .
Island of tropic diseases.
Always the hurricanes blowing,
Always the population growing . . .
And the money owing,
And the babies crying,
And the bullets flying.
I like the island Manhattan.
Smoke on your pipe and put that in!

The lyrics were changed for this new film, but it highlights the issue in having people who are not of that experience writing about that experience inaccurately. In fact, many of the issues in West Side Story come from this constantly being a story about Puerto Ricans told by white men for white people versus actually telling a story for Puerto Ricans by Puerto Ricans.

ALL
Immigrant goes to America,
Many hellos in America;
Nobody knows in America
Puerto Rico's in America!

Both films continue to perpetuate harmful stereotypes and lump all Latinos into one category when we aren’t a monolith. The film attempts to tackle immigration with the Jets telling the Sharks to go back to where they came from, but Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens. We don’t have the same exact struggles as other Latinos coming to America. While the new reboot attempts to fix that by having a Jet call out that fact, it is undermined by the Jets just ultimately not even caring about being wrong and continuing to justify their racism.

As a Puerto Rican critic, I want to enjoy West Side Story. I want to see us represented in a positive light. Instead all we see is hurt and trauma and stereotypes that lump us all together as if our individual cultures and backgrounds don’t matter. It tells us, you’re all the same, we don’t care enough to tell the difference. While this remake didn’t work for me, I hope the conversations it sparks continues. Latinos are not a monolith and the way we are portrayed on screen gives others permission to treat us in stereotypical ways, which is why it’s so important for us to tell our own authentic stories. Despite beautiful music and a stunning production, I can’t help but feel that West Side Story continues to be a problematic story that glamorizes racism and reinforces how people just see all Latinos as interchangeable.

When we have Latino creatives like Jorge R. Gutierrez, Gloria Calderon Kellett, America Ferrera, Ilana Peña, and Lin-Manuel Miranda creating projects like The Book of Life, Diary of A Future President, Maya and the Three, In The Heights, Encanto, Gentefied, and Vivo, it shows there is a place for authentic projects led by actual Latinos and we should be giving them more shine.

See more of my conversation with fellow Puerto Rican and Film Posers critic Josie Marie Meléndez on West Side Story and how it continues to fail when it comes to showcasing the Puerto Rican experience, above.