Current Events > The original West Side Story is kind of ironic.

(+) Yeah! (+)

It's a movie about race tolerance but they weren't tolerant enough to cast Puerto Ricans to play the Puerto Ricans. Could've just left the different races out of it with 2 white gangs and kept it more like Romeo and Juliet, but that might hurt some of the music.

In an attempt to speed up production, they cast many of the same actors that played in the Broadway and London production of the stage play. Easier to cast a bunch of people that already knew the lines, songs and choreography.

Not a lot of Puerto Rican Broadway actors, and virtually none living in London in the late 1950's.

West Side Story was my father's favorite movie. I know WAY too much about it.

A lot of old Hollywood was like that. They got a White woman to play a Black woman in the movie Pinky; a film about the discrimination faced by a Black nurse.

FortuneCookie posted...

A lot of old Hollywood was like that. They got a White woman to play a Black woman in the movie Pinky; a film about the discrimination faced by a Black nurse.

"New" Hollywood is like that as well.

I mean, how many actors and actresses in My Big Fat Greek Wedding have also played Italians at some time or another in a different movie?

bigblu89 posted...

"New" Hollywood is like that as well.

I mean, how many actors and actresses in My Big Fat Greek Wedding have also played Italians at some time or another in a different movie?

Or Pierce Brosnan playing James Bond.

Even more ridiculous is that in 2021 they still didn't even cast actual Puerto Ricans for most of the roles. They settled for general Latino descent and just called it a day. At least the original movie had Rita Moreno.