As one of America's most beloved musicals, West Side Story captured the hearts of many with its reimagined love story of Romeo and Juliet. The show illustrates a struggle for space between two opposing gangs and a call for tolerance between the two love interests, while simultaneously showcasing the desired "American way of life". The West Side Story, hailed for its racial inclusiveness, may not be as progressive as its general audience believes it to be. By exploring how identity, erasure, and racism are handled in both the original 1957 play and a recent 2009 revival, one can see the extent to which the original production was sugarcoating its white audience and promising "authenticity" with his rather biased performance. to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The original version of this show was innovative for its time, but is full of inconsistencies and underlying tones of racism. In terms of on-stage identity, the two opposing gangs are easily racially coded, where one is specifically coded as “the other.” According to Herrera in his article “Compiling West Side Stories Parahistories, 1949-2009,” it is clear that America was fascinated by gang violence. Herrera states that in the modern conception of youth crime of the mid-1950s, "youth delinquents" were understood as individuals, usually lost white boys, while "gangs" were ethnically or racially identified groups of boys who defended and violated ethnic-racial boundaries. . This common cultural bias can be seen in the way the two gangs are coded. The Jets, also immigrants of Polish origin, arrived early but believe they are insiders, with physical and racial appearances contrasting with the Sharks. They are characterized as blond, strong, dynamic and healthy, the "All-American Boy". Even their gang name is innovative, strong, fast and based on high education and intelligence. While the sharks are newly arrived Puerto Ricans, with black, dark skin and thin. These descriptions are ready-made and stereotyped race models. In "West Side Story: A Puerto Rican Reading of 'America,'" author Alberto Sandoval Sanchez shares a similar sentiment as he says sharks are portrayed as dangerous, their name making them seem animalistic, even naive. The ethnic other in this case is coded as the inferior element within the work. The bad blood between the Jets Sharks mimics a common conceptual setup that pits modern technology against nature. In this case, aerial military weapons are compared to primitive and barbaric instincts, civilization to ferocity. To please the white American public, their species is put on a platform while the “others” are pushed further down the social ladder. What is interesting, however, is that this pair of warring groups was not the first type to come from Arthur Laurents. Laurents moved comfortably from Jews and Italians to Chicanos, from African Americans to Puerto Ricans. He sought comparison between any people of color and Caucasian Anglo-Americans without giving importance to the culture of those he contrasted with whites. This production deals with Puerto Rican identity in an interesting way, almost not addressing it at all. . The erasure of Puerto Rican culture is seen heavily throughout the original performance. By erasing key points of Puerto Rican identity (i.e. making them assimilate into American culture without imposing their culture on Americans while being labeled “the other”) mainstream audiences become more comfortable with the potential of a community-driven narrative.racial differences. According to Viviana Vargas in her article, “The West Side Story Appropriation We Never Really Talk About,” the authentic Puerto Rican voice has been taken and altered for white consumption. Real issues like achieving the American dream and creating a life of your own were erased in American mass culture in favor of mambo and a hyperbolic Hispanic accent. In the original production, the skin tone of Latino and Latina performers was darkened to further distance them as “the others” within the show. Maria's main Latina protagonist was played by a white woman named Carol Lawrence. According to Vargas, it is abundantly clear that it is difficult to praise a play as “revolutionary” when the most inclusive and innovative message of the play, an interracial relationship, is not truly shown on stage to white America, because the couple is composed by two white actors. After all, white audiences would feel threatened by the ethnic outsider if he were highlighted on stage. As a show praised for its racial inclusiveness, little knowledge of Puerto Rican culture is found in the show. Racism was not only promoted in this work because of the cultural norms of the period, but also because of its writers and lyricists. According to Sanchez, when Stephen Sondheim, the musical's lyricist, was first asked to join the writing team, he remarked, "I can't do this show... I've never been so poor and I've never even known a Puerto Rican." This is quite problematic on a multitude of levels. Writing about a young Puerto Rican girl's experience from a white male's privileged perspective will in no way be accurate if said male is not given adequate information about the true Puerto Rican lifestyle. The Puerto Ricans shown in West Side Story are simply fictional stereotypes arising from an Anglo-American position of power. By creating and celebrating false notions about Puerto Rican life, author Arthur Laurents, famed lyricist Stephen Sondheim, composer Leonard Bernstein, and all-around director, choreographer, and producer Jerome Robbins promoted a stereotype to such an extent that Puerto Ricans themselves began to identify with their invented culture. To create an easily consumable musical for a predominantly white American audience, it's clear that you don't push boundaries to an uncomfortable point. Controversial topics may be covered, but the actual sociocultural implications of interactions between, for example, Puerto Ricans and white Americans, will not be addressed as thoroughly. This original production is not a direct social commentary on the mistreatment and racism of immigrants, but rather a brilliant Romeo and Juliet love story. Not inclined to include its characters' native language or the other dangers they face in everyday life, the original production glorifies a life of hatred and violence, leaving authenticity behind. Looking at revivals, it seems that most have attempted to maintain traditional values ​​and classic songs within the musical, such as the 1980s revival of Robins. But because “West Side Story” lightly addresses social change, previous revivals are weighed down by comparisons between life on stage and life in the present day. Over the decades reviewers have criticized that revivals are outdated for the world we live in today. In 1968, William Kloman wrote in the New York Times that “events have overtaken his message.” Furthermore, when Robbins staged the revival in 1980, Frank Rich wrote: “the sociology and liberal faith of Arthur Laurents' book are nowrather meaningless” and viewers “no longer have the sense that the tragedies of the ghetto can be overcome with appeals for tolerance and understanding”. Yet, with a recent revival starting in 2009, paradigms have changed shifting the focus to the Puerto Rican side of life with translated songs. The only survivor of the 4 creators of the original project, Arthur Laurents wanted to level the playing field for the Jets and Sharks, inspired by an adaptation of his play in which the roles were reversed. Laurents is quoted as saying, "The musical theater and cultural conventions of 1957 made it almost impossible for the characters to be authentic." Every member of both gangs was always a potential killer even then. Now they really will be. Only Tony and Maria try to live in a different world. Laurents wanted to change the conventions in which these characters lived, making them more relevant to what was accurate at the time. Instead of inserting rather unrealistic love ideals or hyperbolic representations of culture, he wanted accurate representations. This adaptation with a translated script offers both better realism within the work and obvious racism with its still inauthentic Puerto Rican life. Referring again to "Compiling West Side Stories Parahistories," I agree with Herrera's points about the obvious brilliance and obvious racism found in the 2009 translated revival, the function of gang violence between an Anglo-Saxon and Puerto Rican city and about the inauthentic portrayal of Puerto Rican Vita. The introduction of a bilingual script provided many opportunities for Laurents when creating the new revival. According to Herrera, Peter Marks wrote in the Washington Post that the translated lyrics give "a truer sense of the cultural misunderstandings at the heart of 'West Side Story' expressed in the characters' different languages." Presumably, Laurents and the producers wanted the Spanish lyrics to increase the emotional drama, not to increase sales to be "politically aware." With the help of the famous work, Tony winner Lin Manuel Miranda, they attempted to change famous songs like "I Feel Pretty" and "A Boy Like That" into "Siento Hermosa" and "Un Hombre Así". Of Puerto Rican origin, the classic game was in good hands. Yet it is a simple enough translation to accurately represent an entire culture of people. It is true that the inclusion of the Spanish language represents a huge step in the right direction, but it is not enough to fully enter the political sphere of social change. In this case, they are not trying to appease white American audiences, but they are not creating a fully readable art form, thus preventing their authentic story from being told to their viewers. Furthermore, what might be seen as revolutionary actually further emphasizes Puerto Ricans as “The Other.” When marketing to a predominantly white audience that speaks a language, the action of including all Spanish songs further distances their culture from the viewer. This way you miss the opportunity for a spark of interest, attachment or bond to form with the audience and the performer. They cannot easily connect with what is being performed for them when they cannot understand what the singers are saying. It is quite ironic how the elements that attempt to celebrate the culture are only distancing themselves from their audience. Likewise, Laurents stressed the importance of fluency in Spanish in finding actors to play the Sharks. The irony is that the Jets had a “New York” level accent, while the Sharks lacked consistency, especially when singing in Spanish. Regional variations in