Woke Remakes Portray Whites as Racist Villains
False Assumption: Updating classic stories like West Side Story by portraying white characters as racist villains and minority characters as noble victims improves the story and appeals to modern audiences.
Written by FARAgent on February 10, 2026
West Side Story debuted on Broadway in 1957 as a Romeo and Juliet adaptation featuring rival white Jets and Puerto Rican Sharks as similar sexy knuckleheads fighting over turf. The 1961 movie version stayed evenhanded, portraying both gangs as juvenile delinquents without moralizing based on race. Masculine men like JFK enjoyed show tunes then, but musicals later declined amid cultural shifts including visible homosexuality.
Steven Spielberg remade the film in 2021, keeping the 1957 setting but infusing woke morals: Sharks became noble workers defending vibrant communities from nihilistic Trumpist Jets intent on gentrification. Jets deface Puerto Rican flags and embody white trash dysgenics, while changes like making Anybody trans and adding Spanish dialogue signaled modern sensibilities. Critics acclaimed it, but Sailer calls it a failure that butchered the cool balance of the original.
The 2025 LA Opera production avoided woke updates, casting opera singers as leads and portraying both gangs evenly as in 1957. It succeeded without racial moralizing, highlighting growing questions about whether forcing skin-color-based morality into classics alienates audiences. Critics now argue such remakes sap excitement, as seen in Spielberg's less cool Sharks and incoherent scenes.
People Involved
- In the lead-up to the 2021 release, Steven Spielberg directed the remake of West Side Story. He updated the classic by turning the white Jets into racist villains and the Puerto Rican Sharks into noble defenders against gentrification. Spielberg assumed this shift would draw Hispanic audiences. [1]
- Tony Kushner, the screenwriter, supported the changes in good faith. He depicted the Jets as dysgenic white trash and the Sharks as industrious figures. Kushner added threats of gentrification, even though the 1957 setting involved slumification instead. [1]
▶ Supporting Quotes (2)
“Spielberg’s big brainstorm for luring in the heavily Hispanic young audience is to keep Bernstein’s magnificent music and even double down on the 1957 setting with added dialogue about Manhattan real estate, but to replace the gay stage violence with straight movie violence.”— West Side Story
“Spielberg and his screenwriter Tony Kushner (Angels in America and Spielberg’s Lincoln) resolved to reduce the problematic elements by eliminating the original film’s outdatedly evenhanded treatment of the two gangs of juvenile delinquents, the white Jets and the Puerto Rican Sharks.”— West Side Story
Organizations Involved
Hollywood studios backed Spielberg's vision. They promoted the woke remake as a necessary update to the zeitgeist. Studios enforced a racialized morality that favored minorities over whites. This approach aligned with broader industry incentives to signal virtue through such portrayals. [1]
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“Steven Spielberg, being a patriotic admirer of mid-century America (e.g., Saving Private Ryan), has decided that what we need to acquaint the increasingly multicultural public with the USA’s past glories... is for him to remake West Side Story.”— West Side Story
The Foundation
The assumption took root in the belief that evenhanded portrayals of rival gangs were immoral. Skin color, in this view, determined moral worth. Whites appeared as inherent villains, while Puerto Ricans emerged as victims of gentrification. This ignored the 1957 trends of slumification in Manhattan. [1] A related idea propped it up: that 1950s Manhattan faced gentrification threats to Puerto Rican neighborhoods, making the Sharks defenders. In reality, slumification dominated, with urban renewal destroying old architecture. [1] Growing evidence suggests these foundations were flawed, though the debate continues.
▶ Supporting Quotes (2)
“Today, though, objectivity like that is felt to be immoral. You can now tell who deserves to win and who deserves to lose from the color of their skin. So, Spielberg and Kushner make clear that the Sharks and Jets fight because the browns are the good guys and the whites are the bad guys.”— West Side Story
“Kushner portrays gentrification in 1957 as a massive threat to the magic dirt under industrious yet idyllic Puerto Rican neighborhoods, although slumification was then the main trend.”— West Side Story
How It Spread
The idea gained traction in Hollywood circles by the 2010s. Studios tracked the unfolding cultural zeitgeist. Critics and awards bodies praised racialized remakes. This happened even as audiences grew alienated. [1] Social pressures in the industry sustained the spread, rewarding alignment with the trend.
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“in the interest of tracking the unfolding zeitgeist, here are changes he oversaw:”— West Side Story
Harm Caused
The remake faltered at the box office. It failed commercially and culturally. By making the Sharks uncool, such as casting the bulky David Alvarez as a noble Bernardo, it lost the original's edge. [1] This alienated straight male audiences from musicals even more. Other changes, like incoherent choreography in 'Gee, Officer Krupke' and a crowded gym dance, reduced excitement. These stemmed from fears of satirizing liberal crime theories too clearly. [1] Increasingly, these outcomes are seen as evidence of the assumption's flaws.
▶ Supporting Quotes (2)
“Unlike Stephen Spielberg’s failed 2021 movie version... But this means the Sharks don’t seem very cool anymore.”— West Side Story
“Spielberg’s swirling camera makes an incoherent mess of the Jets’ complex role-playing in “Gee, Officer Krupke.” (Or perhaps the filmmakers feared letting Sondheim’s satire of 1950s soft-on-crime liberal theorizing come across clearly in the Black Lives Matter era.)”— West Side Story
Downfall
By 2021, the remake's underperformance highlighted the problems. It lost the original's coolness through its racial updates. [1] An LA Opera production succeeded by sticking to the 1957 evenhandedness, without the woke changes. Casting choices, like a Neanderthal-browed Bernardo and deracinated Jets, broke the sexy knucklehead dynamic. Audiences noted that noble victims lacked rumble appeal. [1] Growing evidence suggests the assumption was misguided, exposing how such updates can undermine a story's draw, though not all experts agree yet.
▶ Supporting Quotes (2)
“this production was far less annoying than Spielberg’s movie rendition.”— West Side Story
“In 1961, dashing George Chakiris played Bernardo... as the epitome of purple-shirted sharkness. But Spielberg cast David Alvarez, who looks like Russell Crowe due to his Neanderthal brow ridge, to play an honest working man Bernardo.”— West Side Story
Sources
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[1]
West Side Storyreputable_journalism