{"id":46216,"date":"2021-12-10T13:55:16","date_gmt":"2021-12-10T13:55:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/?p=46216"},"modified":"2021-12-20T11:11:06","modified_gmt":"2021-12-20T11:11:06","slug":"west-side-story-casting-out-of-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/west-side-story-casting-out-of-time\/","title":{"rendered":"West Side Story \u2013 A Casting out of Touch?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Spielberg\u2019s adaptation of the 1957 musical, West Side Story has dropped in cinemas to raving reviews<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Coming out to an initial Rotten Tomatoes critic\u2019s score of 93% and 8.1 stars from IMDB, this classic\u2019s themes of ethnic differences and acceptance through love are as relevant today as they were when Sondheim wrote it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, the internet seems to be concentrating on the casting choice for the lead, Ansel Elgort as Tony in a post-MeToo movement world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On June 19, 2020, Ansel Elgort was accused of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old fan. The allegations were first made on Twitter and while the account and tweets were later deleted, screenshots of her posts continued to gain traction online and more young girls came forward about the actor inappropriately contacting them while they were underage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here is how the internet has reacted to Elgort\u2019s presence:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\nhttps:\/\/twitter.com\/cottgewhorfairy\/status\/1467654239581208584\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I&#39;m old enough to remember when certain awards predicators were callously discussing if Ansel Elgort being accused of sexual assault could hurt West Side Story&#39;s Oscar chances so it&#39;s no surprise to me said allegations are now uniformly being ignored or treated as a nuisance.<\/p>&mdash; Kayleigh Donaldson (@Ceilidhann) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Ceilidhann\/status\/1466521372415471616?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 2, 2021<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\nhttps:\/\/twitter.com\/cartonofshi\/status\/1467590725063872516\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">i\u2019m sorry but they should\u2019ve shelved the west side story remake or recasted tony after the allegations about ansel elgort came out. i don\u2019t even care about the cost, they could\u2019ve stood with survivors and just taken the loss. shows and films have done that before.<\/p>&mdash; serena (@suhhchai) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/suhhchai\/status\/1467258260159877127?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 4, 2021<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Let us know what you think about the situation on Twitter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>More from us:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thevoiceoflondon.co.uk\/sexual-assault-in-the-city-mr-big-actor-chris-noth-accused-of-rape-by-two-women\/\" title=\"https:\/\/thevoiceoflondon.co.uk\/sexual-assault-in-the-city-mr-big-actor-chris-noth-accused-of-rape-by-two-women\/\">Sexual assault in the city \u2013 Mr. Big actor Chris Noth accused of rape by two women<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Words: Susanna Borio &#8211; Subeditor: Martyna Rozenbajgier<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Spielberg\u2019s adaptation of the 1957 musical, West Side Story has dropped in cinemas to raving reviews. Coming out to an initial Rotten Tomatoes critic\u2019s score of 93% and 8.1 stars from IMDB, this classic\u2019s themes&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":476,"featured_media":46227,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,23,42,54],"tags":[7146,7144,2361,2371,7143,4124,4293,7142,5564,7141,7145,5887,7140],"class_list":["post-46216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art-culture","category-celebrity","category-entertainment","category-film-2","tag-allegation","tag-ansel-elgort","tag-film","tag-film-premiere","tag-imdb","tag-metoo","tag-movie","tag-rotten-tomatoes","tag-sexual-assault","tag-spielberg","tag-stephen-sondheim","tag-steven-spielberg","tag-west-side-story"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/476"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46216"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47723,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46216\/revisions\/47723"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}