Tweeted journalist Yolanda Machado — reportedly (it's been deleted now) — in "Steven Spielberg's 'West Side Story' earns early praise for omitting English subtitles: 'That's how it should be'" (Yahoo).
Are "White people gonna be big mad"? I think we all know how to watch a scene where a character is going on in some language you don't understand. It's how we first watched movies — and by "we" I mean the people who were around back in the silent movie era. The mouths moved, there were gestures, you got the story. It was accepted. If there's no translation into subtitles, you get the message that the actual words don't matter. Go on the feeling. Many of us who are around today learned when we were very young how to enjoy a show with a character speaking Spanish that we didn't understand:
We got it. Ricky got mad. The specific meaning didn't matter.
Now, with "West Side Story," the risk is that the Spanish characters — as seen by those who don't understand Spanish — may become less important compared to the characters who have the advantage of comprehensible speech. They may seem comical or like bundles of emotion. This could unintentionally lead to more stereotyping.
It's interesting to see how Spanish-speaking people are experiencing this choice to omit subtitles. Do they feel — as the deleted tweet says — less "othered"? Or do they feel more othered, as they are the ones who understand some things that are closed off to the rest of the audience? There could be a feeling of being the other but in a good way: We are the elite, in-the-know group.
From what I've seen of Americans over the years, I'd say we tend not to feel pressure to learn other languages. Some of us get irritated — you know, the louts who say "Speak English!" But most of us, I think, just tune out the other language — perhaps after showing some mild interest.
It would be good to learn other languages, but why should one group think its language is the second language that Americans ought to learn? It's funny to express grievance from a minority position and at the same time to claim priority because your language group is so large — 20% (or is it 13.5%?). Isn't that othering the Americans who speak Chinese or Arabic or French?
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Normal white people like me don't give a shit.
If you are an American, English should be your first language. Babel didn’t work. We have to be unified. Tribalism didn’t work in Rwanda and it won’t work here.
Speak Bradonese!
https://youtu.be/ZgevcwikL4A
From what I've seen of Americans over the years, I'd say we tend not to feel pressure to learn other languages.
I've Always said; that everyone NEEDS to know Two languages
1) language their mom speaks so they'll know when she calls them for dinner (native Language
2) language the business world speaks, so they can make MONEY (currently, english)
any other language, is just icing on the cake
I think Ann is correct, that audiences will simply tune out the stuff they don't understand. I studied French in high school and German in college. French is incomprehensible to me now, but I still understand enough German to read something basic and make sense of it, or listen to someone speaking and get the gist. But if I really wanted to understand what is happening, subtitles are very convenient. I watched a great show on Hulu a while back called "Deutschland '83.' It is a German language drama about an East German spy during the Cold War. I am certainly glad for the subtitles, because while I could understand much of what was going on, a lot of the political intrigue would have been lost to me without them.
What has always been odd about language snobs is that they purposefully ignore the fact that there is no compelling reason for most Americans to learn another language and continue to practice it, when they will almost never get the opportunity to use it. In Europe you can travel the equivalent distance of another state in the US and everyone will speak a completely different language. That makes understanding that language much more necessary and convenient, and if it is close enough that it is that necessary, you are probably going to have many opportunities over the course of your life to use it and improve. For the vast majority of Americans those ongoing opportunities simply do not exist. It is a pretty rational choice not to study and practice a language you aren't likely to ever need to use. If you live in an area where Spanish is common enough that it is necessary, you may pick up what you need to know without much deliberate study anyway.
Interestingly enough, my grandmother who never learned english loved watching Lucy. It was always easy for her to follow along in the show because Lucille Ball’s acting and comedy was also very physical, so it works both ways, I’d say.
The first time I watched the film The Bicycle, it was on DVD and I didn’t know how to change the language or turn on the subtitles, so I watched it in Italian without subtitles. I do not speak Italian. The only thing I could recognize were names. It amazed me that I could still understand the movie and enjoy it. I watched it later in English and have to say I liked it better when I couldn’t understand the language.
Depends on where you live in the US. Here in Florida, I think it would be helpful if I learned Spanish. Particularly when I was working and calling on designers and hotel operators in the greater Miami area, which is more or less, a South or Central American town that happens to be attached to the US. (and I don't say that as a negative- it has a very cool vibe). I told myself for 20 years that I should learn Spanish. I'm trying to learn Italian presently.
Spanish is the second language in this country. And as a few million are imported by the Biden Administration, then shipped to places like Madison, WI, you'll be hearing Spanish more and more. They are the people cutting your lawns, cooking your food in the restaurants, building the new homes and office buildings. Doing all those things that the American populace used to do before we decided that it was either tech or unemployment for us.
Despite 3 years of Spanish languge in high school, eons ago, I never followed up and still only remember bit phrases, like "No me gustan las albóndigas."- which translates to "I don't like meatballs", which is pretty useless anwhere in the world.
Honestly- it bothers me greatly that so many on the left seem to think they know just how "white people" think. This white person could give a shit that there are no subtitles. I suspect most people won't care and will understand.
Now you are cancelled, and will have to spend time in the wilderness for calling the characters "Spanish."
But are the Latin actors the correct kind of Latin actors?
Long ago some college instructor told the class that your typical Spaniard is "poor but proud" which I took to mean stupid so yeah I can see how some people would get off on thinking Spielberg is telling white people to suck it.
Are "White people gonna be big mad"?
People who are really proud of their comeback are all too often too impatient to wait for the line they want to ridicule and instead just accuse someone of being about to say it. Shameful lack of self-control. God forbid they wait and risk not being able to use it.
No, white people not gonna be mad. Either they will roll with it as you describe, or they'll pick another movie.
For non-English speakers, the choice of a second language is glaringly obvious.
For English speakers, though, there is no choice with anything more than local utility.
I used to be surprised at the blatant racism expressed by so many journalists, but no longer.
They want us to die.
They get a paycheck to dehumanize us relentlessly in large and small ways.
Weimar Germany here we come.
And who the hell is proud of a sub-educated population largely comprised of lawbreaking illegal who solve problems with knife fights?
White people are not going to be "big mad" because Spanish is a language from a European White country. Yolanda might be "gran loca" to know that English language movies shown in Spain normally have Spanish subtitles as a courtesy to non English speakers.
Yolanda necesita aprender que no todo es racista.
Presumably when I stream it at home I can just turn on the English closed captioning when necessary?
Good job giving me one more reason not to watch it in the theater.
In contrast to Ms Yachado, I don't actually go looking for reasons to be offended. Maybe that's because it hasn't been drilled into my head for so long that I'm a victim.
White people gonna be big mad
West Side Story is all about the stupidity of tribalism. To watch that movie and respond emotionally by picking a side and hoping the Spics crush the Anglos is to miss the point of the fucking movie.
Also, if somebody deletes a tweet, let them delete the fucking tweet. Why pick a fight with somebody who's sorry about what she said?
Whitey gonna be mad! (Delete). That's the superego trying to repress that damn id that starts all these damn twitter brawls.
"Look what your id said!"
"Well, fuck him, that's not me. I am high class! (Delete) Not a racist!"
This could unintentionally lead to more stereotyping.
More likely intentionally.
A common language unites a diverse country like America. Having no common ethnic identity, we need other things to hold different groups together as one.
The constant undermining of that which unites us will surely divide us and the consequences of that will be harsh. It may take generations, but it will lead to the breakup of these United States.
I want to ask how people do not see this, but fear they see it all too well.
Most of us white people stopped suffering the political messages from Hollywood actors and the movies. We have abandoned 'movie night ' for highly selective viewing, So no, white people not gonna be big mad because we'll just skip the movie and miss the message, despite efforts to shove it in our faces...
...and RIta Moreno.
Are the Puerto Ricans in the film new arrivals to the mainland or did they grow up here? If they were born here or grew up here, they might speak a mixture of English and Spanish, and speaking only Spanish with each other in the film would be unrealistic and unnecessary.
Spanish is not that hard to learn and understand, even if you've never had an actual in-person lesson. Just watch enough telenovelas. French, though, could be impossible to follow, even after four years of high school French.
Spielberg is fortunate that WSS is a highly emotional story. Otherwise, I think he might be left open to criticism of using ethic emotional stereotypes.
For example, see the opening scene of "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" and its depiction of Asians.
File this under "reasons not to watch a movie I might otherwise be interested in."
I wonder what this person with the dumb tweet thinks about the song "America" in the movie. I don't know if the lyrics were changed, but the women in the original song are thankful to live here.
When I watch the DVD and hit subtitles for the English what will happen when folks talk in Spanish?
Isn't Yolanda Machado Mexican-American?
Aren't the spanish speaking characters in Westside Story Puerto Rican?
Where the Hell does she get off talking about this?
Does she even speak Spanish herself? I was trying to confirm that she is Mexican ancestry and all the bios call her Latinx. I question whether someone who calls herself Latinx can speak Spanish. She certainly has no respect for the language and should not be calling others out for not respecting it.
Rehajm: Rita Moreno is at least Puerto Rican, like the characters in Westside Story. That qualifies her to act in it. She speaks Spanish. She hails from Humacao, 2 towns over from me.
Only Puerto Ricans should be playing Puerto Ricans in Film. Mexican's must stick to playing Mexicans. And so on. Right?
John LGBTQBNY Henry
Not wasting time and money on the ideological “entertainment” products produced by Hollywood is the solution to all these problems.
White people will be big not giving a flying fuck about this movie.
I hope they make all the women in the movie ugly, and angry, and hectoring, and humorless, i.e. “strong”,so it’s realistic for today.
We can keep our memories of a young Natalie Wood dancing, and lip syncing, with brown make up, which would be completely unacceptable today.
I have to believe that there were meetings at which they discussed how much Spanish to use and whether to subtitle it. I suspect that these discussions were alternatively intelligently honest and muddled political correctness. A recoding of those meetings would be a real lesson in where we find ourselves today.
"In a country where nearly 20 percent of the population speaks Spanish, the subtitles just further keep us othered."
In a country where over 80% of the population does not speak your language,perhaps subtitles might make you better understood, might better reveal your humanity.
"French, though, could be impossible to follow, even after four years of high school French."
I've been trying to learn French for decades. Sometimes I wonder how the French can understand French.
I guess black people, brown people, Asian people, indigenous people, Pacific Islanders, Turks, Persians, Arabs, etc. will not be big mad. Or maybe it doesn’t count because they’re not white.
Spanish is not that hard to learn and understand, even if you've never had an actual in-person lesson. Just watch enough telenovelas. French, though, could be impossible to follow, even after four years of high school French.
True dat.
I have never taken Spanish class in my life, but I can grasp a fair amount of the language from growing up with friends who were second and third generation Mexican-Americans. I took advanced French for four years in HS and two years in college. I really struggled to understand Parisians when I visited France.
There's no principle involved here. All of Spielberg's characters spoke English in Shindler's List. The Holocaust was the hook, not the language. Spielberg is first and foremost a showman. That's his genius. Give the people and the critics what they want. Just as he may have sensed that the Holocaust was the road to finally winning an Oscar then, eschewing subtitles could ingratiate him with critics now.
I learned French in college, forgot most of it, but have been watching French language TV out of Quebec now nearly every day, and it's coming back. It helps that one of the newrsreaders on CBC at six is incredibly good looking, in a French way, with that deep brunette hair and dark brown eyes that compliment perfectly her.... wait, I got distracted there for a second.
Anyway, were I live, French is the most useful second language, when in Florida, it's Spanish. The United States is a big country.
I question the wisdom of a desire to make White people mad about race and language in a nation that is 75% White and English speaking.
The first time I watched the film The Bicycle, it was on DVD and I didn’t know how to change the language or turn on the subtitles, so I watched it in Italian without subtitles. I do not speak Italian. The only thing I could recognize were names. It amazed me that I could still understand the movie and enjoy it.
When I was stationed in Korea a guy on CQ (Charge of Quarters) duty had his Korean girlfriend visit him and they were watching a Korean movie in the dayroom. No subtitles. A few of us were watching it even though we couldn't speak any Korean. At one point in the movie a woman starts telling another woman off. Somebody asked what was going on and I said that the angry woman was telling the other women that the guy was her man and she had better keep her hands off him. The Korean girlfriend looked startled and said, "you can speak Korean!?"
Did they change Steven Sondheim's lyrics over to Spanish as well? Or was it decided to keep that off limits? In for a peso, in for a pound.
Silent films had title cards; they weren't non-verbal. However, even where silents used title cards only sparingly, the effect wasn't to exclude a portion of the audience from understanding what was being said.
That said, I'm certainly not saying that Spielberg's choice in this regard is wrong. Particularly where the story he's filming is already well known by generations of filmgoers -- it actually goes all the way back to Romeo and Juliet, of course -- challenging the non-Spanish-speaking audience in this fashion is an interesting artistic choice and people can judge for themselves how it affects their enjoyment of the movie.
I am a white person who lives in New Mexico. I think it's racist this person believes white people don't speak Spanish. Does she believe there is some gene that comes from European Spain that makes the language understandable only to people of that descent? I'd like to see the science that supports her belief.
When I know the language I hate watching a movie with english subtitles because I still feel compelled to read the translation.
'"West Side Story is fantastic. White people gonna be big mad tho and good. Bless you Steven Spielberg for not subtitling when our people use our language."'
'Your language' is the language of the Spanish conquerers, your historic overlords.
You aren't speaking 'your language.'
As for subtitles, my hearing is going and we watch a lot of British TV, so subtitles are a must.
But I always leave them set to the native language so I can see and hear the dialog in German let's say. It keeps the actors performance intact and avoids the 'Godzilla' effect.
Am I the only one here who finds it...amusing...that Ms. Machado derives some sort of racial/cultural validation from a film directed by a guy named Spielberg that's based on a musical written by a couple of guys named Bernstein and Sondheim?
Cuando quieres ir al cine? Por la tarde o por la noche, me es igual!
Hola! Que tal?
Bien, y tu?
Me llamo Paco. Y tu como TE llamas?
Me llamo Juan
Meh, I watched the third season of Shtisel on an Israeli website. Yiddish with Hebrew subtitles. Pretty much understood everything, without understanding a word, except how they kept setting that muppet up with beautiful girls.
The last paragraph of the original posting is spot on, I think. Claiming that YOUR language should be the second language of the country is a claim of privilege that, in a way, is a kind of bullying. "We've been oppressed, now it's our turn to force you to do something you don't want to do." When the case is, in opinion anyway, is this country is a lot more welcoming than we're given credit for - even or especially on the individual level.
We're a continental nation with Spanish speakers to the south and English/French speakers to the north. The NEED to learn a foreign language is really not there, although a choice could be made there are other, more practical, languages to learn to compete in the 21st century (Chinese? Hindi?).
Also, having discovered that I can get fresh tamales at a local Hispanic supermarket I now know that puerco means pork and el frio means cold. I already knew that pollo is chicken. I think everybody knows that.
Why would only "white people" be mad? Do blacks, asians, arabic people and the like not go to the movies?
If you watch this on a streaming network, you can get English subtitles for everything spoken, including the Spanish parts. I do that routinely since my hearing isn’t so sharp any more. Seems like a good solution in this particular cases for the vast majority of us who don’t understand Spanish.
This movie is a re-make, and so my need to see it was already attenuated. Spielberg is a draw, but it would be hard for him to improve upon the original with Natalie Wood in any event. Spanish without subtitles wouldn't make me mad. Just slightly adds to the reason not to bother with seeing it.
Ms.Yachado may achieve release hating on Whitey for not conversing in Spanish, however she should consider the inconvenient fact that the other prominent minority of color, African Americans, is most likely only capable of speaking and understanding English. This chauvinistic bigot is apparently unwilling or incapable of seeing English as an essential glue that holds this seriously fractured society together. Or,perhaps, she would prefer Goo Gone instead of glue.
"White people gonna be big mad"
Not mad, just apathetic. I accept that any movie with substantial parts in another language that aren't subtitled simply aren't made for me. So I won't watch it. Similar to how I accept that movies that have embraced woke ideology aren't targeting me as a viewer. So I don't watch them. Of course, this means I pretty much no longer watch movies.
I'm perfectly ok with that.
White people gonna be big mad
Only the ones who have a financial stake in the movie and lose money on it when non-Spanish speakers skip it to go watch something else.
"White people gonna be big mad." What scholarly journal was this published in?
For the past 3-ish years I've mostly been consuming foreign-language tv and movies, as pretty much all the "western media" ones in English feel so stale, formulaic, and repetitive anymore. The 2 biggest ones I've focused on have been Hindi-language movies ("Bollywood") and Korean-language tv-shows (k-dramas). Through it all I've picked up a few words here and there, but it's quite literally just the occasional word. I still can't understand even simple sentences in either language, though. And that's with doing DuoLingo for Korean for about 9 months also. I can read the Hangul script slowly, but that's about it.
From all that show-watching... yeah, if I'm not looking at the screen to read the subtitles, it's still just "sound" despite being that linguists call "comprehensible input," but as you say, you can still often get the gist if what's being said due to facial expression, body-language, tone, and so forth.
Amazingly enough, there are only 23 languages with at least 50 million speakers, but those languages are so prevalent that 4.1 billion people speak at least one of them.
And before seeing this article/infographic I'd not heard of a few of them either....
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/world-of-languages.html
"The mouths moved, there were gestures, you got the story. It was accepted. If there's no translation into subtitles, you get the message that the actual words don't matter. Go on the feeling."
Yes! I watch a lot of K-drama on Netflix. The translations are atrocious. Yet - see the above. You 'feel' the intent of the words. This is why I hate dubbed versions - the English is so FLAT, the emotion just isn't the same. Same with music. I don't speak Spanish yet listen to music sung in that language all the time.
I am a fan of the live action Rurouni Kenshin samurai series; Japanese is the original language. There are five movies. One movie was only available in the dubbed version. Got tired of looking for the Japanese subtitled version. Sucked it up and watched the dubbed version. Hated it. Even though I don't speak Japanese, I enjoyed the subtitled versions so much more, and I had to slog through listening to the flat tone of the English speakers. I don't really feel like I've "seen" this one particular movie and will continue to search for the Japanese version with subtitles.
That's ok.
I'll wait for the BluRay version. And if that one doesn't have English language subtitles for all the Spanish, I won't buy or watch that, either.
America is an English language country. If you want to speak in a different language, then while you're here you ARE the "other".
If you don't like that, don't be here.
I was in the potential audience to WSS. Thanks, Spielberg, now I don't have to spend my time / money on it
>In a since-deleted Tweet, journalist Yolanda Machado praised the filmmakers..."In a country where nearly 20 percent of the population speaks Spanish, the subtitles just further keep us othered."<
Guess what, Chiquita, in a country where you are one out of five of the population you *are* the other; no one needs to keep you that. And judging by your idiot "subtitle" comment, not knowing what you have to say would surely be a blessing.
In the Adam Sandler movie "Spanglish," I was kind of amazed that the Anglos don't learn enough Spanish to communicate with their "staff." Of course the Sandler character at least half falls in love with the beautiful maid, despite the language barrier. They are somewhat united against the crazy wife, played by Tea Leoni. An unusual twist for Hollywood: he decides in the end to stay with his wife. A somewhat conservative orientation? Even perhaps an admission that there may be a cultural barrier, not just a linguistic one?
Who can forget Tom Wolfe's "Radical Chic"? Leonard Bernstein (Burn-styne; but don't forget Fronk-en-steen), who I believe had some role in the original West Side Story, hosted a party for the Black Panthers. Having the usual African-American servers would be awkward, so some Latinos/Latinos/Latinx were hired. To avoid awkwardness.
"White people gonna be big mad." What scholarly journal was this published in?
"It's funny to express grievance from a minority position and at the same time to claim priority because your language group is so large"
It's funny, but it's also SOP in the identity-politcis victimization sweepstakes: your grievance entitles you to claim priority.
"It's interesting to see how Spanish-speaking people are experiencing this choice to omit subtitles."
I think I speak for all Spanish-speaking people, when I say that I won't be watching TV any time soon anyway, so I really don't dar una condenación.
Althouse said: I think we all know how to watch a scene where a character is going on in some language you don't understand.
When I turned on the TV this morning, the movie "An American in Paris" was just beginning (guess hubby was watching classic movie channel last night). In an early scene, various French folks were talking to each other, the sub-titles in that scene were in French and because of the gestures, I understood the conversation, even if not every single word spoken.
And that's the mark of excellent acting and direction. Will be interesting to see if the new West Side Story has the same connection.
I just read a story that the Fargo, N.D., school system is pulling "And Then There Were None" because the poem ("Ten Little Indians") encourages kids to think it's ok to slaughter Indians.
I am so done with people's stupidity.
Regarding Spielberg, it may be that the decision to omit subtitles was intentional, to reinforce the tribal feeling between the gangs. If you don't know what they're saying, they could be saying anything about you.
That can be an artistic decision I can respect.
I also wonder why Spielberg is bothering to remake "West Side Story" without updating it. Street gangs like the jets and the sharks are outdated, even quaint.
Make it riskier. Make it the crips and the bloods. Or the cartels and the gangbangers in LA.
I'll bet the younger Spike Lee would do it, but raised in suburban comfort Stephen Spielberg? No way.
La gente blanca siempre se enoja por algo.
I usually turn on closed caption when I watch movies. It's not unusual to see 'speaking foreign language' in lieu of a translation. I just watched "Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison" and the Japanese were all captioned that way. Of course they are the enemy there.
A lot of people who are not Hispanic understand Spanish. It's more a less a requirement for hands on real estate management in Florida and Texas. I remember my local bodega owner in Brooklyn was shocked I couldn't understand him. All the other hippie types could.
I was fully fluent in French by the time I left high school, thanks to four years in school and daily exposure via local radio and TV (northern Vermont). Sadly I've lost much of it in the subsequent years, but I do watch French movies/TV series with subtitles to keep my ear in it. I use that to translate phrases into Spanish if I need to, mainly because I'm too lazy to learn Spanish and because I dislike the sound of it compared to French. Sorry, not sorry. And here in the Bay Area, Mandarin is a much more practical language to have although next to impossible to learn. I know enough to extend pleasant courtesies and leave it at that.
Funny anecdote: We became quite friendly with our across the street Chinese neighbors, to the extent that we were invited to two of their kids' weddings. My husband tried out his Mandarin only to be told they spoke Cantonese!
I had just come back from four years living in Kyoto when "Shogun", a mini-series starring Richard Chamberlain as an American in feudal Japan, along with the great Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune, aired on TV.
The series did not use English subtitles for the Japanese dialogues. Context was your only clue.
But my friends knew my Japanese was very good then, so I was frequently interrupted by phone calls asking, "What did she say?" "What did he say?"
This was in 1980, before you could pause TV programs, so I found it irritating to be distracted from watching the program to serve as an interpreter!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xo5Y7AHMy20
I remember my brother returning from being stationed in Spain telling what fun it was to watch Bonanza dubbed in Spanish. Hoss was dubbed in a high pitched squeaky voice. "Hola Papa" sent the airmen rollin in the aisles!
I've seen the trailers. I'm too unexcited and meh about seeing the movie that I can't be big mad.
'Meh, I watched the third season of Shtisel on an Israeli website.'
It's a really good show. We watch it on Netflix.
I speak some bad German and Yiddish isn't so far from that, but we keep it in Hebrew with English subtitles.
The actors (especially the father) are really good.
It can be slow but that's OK...not every show needs a car chase.
The banker woman is gorgeous, btw.
I think of the son as a Jewish Charlie Brown : )
This movie remake is a mistake. It was a bad idea from the start and then the deplorable Tony Kushner was asked to participate.It will be denigrated by the people it was made to honor.
Spanish is probably the most paternalistic language around. Why does it get a pass?
What's the Spanish word for father? Padre.
What's the Spanish word for mother? Madre.
What's the Spanish word for parent? Padre.
As a Barvaian-American-Irishman who's agnostic, I hated West side story. There are some good parts: a few good songs, and some of the dancing sequences (like the beginning) are well done. But most of it is just a crap fest. Sorry. No longer feel I have to hold back.
I have zero desire to see Speilberg's version. I'm sure it will be even more crappy then the first one. He'll make in more "realistic" and how that will improve the songs, the score, or the basic story is unclear. And how many great muscials has Speilberg directed? Zero.
However, Spielberg always seems to know what the average boob wants to see. I'm sure whatever slop he tosses out will be lapped up.
So when the film is shown in Latin American countries, will there be spanish subtitles over the English dialog? Or is Spielberg giving a big FU to them also?
Steven Spielberg virtue signals to latinx culture. Althouse deplorables hardest hit, unexpectedly.
"Hola compañeros Hispanos!" El Spielbergo declares.
Of course, God-fearing men of any race don't need his kind, and they certainly don't care about his pathetic stunts. The end of the Spielberg era is drawing closer.
Frankly, 'White people gonna be big mad' is an excellent tag line for the remake.
Bogart's "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" contained at least one fairly lengthy scene entirely in non-subtitled Spanish, back in what, 1947? Additionally, in that scene there was no wild gesticulating etc.; the only thing to go on was the intonation in the speaking voices.
And yet, somehow, the wypipo din' get big mad tho. No Latinos were strung up or pilloried for the crime of not using subtitles in one of the biggest films of that year.
Why is it that in the 21st century, so many are intent on revealing themselves as morons? I remember when that sort of thing was considered an embarrassment.
>>I don't know if the lyrics were changed, but the women in the original song are thankful to live here.
Didn't know this until recently but, in the original Broadway production, all of the participants in that number were women. In what seems to me a brilliant move, it was the movie version that made the song into a male vs. female number.
The trailer didn't make me want to see this thing, but I will undoubtedly watch when it comes on cable that I don't have to pay extra for.
A couple of my most amusing experiences in France were watching old Hollywood movies subtitled in French (I was already into old Hollywood movies at the time but not as familiar with them as I am now). I knew enough French to mostly understand the subtitles. It was interesting/entertaining to see how the Emglish dialogue was being translated into French.
--gpm
If Steven Spielberg had balls, he'd do Proud Boys - Antifa West Side Story
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