West Side Story is a film about two rival gangs, the Jets and the Sharks. The Jets are American and the Sharks are of Puerto Rican descent. The movie has a Romeo and Juliet storyline -- however, in West Side Story the two lovers, Tony and Maria, are from two different ethnic groups as opposed to two sparring families in Romeo and Juliet. It is ethnocentrism that stands in the way of Tony and Maria's love.
Ethnocentrism is defined by Spector (2009, 12) as the "belief in the superiority of one's own ethnic group" and/or and "overriding concern with race." This is exactly what the problem is in West Side Story. The film is rife with concerns about ethnicity and where it places on in
The film is about a fight over territory as it shows how immigrants from Puerto Rico come to New York and, in a sense, take over the space that was formally completely Anglo-American. It is also a film about the confrontation of two different groups of people with different color skin. Because the boys from the Jets are Anglo-American, there is a sense that they feel they are superior and that the West side is their territory. This comes across in their very first song where they sing, "I want the Jets to be Number One, to sail, to hold the sky! We're Jets! The greatest!" While this may seem completely innocent, the message is that because of their "American-ness," they are the greatest and they see themselves as the first race.
The film doesn't just make us think about the Jets vs. The Sharks; it makes us think in more specific terms such as USA vs. Puerto Rico or even Native vs. foreigner (Sandoval-Sanchez 1994, 62) This is apparent in the film, this sort of condescending view of the immigrant, when the police officer doesn't want to hear anything from the Sharks, but rather will only speak with the Jets. In a way, this is taking away the voice of the immigrants. It says, "we do not want to hear what you have to say" or "your voice doesn't matter."
Spector (2009, 12) states that ethnocentrism and xenophobia causes the down-and-out group, the minority, to "cluster together against the…
West Side Story Like all musical films, the West Side Story relates to a production where the characters sing songs and sometimes dance too, all with the view of developing the characters and advancing the plot of the film However, the movie brings to the fore various special features, which notably set it out as a historical document. The era in which the film was produced is also of massive importance considering
We see how their membership in the class and racial group has power over their attitudes and actions. At the time of this film, they were contemporary, but the film was true to the times, so they are now historically correct also. The social mores and customs are well depicted in the forms of dances and music and in the morality of the time. Maria's dress for the dance
West Side Story Social Tension and Doomed Romances in West Side Story Hundreds of years after Shakespeare's penning of Romeo and Juliet, the notion of warring families and star-crossed lovers has not waned in popularity. This is evident in the Academy Award-winning 1961 film West Side Story, which, stripped of its musical interludes and numerous dance numbers, becomes the adaptation of Shakespeare's romantic tragedy in its barest bones. Of course, West Side
West Side Story, filmed in 1961, was one of the most ground-breaking works not only in terms of subject and genre, but also in terms of the boundaries it broke with its musical scores and choreography. Indeed, the film's dance sequences often form part of its plot. Its musical scores depict the deep distrust and underlying violence in the uneasy truces between the street gangs whose members form the basic
play Romeo and Juliet written by William Shakespeare during the Elizabethan Times in the late 1500s with four modern day movie adaptations: West Side Story directed by Robert Wise in 1961, Romeo and Juliet directed by Baz Luhrmann in 1996, Shakespeare in Love directed by John Madden in 1998 and Romeo Must Die directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak in 2000. The findings conclude that Romeo Must Die has little to
Musical Theatre Film and the Choreographed Dance Sequence Entertainment based on film has been paramount in this country since the beginning of the motion picture in the early 20th century. The movie-going experience spread throughout the world in a few quick years, and was enhanced subsequently by technological developments. Today, movies range from action to musicals to drama and animations. One type of movie mentioned above, the musical, however involves not only
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