The Star-crossed Lovers of West Side Story

West Side Story Film 2021

    Author: Maya Lee

   West Side Story is a timeless and perhaps one of the most well-known musicals of American pop culture. The musical originated on Broadway in 1957 and was developed by five Jewish men: Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, Arthur Laurents, Jerome Robbins, and Harold Prince. The musical has been on Broadway four times, with its most recent revival in 2020, and on film twice in 1961 and 2021. 

The musical is a retelling of the Shakespearean classic Romeo and Juliet. However, West Side Story looks at the rivalry between Capulet and Montague through the lens of ethnicity/race. The two rival families become two rival gangs, the Puerto Rican Sharks and the white Jets. The central conflict between the two gangs is race and immigration.

Scene from 1961 film

Bernardo: Who jumped me the first day I moved here?

Riff: Who asked you to move here…Go back to where you came from!

Thus, the theme of the musical is racial tolerance and loving despite racial differences. 

However, despite West Side Story's theme and message, the musical has earned the titles of problematic and racist. For example, the musical has a disconcerting history of white-washing. West Side Story tells the story of Puerto Rican immigrants but was made by an all-white creative team. Further, many times the musical has been performed by casts that are majority white. For example, Carol Lawrence, the first Maria in the 1957 Broadway production, was Italian-American. In the 1961 film version, Natalie Wood, a white woman, also played Maria. Additionally, the actor who played Bernardo, Maria's brother, was played by a white man in the 1957 and 1961 versions.  

Second is overt racism through the reinforcement of racial stereotypes. The most critiqued by Latine audiences is that the Puerto Rican characters are in a street gang. Next, the Puerto Rican characters have exaggerated accents and, in the 1961 version, are in brownface. In the first act, the song America highlights the racism Puerto Rican immigrants face but also reinforces it with its lyrics. 

“Puerto Rico . . Always the population growing, And the money owing, And the babies crying, And the bullets flying.”

Lastly, Maria reflects the spicy and exotic Latina trope in her impulsive boy-crazy behavior, followed by her being overly emotional. All these things fuel a negative and minstrel perception of Puerto Ricans. The narrative created around the Puerto Rican characters impacts the portrayal of Maria and Tony's interracial relationship. 

Maria, a young, beautiful, and free-spirited Latina, rejects her family's multiple attempts to match her with a Puerto Rican shark. In the early scenes of the musical, Maria expresses her desire to assimilate into American culture. Thus, she goes to the school dance, meets Tony, and decides to pursue the sweet and mild-mannered young white man. Maria and Tony begin an innocent relationship that blossoms into a forbidden love. However, as people in their circle learn about their relationship, they are faced with opposition. In a scene between Tony and Doc, Doc protests the interracial relationship between Maria and Tony saying, “ I’m frightened enough for both of you." In the song A boy like that/I have a love, Anita repeats the notion that Maria should “ Forget that boy and find another, One of your own kind. Stick to your own kind!” Yet, not only are Tony and Maria breaking the social standards of their ethnic communities by being together, but they are also breaking the law. The story is set in New York mid-1950s when anti-miscegenation laws were in place. Maria is of Puerto Rican descent, and Tony is of European. So they were breaking anti-miscegenation laws. 

All that Doc was frightened of come to fruition. Gang violence escalates to gun violence with the knowledge of Maria and Tony's relationship. It results in the death of multiple characters including Tony. The musical ends with the notion that their love wasn't able to withstand the segregation and interpersonal racism of the two gangs. 

Maria: Loving is enough

Tony: Not here. They won't let us be. 

In one of Maria's final lines, she notes that hate was the leading cause of death. In conclusion, the musical is a harmful depiction of interracial relationships as star-crossed lovers doomed because of their ethnic differences.

Author: Maya Lee

Sources:

https://www.publicbooks.org/goodbye-west-side-story/#:~:text=As%20Brian%20Eugenio%20Herrera%20noted,to%20access%20self%2Drepresentation).

https://www.britannica.com/topic/West-Side-Story

https://www.westsidestory.com/