West Side Story, a very famous late-1950’s Broadway stage musical based on Romeo & Juliet, which was made into a spectacular motion picture after Walter Mirisch bought the rights to the film version, is about a forbidden love and romance that developed amid conflict between two warring street gangs on the West Side of 1950’s-1960’s New York City; the White European Ethnic American Jets, and the newly-arrived Puerto Rican Sharks. Their constant vying for turf, as well as the racial/ethnic tensions and hostilities between the two gangs become even more complex...and intense, when Tony, the founder and ex-Jets gang leader, who is looking for a life beyond gang life and the streets, but doesn’t know what he’s looking for, meets and falls in love with Maria, the younger sister of the Shark gang leader, Bernardo while attending a dance at a local gymnasium.,
West Side Story, as a movie-musical, has everything; forbidden love and romance amid feuding between two warring street gangs (i. e. the Jets and Sharks), arrogance, exuberance, beauty, artistry, conflict with the law, naivety, tribal/ethnic loyalties, acute awareness of turf, gang honor, determination to protect turf, and for others’ determination to have a piece of that same turf. Cockiness, toughness, a desire for acceptance as equals, and violence that claims the lives of three people (i. e. gang leaders Riff and Bernardo, and, ex-gang leader, Tony), sadness along with anger, and a ray of hope leading to possible intergroup reconciliation that comes through, after Maria’s angry message:
“You all killed him (i. e. Tony), and my brother, and Riff! Not with bullets and guns!
With hate! Well, I can kill too, because now I have hate!”
after which several Jets and Sharks come together to carry Tony’s body off after he has been shot by Chino, who is then escorted into a waiting police car. An atmosphere of sadness and regret seems to now prevail among the Jets and Sharks, especially after Tony has been shot dead, and yet an understanding in tragedy, however long or brief, brings them together, at least momentarily. A couple of examples of regret on the part of the Jets are indicated when Action gently steps towards Maria, and Baby-John gently drapes Maria’s black mourning scarf over Maria’s head and shoulders, as she mourns the deaths of Tony and Bernardo.
West Side Story, although it’s fiction is closer to certain realities, and here is where its relevance, even today, comes to mind. Throughout the 1950’s through the 1990’s, gangs proliferated on New York City’s upper West Side, and racial/ethnic tensions and gang warfare were rife. The concept for West Side Story first came up at around the time of WWII, when conflict between Jews and Catholics here in the United States was still fresh...and quite overt. Tony was to be Italian Catholic, while Maria would be Jewish. The gangs, too, would be of two different religions; Catholic and Jewish. By the time the very concept of West Side Story really got off the ground, however, the conflict between Jews and Catholics here in the United States was no longer as fresh, prevalent, or overt. There was, however, a very large influx of Puerto Ricans into New York City, and the continental United States, generally, as well as the Zoot-suit riots, and there was much conflict between Puerto Ricans and Anglos, generally.
Gangs, generally, as they did back then, have long competed for turf in real life, and racial/ethnic tensions, cultural prejudices, and urban gang warfare still prevail here in the United States. Yet, it’s also true that friendships, dating, falling in love, and even intermarriage between various racial, ethnic, religious, and cultural groups often form here in the United States, and throughout the world, especially today. Sometimes families, etc., on both sides are accepting and open about inter-dating and inter-marriage. Some who are not so accepting eventually change their minds, while still others remain closed-minded about the idea.
Both racism and sexism make their appearances in West Side Story, when Jet gang leader, Riff, orders Graziella, Velma and Anybodys to leave Doc’s Candy Store when Bernardo and the Sharks arrive, which they refuse to do, at first. This indicates the beginning of an era when girls and women begin to question their place in our society, and the world, generally. The fact that Anybodys, unlike Graziella and Velma, refuses to leave until later, pushing a couple of the Sharks aside like a big tough guy, thereby provoking nothing more than amused smiles from a couple of the Sharks, indicates an even more intense defiance, and a determination on the part of Anybodys to prove that she, too, can take care of herself, if need be, even to the point of duking it out, This is also proof of girls’ and womens’ assertion of themselves and to prove that they don’t have to be shrinking violets, if one gets the drift.
The fact that Anybodys finally does get accepted as an equal by the Jets, and Maria’s love for Tony is accepted, albeit reluctantly, by Anita, is also proof that women and girls can and do become more assertive. Yet, at the same time, while overt tensions, hostilities and disapproval of one or both sides, of a love/romance that develops between two people from the opposite sides of the track, and/or different racial/ethnic/religious, national, cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds can and sometimes does bring the couple together in question in real life, those same sort of tensions, hostilities and disapproval can and will also help destroy their relationship, as well, as these same disapprovals, tribal loyalties and tensions helped Tony and Maria’s romance go up in smoke, in the end.
While it’s true that in real life, gangs don’t go dancing through the streets, or dance their way through skirmishes and/or rumbles, it’s also true, however, that, due to the all-too-easy access to fire arms, gangs today often shoot at each other with the use of technically powerful automatic weapons, rather than resorting to switchblade knives, chains, and/or fisticuffs. Gangs today are even more ruthless, without a great deal of sympathy, empathy, or respect for their adversaries.
Yet, West Side Story has its gentle and humorous side, as well, as certain playful but ironic disputes among friends indicate. As for falling in love at first sight, that, too, can and does sometimes happen, even in real life, but in real life, it doesn’t grow into something really big all at once. In reality, even love at first sight takes time to develop into something really substantial, based on mutual trust and respect, as well as friendship. Sometimes, however, love at first sight is merely infatuation, and the “wow” power vanishes rather quickly, especially when hardships and realities emerge.
Although many people believe that West Side Story is quite racist and sexist, I firmly believe that it’s about as anti-racist and anti-sexist as a movie-musical can be, given that it speaks, loudly and openly, against racism and sexism by displaying them as loudly and openly as possible.
In many poorer areas, gangs are often like family, or sort of an extended family for people, as a means of gaining acceptance, displaying honor, defending turf, and tribal/cultural/ethnic loyalties, as well as attempts, though not always successful, to survive. Yet, at the same time, West Side Story sends a direct and distinct message about the deleterious affects of racial/ethnic hatreds, the overt gang/tribal violence that all too often prevails as a result, and how destructive it is for everybody’s quality of life. This is something that also occurs throughout the world, as well as here in the United States, even today, as the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian and the Northern Ireland debacles indicate. West Side Story, however, also points out the futility of constant feuding over turf, as well as racial/ethnic prejudice, and what it all too often leads to.
In West Side Story, the Jets tried to keep the Sharks off of their turf, while the newly-arrived sharks fought for their rights to have a piece of that same turf, as well. This kind of competition over turf, which also frequently takes place in real life, manifested itself here in Boston, even prior to the advent of the Federal Court-mandated large scale, cross-city school busing edict, which had been ordered by a Federal District Court Judge for integrating Boston’s public schools, due to an extremely recalcitrant all-white, highly political, opportunistic and patronage-ridden Boston School Committee’s refusal to do so on its own.
Some of the violence from the mid-1970’s throughout the mid to late 1980’s was cyclical; a black or other non-white person would get beat up or even killed while walking or driving through South Boston or any of Boston’s other white Ethnic neighborhoods, especially at night, or have rocks thrown through their windshields sometimes worse, while walking or driving through Boston’s black neighborhoods.
At the start of busing in Boston, a black business man was killed while walking through Southie, and a Haitian man, who was traveling through South Boston to pick up his wife after her work shift at a laundromat in the neighborhood, was dragged from his car by white Southie toughs and beaten nearly to death, as he stopped for a red light.
Blacks and other non-whites during the mid-1970’s, when Boston’s school busing controversy was at its height are physically attacked, and even injured, when they attempted to swim at the beaches down in South Boston. There were also stabbings and even shootings, and racial tensions spread throughout the city.
Blacks and other non-whites who moved into, or attempted to move into, or had even lived in some of Boston’s white ethnic neighborhoods for sometime prior to the Federal Court-mandated school busing order coming down, were attacked and, all too often, driven out of white neighborhoods, altogether. Some blacks, however, with the help of sympathetic white neighbors, hung on and stayed in the white neighborhoods where they’d rented or purchased homes.
Roving white and black gangs in other parts of the city engaged in pitched battles with each other. People were seriously injured or killed, and a young black man, who worked as a nursing home maintenance person, and his white friend, who was a denizen of Dorchester’s Savin Hill section, were chased into the Savin Hill MBTA stop and onto the Southbound railroad track bed by some local white toughs. While his white friend hid in a crevice under the platform that he knew was there, William Atkinson began running down the tracks, was hit by an oncoming subway train, and killed. The perpetrators of this crime were tried for and charged with involuntary manslaughter, and sentenced to 6-12 years in a state prison.
A black family who’d purchased a house in white Dorchester was subject to a long campaign of intimidation and vandalism of their new home by white neighbors, but prevailed, and was able to stay, due to their own determination to stick up for their rights, help from sympathetic white neighbors, and diligence by the police, although only after two whites had been seriously injured in retaliation.
A black woman who was a single mother of seven children fled her apartment on another street in white Dorchester after several nights of attacks by white youths. She could not and would not deal with it.
A black lawyer was attacked by young white toughs from South Boston and Charlestown, on his way to Boston City Hall to chair a meeting on minority hiring for various construction jobs in Boston. One of the toughs swung an American flat at Ted Landsmark, the black lawyer. Ted Landsmark leaned away from the flag just in time. The other two white toughs punched him, broke his nose, and kicked him.
Roughly a week later, in retaliation for the attack on Ted Landsmark, Richard Poleet, a white man who was driving through Roxbury, was pulled from his car by several young black toughs, and beaten into a coma, from which he died, shortly thereafter.
Although Louise Day Hicks finally lost her seat on the Boston School Committee, and the City Council in 1977, and things began to calm down a bit, things were still quite tense.
It took two Boston-born politicians, Ray Flynn, a white Irish-Catholic and a life-long resident of Southie, who was then a State Representative, and Melvin King, an African-American and life-long resident of Boston’s South End (which is not to be confused with South Boston, which is out on the peninsula), who was also a State Representative at the time, to cool people’s tempers down and to ease already-existing racial tensions that had been raised way up over the top, at least in part, as a spin-off of the Federal Court-mandated School busing edict. Competition for turf, i. e. determination for many whites (though not all) to keep blacks and other non-whites out of their schools and neighborhoods, and the determination of blacks to assert their rights to attend those particular schools or even to reside in those areas, was also quite real, during those days.
In 1979, Ray Flynn not only saved a black couple from being beat up by some white toughs who were chasing them through Boston Common, but he went to Roxbury and attended the funeral of a 14 year old African American youth named Levi Hart, who’d recently been gunned down by a white Boston police officer.
Later in 1979, Darryl Williams, a 15 year old African-American high school student from Jamaica Plain was shot and paralyzed by a white Charlestown Townie sniper, from the roof of Charlestown High School, while the scrimmage team, which was racially integrated, played on the field near Charlestown High School. Between the shooting of Darryl Williams and Mel King’s loss in the Mayoral Primary Election that year, racial tensions in Boston were once again at an all time high.
Four years later, in 1983, Ray Flynn and Mel King both ran for Mayor of Boston. Although Mel King lost the mayoral Election to Ray Flynn that year, a certain amount of progress had been made, and Mel King decided to monitor Ray Flynn’s Administration from the outside. When Ray Flynn was elected Mayor of Boston in late 1983 and took office, his Administration promptly serviced notice that racially-motivated assaults, particularly those perpetrated by whites upon blacks and other non-whites, were unacceptable. He and Mel King also helped facilitate the integration of the South Boston and Charlestown Housing projects. All of these events together earned Mayor Flynn and his family the enmity of the haters and extremists in his hometown (i. e. Southie), and cost him the South Boston vote, when he was elected to his second term as mayor of Boston. Boston, although there’s still a long way to go, had been moved in a more progressive direction.
Back to West Side Story, however, while West Side Story sends a succinct message of the deleterious consequences of racial/ethnic prejudices, gang violence, sexism, and the dangers of taking tribal/ethnic loyalties too far, it also sends a ray of hope; the message of possible intergroup reconciliation, as difficult as it can be, and often enough is. Intergroup conflict and sectarian/ethnic/racial/religious violence, and disapproval of intreating and intermarriage, also occur in real life, as does urban gang warfare and its deleterious consequences, throughout the world, as well as in our society, even today. Yet, so do intergroup friendships, dating and even intermarriage between various racial, religious, ethnic, socioeconomic, and cultural groups. It also proves that societies can really only survive when their people(s) are at relative peace with each other.
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