Analysis Of West Side Story

Musical theatre is a type of theatrical performance combining music, dance, acting and spoken dialogue. West Side Story is a classic American musical based on the classic story "Romeo and Juliet". The through-composed score and lyrics are used to portray different characters and their cultures, the rivalry between the Jets and Sharks, and the emotions felt as the story progresses. However, we should inspect how the musical film through its music, its dances, its romantic melodrama, and its exoticism of cultural differences distracts from the racism in it. How does it attract, interpellate, and position ideologically the perceiving spectator — whose social construction of reality and racial differences belong to the U.S.A. — by spatially dividing

All of the dancing, singing, acting and pretend fighting was done thoroughly and very well, although the miking and mixing during the pretend fighting did not seem realistic. There are a few songs that serve as pure entertainment, but almost all songs have some significance. Specific actors, dancers, and singers were trained and taught how to perform in order to get the message across to the audience that this West Side Story is not just a movie, but a theatrical, musical, work of art. Specific messages are representd in different art forms such as the way the Puerto Rican women dressed compared to the American women. The Puerto Ricans had fluffier, more brightly colored dresses than did the Americans and the Puerto Rican women made their own clothes. Acutely, their authentic style of clothing still has those same characteristics until these days. The exception was Maria, who was also not allowed to wear a brightly colored dress with a low cut neck because she was too young, and although she claimed to be an American girl now which would make her eligible for being more free and independent, she still had to wear a conservatively cut white dress. A characterization was pointed out about American women being able do more and be less conservative than Puerto Rican

Americans alienate Puerto Rican immigrants adapting to a new way of life, most obvious in the continual feuding between the local gang, the Jets, and the Puerto Rican Sharks. The song "America," in part, is about how American culture treats Puerto Ricans like second-class citizens, and the tensions between the two gangs sometimes conclude to "your skin is a different color than mine.” Throughout the musical the Puerto Ricans are treated by far worse than the white gang. When the two gangs get into a fight at the very beginning of the musical, the Puerto Ricans encounter a great amount of abuse from the law enforcement officers. No one wants them there and they act as if the Puerto Ricans have less of privilege to be there. If there had been no racism and no issues with these new immigrants, then the groups would have not been treated differently one from the other. The Jet gang member Action says “You shoulda done worse. Them PRs’re the reason my old man’s gone bust”. When the scenes cut to the Puerto Rican hangouts, they also talk a lot about how they are seen as vermin and