On the surface, the musical West Side Story is a tragic love story that parallels that in William Shakespeare’s play, Romeo and Juliet. All the elements are there – feuding, illicit love, a tragic end in death. The discerning viewer, though, will realize that the movie is about so much more than a conflict over who can control the basketball court and the tragic romantic consequences that result from this conflict. It is about the struggle between “whiteness” and “otherness” – between what Americans typically view as desirable, normal, and… well, American, and what they view as undesirable, foreign, and un-American.
The working class Jets are clearly unhappy with the presence of the Puerto Ricans – or the “PR’s,” as they choose to call them – on their turf, and it is not simply because they are a rival gang. It is because they are clearly not American – or the “American” that the Jets find acceptable. In the eyes of Riff and his followers, these “others” with darker skin tones and noticeable accents do not belong on the West Side of New York City or even in the United States of America. They do not belong because they are different – separate from the homogenized “white” nucleus. This difference between “white” and “other” is magnified by the writer’s decision to depict a conflict between two rival gangs – two groups of people who share a common identity with those who are also within those groups (but not with those outside of the groups) – and specifically between innocuous “Jets” and dangerous “Sharks”.
This difference is further magnified in scenes such as the one in the dance hall. At the beginning of the scene, the Jets are already in the dance hall enjoying themselves when Bernardo and the other Sharks walk in. The camera shoots across from a wide shot of the glaring Jets to the equally surly looking Sharks and back again. Immediately, the viewer notices that a clear distinction is made between the “white” and the “other” – the Jets are mostly dressed in bright yellows and oranges – happy and friendly colors – while the Sharks are mainly dressed in passionate reds (again, suggesting how “dangerous” and “aggressive” these foreigners are). The distinction is furthered by the two groups’ refusal to mingle, and during the “dance-off,” the clearly “American” and “Latino” styles of dancing that each respective group performs – a refusal to accept and a reluctance to be accepted.
The scene on the roof, which follows immediately after the dance hall scene, is only further proof that – although one can dream about an equal “America” – there really does not seem to be any hope for these marginalized people, who will always be viewed as different.
Though Brother from Another Planet is set in a later decade and one would assume that there is more equality between black people and white people, it is clear that there is still a separation between the two – a separation between who and what is above 110th Street (“black” and “other”) and who and what is below it (“white”). This is clear in the subway, when the boy tells Brother he “can make all the white people disappear.” As the P.A. announces the final stop before Harlem, the camera pans to the opening doors of the subway car, and the audience is left to watch the backs of white people as they pour out into the station. Another scene – the one depicting the two men who are on their way to a convention but get a little lost – shows that this “discrimination” is two-sided. The camera starts with a close shot of the two identically dressed white men and slowly zooms out to show their surroundings. As the two men discuss being lost, several black men and women are seen staring at them as they pass, as if they are foreign objects – clearly they do not belong.
The fact that this white couple is identically dressed is interesting to note, given that the only other white couple – the two bounty hunters searching for Brother – is also dressed in matching attire. Just as making such a distinction in clothing in West Side Story served to create and emphasize a separation between one group of people and another, the choice to have the two white couples dressed similarly serves to homogenize this group and exclude the “other” – the black. (I also believe Brother’s apparent muteness to be symbolic of vocal exclusion by the “white” group.)
And even though even more time has passed between now and the decades in which West Side Story and Brother from Another Planet are set, immigrant and minority populations continue to be marginalized in our society. As William V. Flores writes in “Citizens vs. Citizenry,” even American-born men and women of Mexican ancestry find themselves struggling daily to “belong.” My fear is that those Americans who continue to balk at the idea of sharing their America with others may make “belonging” an impossibility for these individuals.
