West Side Story (1961) with Becca Ramos

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On the Beckdale cast, the questions ask, if movies have women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism? Is the patriarchy's effin' vast? Start changing it with the Beckdale cast. This is how all podcasts should start now. That's a good way to sink audio, is to do the West Side Story snaps. Yeah, I feel like that was a solid intro. We just did what the movie did. Right. I feel good about that. I feel great about it. Welcome to the Beckdale cast. My name is Caitlin Durante. My name is J.B. Loftus. This is our podcast where we talk about your favorite movies, using an intersectional feminist lens, and the Beckdale test as a jumping off point for discussion. But Caitlin, what is the Beckdale test? Please tell me for the 500, probably literally the 500th time. Probably, yes. Yes, the Beckdale test is a media metric created by a dear friend of ours, Alison Beckdale. We go way back with her. Till last year. Till last year. It appeared in her comic, Dikes to Watch Out for, in the 80s. Originally, also known as the Beckdale Wallace test. It has many versions of it. The one that we use is this. Do two characters of a marginalized gender have names? Do they speak to each other? And is their conversation about something other than a man? Also, we like it when it's like, narratively meaningful dialogue, and not just like throw away nonsense. It can't be about Tony as the point. We cannot be talking. Or Bernardo. About Tony or Bernardo. And we're going to encounter some challenges this week. We're going to encounter some challenges this week. But we have, I mean, I was talking with someone about the podcast yesterday, as I've been known to do. Oh, sure. Friend of the show, Michael Hobbs, and he was saying, he was like, oh, it must be hard after almost 10 years to keep finding new movies. And I was like, you would be surprised how many movies have been made. And just like, I don't know. There's no telling why. There's just some movies we haven't gotten to. Or there was a re-release or a remake, and it just didn't happen. I don't know. All that to say, today is a movie that is probably one of the most famous movies that exists. And here we are, covering it 10 years later. All that to say, podcast life is long, baby. Oh my gosh. We're talking about West Side Story 1961, the original film adaptation. Here to talk about this movie with us is a cherished guest. She's the producer of some of your favorite podcasts, such as Las Culturistas, The Daily Zeitgeist, and Mess. And she's the host of the new podcast, Welcome to El Barrio. And you remember her from our episode on Magic Mike XXL. Never forget, it's Becca Ramos. Hello, my god. Welcome back. Welcome back. A coveted stop on my press tour, The Bechtel Cast. I'm so excited to be back and to be here. Welcome back. It's so great to have you here. Before we get into the rich text that is West Side Story, I want to know more about the podcast. Tell us about Welcome to El Barrio. Yes. So Welcome to El Barrio is a podcast about all things Puerto Rico, where I interview notable Puerto Ricas, whether they are artists, taste makers, community leaders, musicians, et cetera, about what they are doing to redefine what it means to be Puerto Rican, not Puerto Rico. And with the host by the end of every episode, that all the listeners feel a little bit closer to the Borinquen, no matter where they are in the world. So I'm so excited to be doing it. It's been five years in the making from inception of idea to live. So it's crazy. It's like I've been working on this for so long and it's like, oh my God, it's out. Here it is. Here it is. Congratulations. That's so exciting. Thank you. We got our first few episodes already recorded. I just finished doing the first episode, which is a narrative style episode, kind of giving everybody a taste of what the show will be and why am I doing it and why now. I think a lot of people right now are assuming maybe this podcast is coming out because of Bad Bunny's rise, but that's not true. We are more than Bad Bunny as much as we love him. And so it's a little bit of an introduction to me and then the rest is going to be talk show chat show. And we have already three episodes recorded. I went to Puerto Rico to record them, which was like really fun and very exciting. But yeah. Oh, congratulations. Thank you. And also so silly that anyone would be like, oh, because Bad Bunny and you're like, what? Well, you're like, yeah, he's one guy, but the island has existed for centuries. Great guy, but just one guy. But just one guy. People love to say, is it because of one guy? There is never yes. They're like, he's the most famous guy though. And I'm like, no, no, no. I mean, yes, but no. Well, congratulations. We can't wait to listen. Thank you. And we wanted to talk about a movie today that is in conversation with the topic of your podcast, hence West Side Story. So Becca, tell us about your relationship with this film. Well, you know, it's funny. You guys, hopefully you can hear me over my two loud hot dogs. But what I find interesting is that I thought you guys had covered this when I pitched a bunch of Puerto Rican movies. I was like, yeah, but they've already done West Side Story. Like obviously. Shockingly no. Honestly, I feel like it's a movie we've almost covered several times and it just has never made someone's final pick. I don't know why. Yeah. But to say my history, this is a movie that I feel like if you are Puerto Rican, if you grew up with very Puerto Rican parents, they're like, yeah, in West Side Story, it's a historical text of our culture. And I'm like, OK, yeah. And I remember my dad because he's a big movie buff. It's probably where I got my love for movies. He also loves old Hollywood shit. And so he made me sit down and watch this among like Bush Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and like things like that nature. And I remember watching it and being a little bored the first time I watched it as a kid. But then since then, I went and saw it with my family, the 2021, you know, redo. And I remember having lots of complicated feelings about that version. But upon this rewatch, I have grown a lot of love for both versions of the movie and its place in Puerto Rican history at large. And I actually, you know, what's funny, I asked my parents what their history with the movie was because all I knew was like, this is a strong movie in my household, but I couldn't remember for the life of me why it mattered to my parents. And my mom actually sent a voice note. And I honestly forgot to listen to it before this. But my dad sent an email, which was very long, strong multimedia family. You know, my dad is a man of literature. He loves to write. And let me see if I can like do a little summary of it for you. Because I thought it was like very sweet because he's a man of few words in person. But in email, he loves to write a lot. He's a yapper. He's a yapper. There's many dads that I feel like really come alive in an email. They're just like, I can never express to you how much I love you in person, but I will write you a lovely letter. Just kind of nice. I'm like, which is which is beautiful. But as I'm like skimming it, it is long. But essentially, my dad is somebody who he never really identified with his Puerto Ricanness. He's not, which is why I actually was shocked. He loved the movie so much because he's not a proud Puerto Rican like my mom is. But I guess like when he was young, this is like one of the few movies his cousin took him to who had moved in with him for the summer. And it was like one of the first pieces of media that he saw Puerto Ricans portrayed in. And it was such a successful movie that he really felt in love with it. And was like one of the first and only times he felt proud to be Puerto Rican was watching this movie. So he also grew up in LA, so big movie town, obviously. And I think being in LA when you don't have a Puerto Rican community, there's not a large community. He didn't identify with the Chicano community too much either. So I think this was just like one of his first moments where he was like, Oh my God, there's me representation matters. That's so lovely. It's so interesting listening to especially people who were like alive when it came out or even like pre the 2021 movie coming out because there is like such a specific or like it's a very individual relationship that people formed to this movie. And it seems like specifically Puerto Rican Americans where there's like, I mean, there's like a Lin-Manuel Miranda connection all over this musical. He like translated lyrics in 2009 to have Spanish lyrics on stage, all this stuff. But you can hear some of the music is also like, I know, I don't think he's credited as like the composer, but you can hear like, I'm like, oh, I hear in the heights in some of these songs in the 2021 version. And like the visual influences like very clear 2021 was a very interesting year for movie musicals that starred Puerto Rican characters. It was like, because we still haven't covered in the heights. I think because we were sort of trying to give some time because it was such a fraught conversation going on around colorism rightfully so at the time that we're still waiting to cover it. But I mean, and the same year that Steven Spielberg directs West Side Story, which was the conversation all its own and, you know, beautiful movie. But why, you know, all this stuff. And wasn't it, it was John Cho who directed in the Heights, I believe, right? I have so many thoughts. That's why I put on my list. I was like, that one, I have a lot of thoughts on. John Chu. John Chu, Slade Wicked, Obvi, Slade Crazy Rich Asians, but I just sling. Slade Step Up 2, 3. Yeah. And Justin Bieber's documentary question. A generational artist. But. But this was not, I think, I think he was set up for failure in a way. And I was actually shocked. And this is obviously a discussion to come back on for In the Heights later. But I was shocked when he didn't direct it himself because later, I think that year, he directed Tic Tic Boom as his directorial debut. So I was like, you were already putting your hat in the director ring. Why didn't you just direct it? I was also confused. I wonder, I don't know. I was also sort of confused at that. But he gave an interview around, I think it was for a documentary released about Rita Moreno around the time that the re-release came out in 2021. Talking about the first time, he saw West Side Story. And it sounds very similar to your dad's anecdote where he was saying like he saw it for the first time on VHS when he was 12 and was like shocked that the theme of being Puerto Rican was explored at all. And yet it was like, you know, like flawed but exciting. And yes, yeah, it's interesting here. And then you hear the total opposite of Puerto Rican viewers who were like, I hated it for moment one because brown face. And you're like, yes. It's like such a caricature of the Puerto Rican identity for sure. And I think I always felt complicated about that because I watched it and I was like, huh? But now that I am like doing the show and I've done a lot of research for this episode and I now watch both of them back to back, I was like, okay, I see both sides of this conversation. I see why the generation before us loved and hated it because there are people of my dad's generation that were like, this is awful. And when the Broadway musical came out like on Broadway, it was obviously very poorly received by Puerto Ricans. But I do think because it was, it was truly white people in brown face. Like it was Vaudeville. You know, there were no Puerto Rican actors doing any of the roles when it was on Broadway. But then in the movie production, they had at least like a couple Latinos. They had Rita Moreno. But like, you know, it was just like a slight step up from what was on Broadway. Yeah. I was, I mean, researching what the original Broadway production is like is pretty horrific. Yeah. And as well as, I mean, we'll talk about this later in the episode, but specifically how the song America was like revised and revised and it's kind of still being revised. Yes. Is frustrating and fascinating to learn about. Yeah. Have you ever seen it on stage? I've never, I think I've maybe seen a high school production of it. I'm from Texas, so they did not care to do this in any of our high school productions. I mean, I wasn't a theater kid, but I did. I had a lot of theater friends, so I would go see all of their shows. But I remember our town being a big one. I don't remember the other few that they did, but it was never West Side. And even at Baylor where I, it is a big theater arts program at Baylor. We never did it at Baylor either. Wonder why I shocker. So I had never seen it and they only revived it recently when the 2021 came out. But I didn't get a chance to see it here in New York. So no, I haven't seen it, but I would love to. Caitlin, what is your history with West Side Story? Oh my gosh, I saw it for the first time during, either during the great Caitlin movie binge of 2005, or I also did a smaller movie binge in like 2003 when I was still in high school. And I was like deciding that I wanted to be a film major. And I have to watch some movies to prepare for that. I think it might have been then, whatever. Either way, it's like been 20 or more years since I've seen it. And I didn't quite realize this until I rewatched to prep for this episode. But almost every song in this movie is so entrenched in the zeitgeist. They were all very, very familiar to me. And I was like, oh, I didn't even realize that that song was from this. I feel pretty musical. Yeah. I didn't remember that at all. That was the one that I was like, wait a minute, that's from West Side Story. Yeah. Yeah. It's weird. It's like seeing the Nutcracker. And you're like, wait, I know all of these. Yeah. I didn't realize. Yeah. Right. So that was kind of a pleasant surprise. But listeners of the podcast might know this, but I'm not the biggest musical head. So I tend not to seek them out, or if I do watch them, it's kind of that one time. Although I did see the 2021 Spielberg adaptation when it came out. And I was like, why is the lighting in this movie so weird? Why am I watching all these people dance all the time? Why am I looking at Angel Elzgurt? Ansel Elgurt. Ansel Elgurt. Ansel Elgurt. Sex criminal Ansel Elgurt. I do appreciate that at very least he has sort of been removed from the culture, it seems like. To the point where I no longer know his name. So, you know, good job, everyone. Good job. Yes, yes. He wasn't good enough for people to want to keep him around. So they're like, okay, you're getting canceled. We can just let you go. Yeah. Also totally forgot that the guy from Challengers, Mike Feist. Oh yeah, Mike Feist. Yeah. Feist is the is. Is it Feist or Feist? I'm not sure. I have no idea. I don't know. Either way, he stole the show. He is. He is so hot. Great casting. And I have some notes about the 2021 version. But most of this episode will be focused on the 1961 adaptation. Yes, because there's so much. So much. I feel like we should almost do an entirely separate episode about 2021. But we should talk about some of the adaptation changes and stuff. For sure. But yeah, that's pretty much my history. It has catchy songs and those are the main things that I remembered about it. But as we've been saying, it's a rich text and there's a lot to discuss. So I'm excited to get into it. Jamie, what is your relationship with West Side Story? Nothing in a lot. I feel like I definitely I remember seeing this movie for the first time in middle school with a very impactful music teacher I had. Mrs. Vellani shot out to her. She showed it to us during class. And I think similar to you, Becca, I was like, this is long. This is very long. It's three hours and there's an intermission built into the movie. Yeah. And for that reason, I'm sure it took us like four school days to watch. And I was sort of like, sure, right now. I definitely saw a community production of it as a kid that I don't recall. And then I didn't see it for a long time. I actually I will out myself as I have done a lot of research about the Spielberg adaptation. I still haven't seen it. That's OK. But I am a member of Rachel Zegler Nation. Proud member of Rachel Zegler Nation. Yes. But yeah, I haven't seen the new one, but I did get a chance last year to see. I'm a big Rita Moreno fan. I got to interview her five years ago. And it was like one of the highlights of life. She's so amazing. And last year, my friend works at the Academy Museum in LA and got us tickets to see West Side Story with Rita Moreno introducing it. And it was so wonderful. It was a great I mean, I definitely liked it a lot better seeing it in a huge theater because it was both Rita Moreno and Tony. Oh my God, Tony, who's also in Twin Peaks. Richard Baymer was was there. And at the time, yeah, and he's still alive. But he and Rita Moreno had this very sweet dynamic. I guess they've been friends for like our parents' entire lifetimes. Rita Moreno is so funny. And I mean, we'll talk about this as we get into the discussion. But I really appreciate how she I don't know. I feel like she's really able to like hold a lot of truths at once when it comes to this movie. She is not shy about talking about the obvious glaring issues with this movie of the aggressive use of brown face. She had a lot of comments on stage this time, I believe, in like over the years about how the scene with Anita Layton, the movie where she's assaulted by the Jets, how that personally affected her. But my the most impactful part of the discussion to me was when apropos of nothing in the middle of this talk back where she was talking about West Side Story in a way that I'd heard her talk before. She randomly brought up that she had fucked Marlon Brando and his dick was huge. Oh, I have a lot. I have a lot to add to the discussion on the Marlon Brando overall because I just read her memoir. And there is it's like it's like girl at 90 years old, my love. I love it. Let it go. She's still hung up. We'll get into that. But like I'm like I I have so much knowledge right now about it. It's crazy. Please. I want I haven't read her memoir yet, but it was so funny because everyone was like, wait, what question prompted this anecdote? She if she can, she will. She's like and the love of my life, even though I was married to a man for 50 something years and have my child with them. I love Marlon Brando and you're like you're like Rita Moreno. He did not love you that way. Like, oh, but that's that. But isn't that the one you end up hung up on? Yes. Too bad for her. I know I was that I looked up her like her mayor. I was like, oh, and she was married for so long. He did not come up. No, she's truly like that's my daughter's father and that's it. I might have been married to him, but that's my that's my daughter's father, not my husband. Yeah. My husband was a beard for Marlon Brando. Basically, it's like in Titanic when old Rose is like my husband, who I only care about Jack Dawson. No, it literally is like that, except it's more romantic in Titanic because Jack Dawson obviously loved her and Marlon Brando abused Rita Moreno. That's that. Yeah, like a bad man. And I do recommend it's a rare experience, but I do recommend the version of watching West. You'll like it so much better if Rita Moreno talks about Marlon Brando's penis immediately before it starts. That was the most recent time I had seen it. And yeah, I mean, I am able to appreciate a lot of this movie. I love a musical. It's beautiful. It's like. Colorful. Rita Moreno steals the show. Steals the show. I do. You know, I will always feel that Natalie Wood and Richard Baymer bless their hearts are stinking up the place. We'll obviously be talking in depth about the use of brown face throughout the history of this production. And I have some notes on there on Natalie Wood's racism that's from Rita Moreno's book. Really? OK. Yeah. So in spite of the fact that the two leads, I will say are very poorly cast for multiple reasons. The supporting cast is wonderful. And I appreciate it with many asterisks. And I'm excited to talk about it. Yes, yes, indeed. Well, let's take a quick break and then we'll come back for the recap. EasyJet's big orange sale is now on. Wander the streets with more wonder. With up to £200 off city breaks and up to 20% off flights. Book now at easyjet.com. Get out there. Selected dates and flights sale on 5th of May. Holidays minimum spend and asset protected. Teas and seas apply. We're back. I wonder how that's going to actually sound on the recording. I know because it's like cake with silence. It's going up on the zoom. So it's like, yeah, we can hear it in your mic probably, but not in our mics. Yeah. We're like, yes, exactly. We're like, yes. I did it perfectly just so you know. OK. Here's the story. We open on a street gang of young men slash are they teenagers? They're like CW. I think that I like the CW casting here where everyone's like kind of 40. Everyone's definitely at least 30 because Rita Moreno's 30. At this time. But they're playing like 16, 18, maybe early 20s. It's all like very young people, right? Yeah. Anyway, this street gang of men are snapping their fingers and dancing their way through New York City ever heard of it. These are the jets. I love the snaps. The snaps are iconic. Yes. They are white men. An unsettling number of them are blonde. Which is purposeful, mind you. That was a casting choice. Yeah. Their leader is Riff. Played by Amber Tamblin's dad. Oh my gosh. Wow. I didn't know that she was a NEPO baby. Yeah. I guess if you don't know about 1950s Broadway star Russ Tamblin, it's a non-starter. And then a few others we meet our characters named Ice. Horrible name with the current affiliation. There's a character named Action. There's a character with a name that I don't even want to say because it's a slur for Arab people. Not sure what's happening there. Anyway, those are the jets. They encounter various members of the Sharks, a group of Puerto Rican men. And as we've alluded to several times already, it is a lot of white actors in brown face. Can I know which ones are actually Puerto Rican and not? Yes. Okay. So Chino, who is Jose de Vega, he is not Puerto Rican, but he is Colombian and Filipino. He's one of the few actual men of color in the Sharks. Jaime Rodgers, loco, is Puerto Rican and he's from Juncos, which is where Rita Moreno is from. And the main shark though, Bernardo, he is actually Greek and he played Riff in the West Side Story Broadway production. So they literally just like race traded him and brown faced him and they're like, you could be Bernardo. And he won an Oscar. And he won an Oscar for it. Which is the amount of times the Oscars have awarded performances of this nature. I mean, just openly offensive performances. Still happens. Still happens. I'm looking at you, Eddie Redmayne, Danish girl. Still happens to this day. Yeah. So the thing about the Jets and the Sharks is that they are rivals. You might even call it a heated rivalry, but it's different. I do feel like, I mean, this is like what there's in the 20,000 things that are to talk about in this movie, the like top gun nature to the fraternal, like the fraternal nature of the gangs, like there, there is some eroticism. 100% Written by, it will not shock you or anyone if you don't know that this was a musical written by white gay guys. Yeah. Yes. Correct. Yeah. At the time closeted and therefore they were, from what I read, exercising some of their own issues through the text. Yes. Yes. Yeah. So the point is, the Jets and the Sharks are rivals, kind of like the Capulets and the Montague's. What? Is this a Romeo and Juliet adaptation? Except in this case, one group is very racist toward the other group and you can guess which. So they're like on the same playground or something, they're in the streets together and they are dance fighting for a while until a couple of cops show up. This is Lieutenant Shrank and I'm like, Lieutenant Shrank. There's not the only Shreck connection, Shrenexion of this because I feel like we have to have brought this up at some point. Rachel Zegler, iconically when she got the part of Maria in the 2021 version, they wanted her to start filming and she's like, well, I have to finish starring as Princess Fiona in my high school's production of Shrek musical. Oh my gosh. And then I'll join your little movie, Steven Spielberg. She's so awesome. I did not know that. That's amazing. Wow. Shout out Rachel Zegler, a very outspoken pro-Palestine advocate. Yes. Which I'm a fan of Rachel Zegler as a person. I will say did not like her as Maria and that's a conversation for later. But I'm like, I'm a fan of her, but I just don't think she was quite right for the part. I think people are very wrapped up in her vocals, which are no question some of the best vocals out there, right? And they were incredible in the movie, but I don't think she was a good Maria. And we can have that discussion later. I'm so curious for your thoughts. Yeah, I still haven't seen her as Maria, but she does have perfect politics and is a podcast listener. She's like, yeah, fan of you, Rachel Zegler. She should come on our show. Yeah. But I'm, oh, I'm excited to talk about the 2021 version. Interesting. Okay. So it's Lieutenant Shrek. Yeah, it's Shrek and Shrek is a bad man. He's a really bad man. And we'll talk about the character's relationship to the police in this movie because I think it's quite interesting. I think it's more, it's way more nuanced that I recalled. Yeah. Yes. For sure. So it's, so it's Lieutenant Shrek and Officer Krupke. They show up to try to like kind of break up the dance fight. But the various members of the two gangs refuse to rat on each other. And one of them even suggests that it was the cops who injured one of the jets. So the jets and the sharks say ACAB. They said ACAB street rules. Yeah. And the cops are like, stop, you guys stop it. And then they eventually leave. Also in this version of New York, if only it were real, there's two cops. There's only two cops that are following this specific gang around. They're like, I'm with you. We're racist too. The other one, Officer Krupke reminded me of Cronk from Emperors New Groove. Oh, Groove. For sure. He's just like not a thought in this man's head, many such cops. He's just bully. He's just like, yeah. Hey guys, knock it off. Knock it off. Yes. So the cops eventually leave and the jets wonder what to do about the sharks quote unquote encroaching on their turf. Riff, the leader of the jets, announces that they should have one huge fight, a big rumble, a fight to end all fights with the sharks. But first they need to negotiate with the sharks about the terms of this rumble. So Riff goes to Tony, who used to be a jet and Tony is still friends with them, but he's like not really involved in their gang activities anymore. They do not give enough backstory as to like why and like what happened, which 2021 Vernon tries to revise, but yeah. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like yeah, in 61, it's just like he's like, I'm kind of over it. Yeah. Okay. You're like, that's not how gangs work. I'm really into my part-time job now guys. Sorry. So, uh, so he's out of the group, but Riff wants to rope him back in and he's basically loves Tony. He's like, he's basically like, hey babe, want to go to the dance with me tonight? I promise to confront the sharks and start a war. I do really like the Tony's first song. There's like this, I, something that I think this, this movie does really well is like very like romanticizes and captures naive optimism and love. And I like that first Tony's song and I like the dance scene for that reason. Yeah. So Tony reluctantly agrees to join this negotiation, but again with Tony, he's more of a lover than a fighter and he's talking about how he's been yearning for something. And maybe that something is the love of a woman and maybe that woman is Maria who we cut to. She is played by Natalie Wood. Oops, another white person in brown face who, uh, as is very common at this time is not singing her own role. So there's the only justification for her playing this role is that she was famous at the time. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So Maria is getting ready for the dance. She is Bernardo's sister who has recently arrived in New York from Puerto Rico. She's hanging out with her friend Anita played by Rita Moreno, who is dating Bernardo. Maria is supposed to marry or she's like kind of been linked up with this guy named Chino, one of the sharks, but she's not thrilled about it. Which some insight on why they probably named him Chino specifically based on who they casted I don't, I mean, I don't know if they had this thought with the actual Broadway production, but in a lot of like Latino communities, they will give you a nickname based on like a characteristic of you. And I'm assuming they casted a Filipino and Latino actor because Chino usually means that person is Asian. Okay. So they were probably like he's Chinese and Puerto Rican. So we call him Chino. Interesting. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. There were certain nicknames throughout the Jets and Sharks that I was like, I don't know if there is a ground for this or if it is just like vaguely racist freeform jazz. It's a little bit of both because it's like Chino could be like some racist shit the white people wrote because that's why I'm like, I don't know how much historical context I have, but it's also not out of character for Latino communities. Like I was called Flaca my whole life because I was like the skinny cousin, you know. So yeah, it's partially that. Oh, sure. Cool. So then we cut to the dance. The Jets and the Sharks are both there because her for be damned when there's a school dance to be had. You got to dance. And this means another dance fight. Although, okay. So in this movie, there are fight dances and then there are dance fights. Yes. And they're two different things. Yes. This, you know it when you see it. Precisely. This is an example of a dance fight. It's so good. I love it. This is one of my favorite scenes. It's so fun. It's so like old Hollywood, but like the best parts of old Hollywood where people really like were like focused on their craft and they were dancers and they were singers and their actors and it's like the colors and the editing. It's the old food. You see Rita Moreno really shine like as a dancer here. It's like, oh, it's so good. It's so cool. Like and the Jerome Robbins choreography. Yes. So beautiful for for those that are locked into Jerome Robbins culture. He directed and was an iconic choreographer. I feel like he's like kind of on par with Bob Fosse for like the most influential choreographers of like the 20th century. He did on the town Peter Pan, the King and I, the pajama game, West Side Story, Fiddler on the Roof. He won two Oscars. He's just like incredible. The dance fights and the fight dances are just undeniable. Very well choreographed. Yeah. Yeah. So at the dance, Maria and Tony meet. And they go, hubba, hubba, a wuga, and they fall immediately in love. I love the editing. They're so in love. You're like, and they're about to kiss, but Bernardo butts in and separates them being like, stay away from my sister. Thus the forbidden Romeo and Juliet love story. Then Riff and Bernardo make arrangements to have their rumble negotiation meeting that night at midnight. So everyone leaves the dance. Tony heads home. He's singing about how much he loves Maria. He just met a girl named Maria. Well, yes, yes. Say loud and there's music playing. Say it softly and it's almost like prey. I really. So good. This musical really captures falling in love. It's so sweet. This reminded me a lot of because Steven Sondheim wrote the lyrics for these songs. Yes. And it's very similar to another song he writes later in Sweeney Todd Joanna, which is basically the same song, but different. He's like, I feel you Joanna. Like it's just like I just met a woman and now I'm screaming her name in the streets. It's a vibe. I like it. It's like, oh yeah, I guess that Sondheim was like, well, so you meet a lady and it feels a little something like this. Well, it's funny that you say that this movie like captures falling in love and it's nice because the cynic in me, I was like, these characters have known each other for two days and they're already so obsessed with each other that they're willing to die for each other. That's Shakespeare. But they're kids. It's exciting. I was like, that's the exact that is what Shakespeare did. It was like, what, three days at all of the bromageolian happens in. Yeah. I mean, at least Natalie Wood is in a 12 year old, you know, they're true. Yeah. But I agree. Watching this version, you are kind of like, I feel like I will give the 2021 credit. I feel like they gave a little bit more for them to like fall in love, at least a little bit more talking. I don't know. And then other characters being like, you've known him for a day. Yeah. Obviously, I don't like when movies do that. I feel like that started in like when Frozen did that where it's like you have to like. Call out this like romantic narrative. I don't know. I'm I'm hopeless romantic mode, but whenever something like that is happening in a movie and someone's like record scratch, wait a second, you just met. I'm like, shut up. It's a movie. I'm the one I'm the one making the record scratch because I'm just like, that's ridiculous. And I'm saying, shut the hell up. I'm going to go have sex. Like I think it's exciting. It's a lust. I feel like in this 1961 version, it works for me because it is so shot like an actual play. Whereas I do feel like in the 19 or 19, the 2021 version, they try to make it a movie. And I do think that's a way more grounded in the two. Whereas like I can I'm like, I'm in the world in the 1961 one because you're like, this is a play. Like it actually looks like I'm watching something on Broadway. But the 2021 they're trying to like, world build it more and it feels like a movie. Feel more like sets. Yeah. So then I'm kind of taken out of it a little more in the 2021 version. Which is wild too, because in the I didn't know there's a, I feel like we cite her on the show pretty frequently. There's a be kind rewind video essay that sort of compares the two versions and like how the productions were very different and all that. And this movie was considered to be very, it feels like ridiculous to say if it was considered to be very gritty in comparison to other musicals of the time. Yeah. Because it was actually shot outside and like not completely on a sound stage, but it looks so Broadway. I don't know. It looks like a Broadway set. It's shocking that it is not. But also most of it is on a Broadway set from what I. So I was like, what they shot two scenes outside and you're calling it gritty. It's just like the beginning basically. And they're like, never been done before. It's filthy. Okay. Sure. Yeah. Okay. So Tony is in love with Maria and Maria is in love with Tony. Meanwhile, the sharks talk about the racial prejudice they face, how they are treated horribly by white people. This is the scene where they sing, I like to be in America, okay, by me in America. Well, we'll sidebar on that song, which is the whole episode in and of it. Unpack there. Yeah. Tony goes to Maria's apartment, but like the outside balcony part and they sing at each other. Again, they're obsessed with each other. They make plans to meet up again the following night. Meanwhile, the jets are waiting for the sharks to show up for this negotiation. They're hanging out at this little store owned by a guy named Doc. There are also a few women there, like the women who pile around with the jets. The groupies kind of. We've got Graziella Velma and a character named Anybody's who we will talk about. And we see the various men be sexist toward these young women. Then that cop, Officer Krupke, shows up again and hassles the jets. So they sing a song about him and about how society perceives them as delinquents. Then the sharks finally show up and they agree to do a fight tomorrow after dark under the highway, where the best fighter from the jets and the sharks will go against each other. It's Bernardo versus Ice, but Bernardo was hoping to fight Tony since he's been conudaling with his sister Maria and objectively would be pretty easy to be in the fight. Oh, yeah. He's out of the fight. He's rough. He's got a very punchable face. He does. He does. You're like, yeah, of course you want to beat this guy. Yeah. Then Lieutenant Shrank or whatever shows up wanting to know the details of the fight, but once again, they all refuse to talk. They do not cooperate with the cops. Then we have the intermission cut to the next day. Maria is with her friends. She sings, I feel pretty, oh so pretty. And then she finds out from Anita that there's a big rumble that night between the sharks and the jets. So when Tony shows up a little bit later, Maria asks him to go and stop it. So he heads out, but not before they sing what I'm sorry, I think is a very boring song. Yes. Okay. I actually really like this song. I think it's like really cute and fun and funny that they're like, oh my God, like look at our little wedding. I love how that scene looks. It's cute. I think it adds levity to the story that is not what Steven Spover wanted to do in the re... Like he cuts the song completely. And I was kind of sad that he cut the song because it did just make the movie very dark in the new remake versus this one kind of has that old Hollywood comedy to it. Because all the Broadway Hollywood movies were kind of like this sea-sawing dark, but like a medic tone. And I liked that. But yeah, they get rid of it in the new one. And I was like, I like it. I like, I mean, I like this. I don't like the song, but I do like the sequence, especially because the actors do not look as young as they're supposed to be. And it is kind of nice to, I don't know, like falling like the same with like the romantic thing is like they're so desperate to be with each other that they like stage a cutie pilot wedding with, I don't know, I think it's, I think it's a sweet. Yeah. Like I think this moment in the movie worked for me in general because it kind of a showed their age of like they're young, they're in love. Like we're showing that they're like just naive young people. And it kind of like shows what it means to be like newly in love at like gitty puppy love feeling. And I hate that they got rid of that in the new one because I do think the tone being so serious in the new one where it's like, they're like doing this like instead this very declarative like love scene in the new one that I was like, we haven't worked up to that. Like it takes me out of it like Kailin was saying where I'm like, we're a day in, you guys have already agreed to flee somewhere together. And now you guys are like having this serious talk where she's like, like you need to stop this fight. And then he's like, I want to marry you. And you're like, huh? Like y'all don't know each other. Oh, okay. In this version, it's like, oh, this is silly. It's supposed to be like, it's not serious. They are getting to know each other having fun. I also thought like it was, I wonder what you both think about this. Like on this watch in particular, it felt like part of what makes that scene like sweet and clearly ominous is, and this is obviously severely undercut by the fact that Natalie Wood is white. But they're like acting out this play situation of their families accepting each other because they know that that would never happen in real life. Yes. And like, I don't know. I think it's like, it's a weirdly kind of lighthearted way of addressing that in the movie. I agree. Yeah. And I liked that the part where they're role playing and like the mannequins are there and the various like dresses and tuxedos and all the stuff that happens before the song, charming. Nice. The song itself. I hear the song is kind of mid. I guess you're right. I don't like the song itself. I just like the scene. Yeah. Yeah. Like scene is cute. Yeah. Scene good, song bad. Yeah. Okay. So that happens. Then the two groups make their way to the rumble spot and they're about to start fighting. Tony shows up to try to stop it, but he kind of gets roped into the fight. Again, Bernardo has it out for Tony. So they're scuffling things escalate. Knives are drawn. There is a fight dance not to be confused with a dance fight. With a dance fight. Where Bernardo stabs Riff and then Tony retaliates and stabs Bernardo. Chino goes to Maria to tell her that her new boyfriend just killed her brother. So she is devastated. Okay. But we have to note here that Chino tells Maria because Maria is too focused on like Tony. After he goes, your boyfriend killed your brother, she's like, but is Tony okay? And she knows like what the fuck? Rightfully so because you're like, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. This man you've known for 48 hours murdered your brother and you're still like, but I'm going to run away with him. But Tony. Is he okay? Yeah. For me, and it's like, I know that she's supposed to be very young and naive, but like Maria's behavior is impossible to rationalize. Impossible. Starting here. Yeah. I mean, especially the way that she treats Anita and like the gravity of what she asks from Anita. Yeah. It's just like, I think they handle it better in the new version, but still it's like in this one, you're like, huh? Absurd. Like you get actively frustrated with her and Tony. Like by the end of this movie, a movie I enjoy, I'm not rooting for them. I'm just not. No, you're like, good riddance. Everyone's dead. Good riddance. How fucking entitled is Tony to be like, oh, you know, things happen. And she's like, okay, it makes sense. Like, yeah. What? No problem. It's yeah, infuriating. Yeah. Because Tony shows up to say that he needs her forgiveness and he intends to go to the cops to turn himself in and she's like, no, don't do that. I love you. Let's run away together. So they form a plan to flee cut to the jets who are dealing with the aftermath of Riff's death. They're sad. They're angry. They sing a song about how they have to be cool and keep a level head. This is I'm interested to talk about this because the dancing is funny to me. Like it does feel like a very like a dance sequence interpreting white masculine repression question mark, something like that. I think I like it, but it's weird. It's very long. It's very long. I think it's one of the longest numbers that I felt like kind of was like, I get it. I was like, okay, move it along. Yeah. Yeah. Well, because there's also the scene right before this. I think the character's name is baby John or something. Like the comic book kid. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then another character approaches him. Baby John has been crying, but he like brushes it off like, no, I gotta be tough. I don't want the guys to see me like this. Yeah. So he like regains his composure and then they meet up with the rest of the jets. But yeah, I think there's very much a like, we have to suppress our emotions and be cool. Right. But also I feel like we don't see the sharks go through a similar process, which I'm, I don't know. I'm interested to talk about that because I don't know. Maybe I'm overthinking it, but I was like, be cool is first of all, I would rather have cut that to see how the sharks are processing Bernarda's death because we don't really get to see that outside of Maria and Anita, which doesn't make any sense. But it also, but like in that context, I'm like, I wonder if be cool is like, part of why they have to be cool is because they have to preserve this very racially informed relationship they have with the cops because the cops literally say to them, we want to believe you. And so it's like, if they can pull off, you know, appearing credible to the cops, it won't be that hard for them. They just have to like sort of keep it together. And like, I don't know. It just like added an interesting, it's still too long, but I don't know. Yeah, no. So then that character named anybody's shows up saying that Chino has a gun and he's planning to kill Tony. So the Jets realized they have to find Tony and keep him safe. Tony, who is still with Maria, he goes off to borrow some money so that they can flee. They arrange for Maria to meet up with him at Doc's store. Anita comes in, finds out that Maria is still with Tony even after he killed Bernardo. So Anita is like, You'll never believe it. She's upset. Yeah, she's like, what the fuck? He killed my boyfriend. He's a murderer. Your brother. I just like, you're a traitor. So baffling to me because it's like Maria and Bernardo had a complicated relationship. He was over-exerting control over her, but I wouldn't say they had a bad relationship. Like it was very affectionate. And it's like, contextually, it's like she just immigrated here from Puerto Rico. So he's being very protective of her because he's like, you are my responsibility now. I have to make sure you're safe in this new foreign land that we are all trying to navigate. You don't speak very good English in theory. Obviously, Natalie Wood is doing it. So whatever. But if we're talking realistically, if she had just gotten off the boat from Puerto Rico, she wouldn't speak very much English. And she's a child. So it's like, of course, there is tension, but it's not any worse tension than a parent with a child. Like that is normal tension. Yeah, I don't know. He wasn't abusive. He wasn't, you know, hating her, hurting her, harming her, you know. No, he was just being like, I mean, again, it's like, I understand that teenagers are upset when like someone exerts control over them and fair enough, but it's like, not upset to their point that you would not react to their death untimely murder by the guy you're dating. Because it was an accident. He murdered him like on purpose. Like it wasn't like, oh my God, there was all these knives and I actually knifed him. It was like, he chose his white brother and over his love for you, to be honest. Because he wouldn't have knifed your brother. He chose his boyfriend. Why are you choosing him? Yes. Like it doesn't make any sense. He chose the other person. I mean, I think that probably a lot of that is because of like how randomly, like this, I feel like this movie is very committed to mapping exactly on to Romeo and Juliet at moments where it's like, you probably should have considered the relationships of the characters and their culture and their predicament instead of just being like, well, Romeo kills tibbles. So yes, whatever. Like you're like, well, people are famously bumped by that. So maybe do something. I don't know. Yes. So Anita is calling out Maria for being a traitor. But Maria is like, but I love Tony and love is beautiful. Fine that I love him. Then Lieutenant Shrank shows up to question Maria about Bernardo's death. And so since Maria can't leave right away to meet up with Tony, she sends Anita to Doc's store to tell Tony that I think like Maria will just like come as soon as she can. For me, that is like the I mean, Rita Moreno is has such incredible range in this movie. And like that, even though the Maria's behavior feels so irrational, I feel like how Anita reacts in that moment when Maria asks her to do something so impossible and so like, you know, insensitive to what Anita is going through. But you can just tell like, you know why Anita is doing it because she doesn't want to lose another person. And it's just like, it's heartbreaking. Yeah, absolutely. So Anita shows up at the store, the jets harass and assault her until Doc comes in and intervenes. And because of what she just experienced, she's like, fuck you guys, you're monsters. And then she tells a lie. That's a fuck Maria. Yeah, for putting me in this position. And I also think in a way she almost is also trying to protect Maria and be like, I'm not going to let you be a part of this, whatever this is. Like if they were so quick to do this to me, you think they're going to protect you just because you're with Tony? Like absolutely not. So she tells a lie to try to keep everyone safe, her loved ones safe and to try to kind of put an end to this whole thing. Unfortunately, it backfires, but she tells the jets to tell Tony that Chino found out about Tony and Maria. And so Chino killed Maria. Doc relays that information to Tony, who is devastated. So he goes out into the street. He's flailing around. But then Maria, she's able to come outside. So she sees him and they're like running toward each other. But before they can embrace, Chino shows up and shoots Tony. Maria is of course distraught. Tony dies in her arms. The jets and the sharks have all gathered around and Maria calls them out for their needless hate and violence. She threatens to kill them all and herself. But then the cops show up and the movie ends with the jets and the sharks seemingly putting aside their differences and helping to carry away Tony's body together. Like at the end of the day, A-Cab. Right. That is their single unifying issue. So that's the movie. Let's take another quick break and we'll come back to discuss. Welcome to the neighborhood, a new community where everyone keeps an eye out for each other. Obviously my instant coffee's not good enough for you. I just want to make friends. In this neighborhood, it's lawnmowers at dawn, a six real households atlet out for a quarter of a million pounds in this street-sized family feud. 250 grand, we are willing to do whatever it takes. Scalp Scales destined for greatness. Join me, Graham Norton, as I bring the drama to your doorstep in a new show like no other. The Neighborhood, stream now on ITVX. Bring on the ding dong. And we're back. Becca, we know you've done a ton of research. Is there anywhere where you are really wanting to start here? I do want to give some like 1950s context that I think this version specifically the 1961 version tries to like sprinkle because it's obviously kind of in real time. But I think the 2001 or 2021 version rectifies a lot of that like lack of context and kind of just in conversation of the lack of real representation of Puerto Ricans. It's like using Puerto Ricans as this like platform to have this story versus like actually thinking about them in the context of this time. But in the 1950s, you're having the Puerto Rican Great Migration to New York City, where it's a rapid population growth, intense discrimination and an emergence of the New Rican identity. Thank you Wikipedia. Centered in neighborhoods like East Harlem, South Bronx and West Side, which is San Juan Hill, which is where this story begins. But San Juan Hill is actually a very particular neighborhood. It was an original slum of Puerto Ricans and Black Caribbean's. And then in this time that the movies happening, which they portray better in the new version, it's being demolished for the Lincoln Center. The Lincoln Center to this day sits on top of black and brown bodies. Like to be as explicit as possible. They killed lots of people to have that because they try to migrate them uptown. That's how you ended up with Puerto Ricans in Harlem, the Bronx, Washington Heights. All of that is because basically the rich people were like, we want this because it's by the park. This has to be for the whites now. And so they like literally bulldoze over this whole slum of Puerto Ricans and try to push them out. And I think in the new version, they addressed that a lot more of like this actual dialogue in the movie about like, why are people migrating and like the opportunities that the realtors promised them that were not true. They got to these housings and the Bronx and Washington Heights and they were filled with rats and cockroaches and they weren't built. And they literally like evicted these people saying, no, we have housing for you up there. Like just pack your stuff today and go and there will be a house for you. And then there wasn't. So it was just like this really dark time to be Puerto Rican. And obviously they don't really highlight that in the movie. And I don't think it gives enough context as to why there's such racial tension between these two communities. And I mean, of course, besides the fact that they're brown and white, but like there is a lot of like real shit happening like in real time at this time for Puerto Ricans. Can I follow that up with context about the conception of the stage musical? I was going to say because it's like, I feel like the reason it's not there is because the writers and creators probably didn't even know and didn't seem to have interest. No, absolutely. Because like Puerto Rican culture is kind of randomly selected for this. Yes. Yeah. So here's what happened there. So Jerome Robbins conceived of this idea for the original Broadway musical that debuted in 1957. From an idea from Montgomery Clift, which is just an interesting piece of queer history. They were like on vacation together. And Montgomery Clift is like, I have a little idea. This is like came out of Fire Island. Yeah. So but the idea originated in 1949 where Jerome Robbins was like, okay, what if I tell a story about a Catholic family and a Jewish family living on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. So originally the story was called East Side Story. Yes. And it would center on the Catholics being anti-Semitic to the Jewish characters. And based on my research, it seems like the Maria character would have originally been a Jewish girl who had survived the Holocaust and emigrated from Israel. Yes. And you're like, what do you mean? Yeah. No, literally. I read that. And I was like, less. Yeah. So, you know, there's that. So Arthur Lorenz gets brought on to the project to write the book for this musical. And he finishes a draft. And then everyone who was involved realized that this play had already been written basically, and that these same themes were explored in a play called Abby's Irish Rose. They're like, oh, man, we already did it. They're like, oh, shucks. Right. So Jerome Robbins drops out of the project. He, Arthur Lorenz and Leonard Bernstein, who had also been brought on, they all go their separate ways. For years, the project was shelved for like five years, cut to 1955. They come back together. They decide to work on the project again. Lorenz and Bernstein meet up in Hollywood in Beverly Hills. Wow. And they're like, what about all these juvenile street gangs and turf wars that we've been hearing about in the news? Right, which is like a very popular thematic. I think that that's like a part of the reason that Natalie would end up in this part, because she appeared in a lot of these sort of juvenile delinquent exploratory stories, which of course was like couched in a lot of bullshit. Yeah. But it was like such a popular theme in the 50s. It was such a popular theme, but also I think specifically, as Kaylin was knowing this meeting was happening in Hollywood, at this time specifically, there were a lot of Chicano turf wars happening in LA. So they were like, well, what if we flip it? Because they still wanted it to be in New York. So like, what if we, there's those new Puerto Ricans coming into New York, right? Like, what if we, what if we do that? And so I think that like literally was it. Like they were just like, well, we can't have, we don't have Mexicans in New York. So what do we, what do we do about that? So let's just, we know those new Ricans are coming. Let's get them in the mix. That is literally what happened. And that seems like the beginning and end of the consideration of, because the rest is just like stereotypes. And they weren't like not wrong. Like that San Juan Hill stuff was happening. There was a lot of like turf happening, I guess in a degree, but really it was just like people who were like already were marginalized and forced to come to America and then being displaced in their one home that they've known that they've been able to build since the 30s when the like the migration kind of started post World War One. There's a really great exhibit. The reason I know all this is because in New York at Centro PR Hunter College, it's a really great Puerto Rican studies program. It's probably like nationally known as like one of the biggest Puerto Rican studies programs. They have an exhibit called San Juan Hill, and they go over all these different artifacts, and they do these different interviews with families whose families immigrated from San Juan Hill. And it's just like really incredible like piece of like preserving archival history of Puerto Ricans in New York that like the governments try to wipe away. And I think like they've done a little bit of like, well, we put up a memorial of San Juan Hill in the Lincoln Center, and you're like, okay, but it's still or Juilliard is and it's still the Lincoln Center. Like, like, where's the money for those families? What about all the people you displaced? Yeah. And it's like how frequently I mean, I feel like every major city has their I mean, I feel like Dodger Stadium and LA has a very, very similar thing. And we are seeing it happen here right now to historically black communities and to unhoused people for over the Olympics. Like it's just it's so I was glad to hear and again, I haven't seen the movie that, you know, I maybe I'm wrong, but that like Robert Moses is even kind of like name checked in the 2021 version as like this is the person doing this. Yeah. But I don't know. Yeah, I not surprising, but just like it's so egregious how like, especially I mean, I feel like the song America is a perfect case study for this of like presenting some valid issues, but in a completely like contextless void. Yes, if we want to talk about that, let's get into it because I do have a lot of conflicting feelings about that song because I think in this lens, I'm like, you know what, that song is not invalid because I do think a lot of Puerto Ricans, especially at that time, who were trying to like make an honest living and like make a life for themselves in the United States felt that way. And I think that's like a very common immigrant story of like our, you know, parents and our grandparents who had to assimilate by any means necessary to survive. And so they are like, we're in America, we're Americans now, we have to adapt, we have to conform so that we can be successful and live the American dream. But a bunch of white people wrote it and they did not care for the cultural context of those Puerto Ricans singing it, what it meant to them, what it was about. So it's like, it's like almost like a bad clock is right twice a day or whatever, you know, a broken clock is right twice a day. It was kind of like that where it's like, they weren't wrong. But the way they came from was not nice versus like the reality of the situation is true. It was interesting tracing how this song has been modified over time, because it's and this isn't a full, my notes are disorganized, so I apologize. But for, I mean, Rita Moreno has mentioned that like, she was a reason that part of the lyrics were adjusted for the 1961 version. Originally, I also think that there's like a gender dynamic change in the way this song is delivered. America is originally only song with women. It's only Puerto Rican women singing to each other and it's a character named Rosalia who exists in the movie, but far less so, who is, you know, expressing like, I really miss Puerto Rico. It's so beautiful, like feeling homesick. And then Anita is aggressively like, no, like it sucks. There's like ugly island, tropic diseases, like this very, very internalized hatred of Puerto Rico. It's changed for the for the movie. Some of the language is softened and the gender dynamic is changed. So that it's Bernardo and Anita singing to each other about this. And Anita's character is, I've seen it argued, is presented as a little more flippant and not like she is saying necessarily this is the truth, which I guess is how it was presented on Broadway. And then it's changed again for 2021, where Ariana DeBose does not disparage Puerto Rico in America. But there is still kind of this like confusing amount of context. And then also in the movie, I'm curious what you both think about this, because Bernardo is like making some excellent points throughout the song, which is why I don't hate the song, because I'm like, I don't think it's inherently like, I think I did not have the context of the actual Broadway lyrics. And that makes more sense why people hated the broad because I'm like, everything I read was like, everyone hated the Broadway version than they love the movie. And I didn't notice how much had changed. I knew Rita was a big part of any changes that were made to the movie experience versus the Broadway musical. But I think it is a real conversation that those who are immigrating have of like this, like, we love our homeland. But those who are, I think it's very common. I have this conversation with my dad and my grandmother, like, in the podcast of like, the way that they will rewrite history to make themselves not feel the pain. And I think a part of it is the assimilation where it's like, if we don't love this place, if we don't make ourselves love this place, then we'll be reminded of how painful it is to be here. And I think that is like the push and pull between Anita and Bernardo, where he I think is just like, this is temporary, I'm here to make money, and I'm gonna go back home. And I think Anita sees the reality is that like, there is no home, we're not going back. We don't have the resources, we're never gonna have the money to go back, like, we have to make a life here. So get used to it almost. And I don't think this is a wrong narrative that was had in the 50s. I think it's very real. So yeah, I wish that specific sentiment that you just detailed was more explicit in the movie, because the way the 1961 movie handles this dynamic of like, the conflicting attitudes between it seems like it's all of the women being like, I love America. It's awesome. And the reasons that they cite like the lyrics are things like skyscrapers bloom in America, Cadillacs zoom in America, industry booms in America, they're talking about how they can buy stuff on credit, how they can have all these pretty dresses, all this stuff, it makes them seem like they're obsessed with like American capitalism and consumerism in a way that makes them seem kind of shallow. And then the men come in with points like, we get paid half the amount as white people do for the same labor, we are charged twice the amount to buy things than white people, the only jobs that we are able to ever get are things like waiting tables and shining shoes, we are treated like outsiders and foreigners, even though Puerto Rico is part of the US, but we are treated as though we are not Americans. So there's like, what feels like a very like stereotypical gender dynamic almost happening where it's like, well, the girls love America because they can buy pretty dresses here. They can shop because when are they shopping? They can shop, they can drive, they can do all this stuff. And it's so hard because it's like, I as someone who's had a lived Puerto Rican experience who has Puerto Rican grandparents and parents and like, my abuela is from Spanish Harlem, like born and raised in New York. During this time, like my great grandmother and Rita Moreno's moms both immigrated to the United States at the same time, which was before the big boom, but they immigrated for probably similar reasons, which was like, stuff back home, like really gendered abusive, like parental or familial misogynist stuff back home. And I do think there is like, this idea as a woman in Puerto Rico, coming to the United States, you have freedom in a way that you don't have in a very traditional machismo society, especially back then. So, but it's like, I have that context. I know the writers don't have that context. So it's like, I am putting a lot on this song where I'm like, I see the benefits, I see how this is relatable. But then it's like, I get angry knowing like, well, they're actually not doing it in that same way. They're not giving it as much heart and depth of care and reasoning for those reasons. They just luckily kind of fell into it. It like improves slightly over time. Yeah, there is on the West Side Story official website, they have the 5761 lyrics side by side. And the 57 one is just full on American propaganda. And it's white people in brown face being like, America's amazing. Puerto Rican women love America and have no notes. And so the 61 one is an improvement. But I agree with you that like there is, I think, and this was something, okay, I want to quote a piece I read that was written for the Latinx project by Aurora Flores Hostos back in 2021 when the Spielberg version came out, where she's taking a look at the entire movie and how it like existed in response to its predecessors, but specifically brings up these lyrics and says something similar Becca of like, in the 61 movie, there are things that were gotten right, probably almost by mistake. But that she didn't love the changes that were made to the song in 2021. She writes quote West Side Story was written in a controversial time that resulted in a convoluted story about misplaced culture, identity and survival in a hostile world. But it was real that those early America lyrics were racist is true. But shouldn't we hear how America really felt about us at that time, that nascent purity of thought is what is sealed in the stereotypes in trying to undo it, its archetypical credibility is altered, which I think is interesting. And I mean, of all three, because I did listen to the Ariana de Beaux Steven Spielberg version of America. And even though that is a version that is not openly hostile to Puerto Rico, which is important, I still feel like no version of this song, at least that I've heard, addresses that the problem is the title of the song. Like there is no acknowledgement of like, you know, even though Bernardo and the men in the 61 version are making a lot of valid points as to like, what their predicament is and how they're being forced into these awful situations. It's not really explicitly stated that that is the fault of what America was doing in Puerto Rico at that time. Like there's just like this history void. Absolutely. Like they were forced to leave. Like I think there's this idea in American history and the way that it's taught about the Puerto Rican Great Migration. Like it was like this win for Puerto Rican. It's like, literally, America came in through the Jones Act, like wreaked havoc to this industrial revolution in Puerto Rico, basically to make Puerto Rico tax haven, strip it of all its resources. And then when the industrial boom fell and there were no longer job, like all the jobs that Puerto Ricans had being forced to do in this industrial revolution and then the industrial revolution fell, they were like, well, there's no jobs in Puerto Rico, all the factories took all our jobs. And now the factories are closed. So what do we do? We have to and then in that like America's like, we feel bad, they kind of like promoted this like exile of Puerto Ricans because the population had doubled. They were like, well, we'll just make room for you in America, I guess, like we have to now. And there was also a lot of and Puerto Rican historians don't get at me. This is like a lot of jumbled history that I have in my brain. But from what I understand, also, there was like a little bit of a globalization of Puerto Rico for the first time, because flights were finally coming to and from Puerto Rico around this time, which also added to the boom, it was no longer by boat, but you could take Pan Am flights to Puerto Rico. And so because of America, Puerto Ricans can't live in Puerto Rico. Like that is the reality. Like America destroyed Puerto Rico, and then expected Puerto Rico to just like fix itself. I don't know. Like it is in no way a one to one comparison for many reasons. But I was reminded as we were like looking at particularly how this movie ends, where it's like both sides of this conflict have to admit that things have gone too far. Yeah, because a white man has died. Yes. It's like, oh, it wasn't enough when Bernard. No, the reaction, the void of reaction to Bernardo's death is shocking, except for Manita. But it reminded me a lot of how the conflict between the indigenous community and the Europeans is presented in Pocahontas, where it's like they're presented as equally violent, and just man is inherently violent. And there is no context as to why, even though in West Side Story, you do get more, certainly, than you get in Pocahontas, which is a horrible yardstick, like not saying much. I feel like the, I don't know, maybe there's stuff I missed, but like the closest you get for like clear headed context is, I think it's in that, that first, like, they're making terms for the, for their brawl or whatever they call it. No, but I think you're so right, because like, if I think about the context of the Puerto Rican throughout the whole movie, and I do think the 2021 version does a lot to try to rectify some of this with like its dialogue, and you know, the inclusion of Spanish language in the 2021 version, but that's not subtitled either. And it's, yeah, it's not subtitled, but in the 1961, a, obviously none of them speak Spanish because none of them can, but b, it's like, we get that whole song contextualizing why these white boys are bad boys, right? Like why the Jets are bad, they got bad mothers, they got bad fathers, whatever, you're getting a whole context on why these white boys are bad white boys. But then you never get any context of why the Puerto Ricans are striped, why, and in the reality, the closest you get is the America song. And even then it's like played as almost like, oh my God, the men are overreacting, they have such a beautiful life here in the United States. But in reality, it's like these men by these white boys are being pushed out of their neighborhood. They also are poor. They also, and they also, I think in this version versus the 2021 version, they make it a point that like the Puerto Ricans have jobs and the white boys in the Jets in the 2021 don't have jobs. So they're like, the Puerto Ricans are better in that one way. Let's tie it to capitalism. That's important. Yes. Yes. Yes. But in this 61 version, the Puerto Ricans never have jobs, it seems like, and that's purposeful, I think it's like to be like, they're lazy, they're fighting. Well, the women do. It's just the women do, but the men don't. Yeah. It's confusing. I mean, they're, they're, they're the one line that stood out to me on this and it's so small and in 1000 year long movie is when the Jets and the Sharks are agreeing on the terms of the brawl or whatever, and the Jets are trying to explain why they're so upset. And Bernardo says, like, they're like, well, why, why did you yell at our friend today? He's like, well, why did you start picking on me and everyone I know the second we got there and then we start shouting slurs. And so it's like, it is in there, but it's so fleeting and spoken in actor by actors in brown face that you're just like, well, it didn't happen. I, there was one quick, I mean, there's so much written about the legacy of this movie and we'll include a bunch of please drop your links in the Zoom because there's so much that I know we can't possibly touch on all of it. But there was a really interesting essay I read from 2017 by a writer named Yura Sopi about how West Side Story, I think Becca, as you were alluding to earlier in the episode, sort of became a lot of non Puerto Rican people's first introduction to Puerto Rican culture in a way that is still echoed in culture today, even though it was written entirely by white people that weren't even able to, you know, whatever Robert Egger style wouldn't even go to the library to figure out like what was at least Robert Egger's went to the library once in his defense. Well, West Side Story was the first large scale Hollywood movie to even acknowledge the presence of Puerto Rican people in the mainland of the US. Yes. So in this essay, I think what Yura Sopi is arguing here is that there's like an undeniable cultural impact, but also that its existence and how it is like talked about is like the first mainstream acknowledgement of Puerto Ricans in like white America is that it served to erase a lot of existing Puerto Rican art that was being made in New York at this time. So she wrote specifically about a play that debuted and was very successful in the US in 1953. So pre West Side Story by a Puerto Rican playwright named Renee Marquez that was called La Correta, the Oxcart, and was prior to West Side Story sort of positioned to be the most successful Puerto Rican work stage in America at the time, but then West Side Story came out and it kind of faded into the background. It didn't receive a major adaptation. And then West Side Story became white America's main association with Puerto Rican culture. And yeah, I was able, I mean, I think the only, have we discussed this already? The only Puerto Rican cast member in the original Broadway production was also Anita was Chita Rivera. Chita Rivera. We have not discussed this, but I do have notes on this because okay, Rita Moreno in her memoir is a little shady bitch, and I love it. She's very much like, I think she's a product of her time in this way where it's like women were forced to compete against each other at every facet. So I feel like every old Hollywood woman she mentioned, she kind of has to do like a little dig to be like a little jab, but I'm better. And also sometimes it's just like whoever lives the longest gets the final word. Exactly. And so she did give a little jab at Chita Rivera because Chita is half Puerto Rican, half white. I can't remember her mix of white immigrant, but is half white. And she was the original yes in the Broadway and apparently she was up for doing it, but then in the movie, you mean? Yeah, for the movie. Rita Moreno then studied her ass off and like went to all these different productions and like did dance classes for like two months and also had Marlon Brando call and was like, can you get Rita Moreno in this movie? Because they were also talking to Marlon Brando for Tony. And it didn't end up helping at all like the Marlon Brando, but basically she ended up becoming the shoe in for Anita. And she was just like, ha, ha, ha, I beat Chita Rivera off of it. And she was like, and Chita must have been so upset because her husband was in the movie because her husband is the other main jet, not riff, but the other one that to me looks like Joey from Friends. Oh, yes. Yes, I know exactly who you're talking about. That's action. Yes. So that was like Chita Rivera's actual husband in real life. And so she was like, she was like, yeah, it must have sucked that she wasn't RIP anyways. Yeah. But wow, I love a memoir. But that's my my Chita Rivera note. But yeah, I mean, that is beautiful that like that is the it seems to be that is the one role that the Puerto Rican gets to play. Because like obviously Ariana DeBose is Puerto Rican Dominican, which brings us back to like the Maria discussion. You know, I was a little disappointed when I saw Rachel Zegler got the Maria. I understand why she did because she was the right age, obviously the right vocal range, incredible talent. But she's not Puerto Rican. And I'm like, when will we get to have a Puerto Rican Maria? You know, she's half white, half Colombian. Yeah. And I'm like, and she's still half white. And that's not to say Rachel hasn't been a great advocate for colorism and media and all that stuff. But I'm like, it is just like this Hollywood thing where it's like when it comes to Latinos and Puerto Ricans in general, we never get to be the lead. Even if you go like in the heights. Same year. Yeah. That was the huge controversy. Yeah. Because they didn't hire Puerto Ricans for the main role. And it's like Lynn, we'll get there later. But you know, I just was a little disappointed in the Rachel casting for Maria for the 21. And I don't think she like played a good job at it because I do think you're so much more intrigued by all the supporting characters. There's so much more enticing. There's so much more interesting than Maria and Tony. And that might just be a fault of the musical in and of itself and not the actors. But in this 1961 version, Natalie Wood is because as you mentioned, Jamie earlier, she's a hot lady at the time. They're like, of course, she seems like a shoe. And there was like a lot of other actresses considered that were white, all of them were white. Apparently, Rita was like roughly considered. But I, she I think was too scared to actually be in a leading role at the time because she hadn't been in a movie in a while when she got this role. So she was like, very intimidated by the idea of applying for a lead in a movie. So that's ultimately why I don't think she did it. That's what she says in her memoir. But I want to pull this quote from her memoir about Natalie Wood specifically in her role as Maria. She says, and of course, it was uncomfortable for the Hispanics to see Natalie Wood play Maria, especially because we had heard that Natalie hadn't wanted the part, but had been so prevailed upon to take it that she couldn't refuse. Natalie seemed uncomfortable in her role as Maria when she was around us, a rowdy, a rocious group of dancers. This makes plain her non engaging demeanor with us gypsies, which in quote from Rita, throughout the shoot, it might have been helpful had we been able to bomb Natalie, but she kept her distance. So I find that very telling. I think that was like the nicest way Rita could put that she was racist on set. But yeah, I think that was that was read in the way that her she performed Maria. You could tell she did not have any care for this character. I think that's why they're so annoying together, Tony and Maria. You're not like sold on their love story. I yeah. And I just think it was like this was like the most obvious fix they could have done for the 2021 version. And they didn't. I mean, I think the other thing, and this also applies to the conversation around in the Heights where it's like, why are we not hiring Puerto Rican directors like John Chiu, Stephen Spielberg, their talent is not remotely in question. Exactly. But it feels very, very pointed. And it felt, I don't know. I am still curious to see the Spielberg adaptation because Spielberg movies are great. But this was not his job to take be a producer, contribute. Like, and I think that we see this a lot in beginning in the 2010s. Into now, I feel like it stuck out to me, particularly in how the conversation around Moana was had back in 2016 was like, sure, the directors are white men, but we've hired consultants. Yeah, we have a lot of consultants. We actually went to Puerto Rico one time. And we learned so much on in our four days in Puerto Rico that like, we're kind of good. And we hired Linda to do the soundtrack. Was that it on enough? I mean, truly, I mean, that's it's the little I mean, Lin-Manuel Miranda's fingerprints over the last decade of culture should be studied. Yeah, because he does come up in every single reference point here. But it's frustrating. And I mean, like the fact that they're that, I don't know, and I think we used to talk about this differently on this very show. But I feel like at this point, it is like, I feel like consultants are not enough. No, it is better than what we're doing in 1961, certainly, where it is all yada yada. And even the one Puerto Rican actor in the movie is having their skin darkened, which is absurd. Yes. But but like, you know, in in the 2010s and 2020s, it's also like it's not sufficient to say, I mean, it's basically to be, you know, with due respect to the consultants whose labor has a demonstrable effect on the work. But these are the people who should be directing it. Like, you know, it shouldn't, I don't know, it's like remove the elephant in the room, which is the need for a white director or a white celebrity or a celebrity director in general. It's almost this way of, how do I put this kindly? Like when we think about like, times up, me too, all these things, right? Whereas like, we're gonna like, like, like that white pussy hat feminism, right? Where it's like, no, no, no, like, we're changing things, but it's like only for a certain demographic. And I do feel like this is a prime example where it's like, we're hiring consultants, we're putting people of color in the roles, we're doing all these things. But it's like, you're still not letting people of color in the room. You're still not letting them actually make the work. And it's because a lot of these higher ups do not want to dethrone themselves. Because I know the reality is, if they start letting us in the room, then they don't get to make the work anymore. And they don't want that. So they are trying to circumvent in all these ways that they can still keep their little hands on power, you know, instead of just doing the right thing, which is like, maybe the project's not for you, babe. You know? And that's okay. Like you can still, like Steven is going to make another thing. You can still give money to the project. That is a great way to support. Exactly. I don't know. I'm sure, I'm sure that it is like, wonderful because Spielberg movies are wonderful. But it did not have to be a Spielberg movie. And I feel like the press tour around it felt indicative of like, yes, no, I totally get it. I am famously white. But, but, but I did this, I did this, I did this. Steven Spielberg. So like, I did all this stuff because I'm Steven Spielberg. And you're like, okay, yes. And, and I think his whole thing was like, well, I, because I'm Steven Spielberg, could get this giant budget to do this movie. And it's like, that's true. But then you could also just, like you said, Jamie, produce it and secure the budget for them and not be the director and actually give that Puerto Rican person a chance to do this. But I think that was also indicative in the choice for doing Rachel, because like, her accent is so bad. I didn't really, I didn't remember how bad her accent was until watching it again. And it just like was very similar to the Maria of 1961, Natalie Wood, where it's just like, Rachel clearly speaks Spanish. I think her mom is the Colombian of the two, which, you know, I think maternal figures tend to be the ones like leading language for the children and stuff. So like, you could tell her Spanish was authentic. And she did great at speaking in Spanish. But I think she did not have a Puerto Rican accent. She sounded like a person trying to have an accent, like trying to sound like an native speaker of another language. And it felt very phony to me. Whereas like, when you heard Ariana DeBose speak, I'm like, no, she sounds Puerto Rican. Like, whether she Spanish is her first language or not, you can tell she has Puerto Rican people in her family and in her home. And she studied how to speak in that native, like Spanish first Puerto Rican accent. And that was the difference. That made a huge difference to me. And same thing with Maria. It's like, yes, I know, and Rita Moreno had a lot of complaints about being forced to like, over accent herself. But you could still tell it was Puerto Rican. And she had to teach Natalie Wood how to have that accent, which sucks. It's like, it's like, Oh, wow, you make the one Puerto Rican girl teach the person who hates her, right, how to do her job. It's like, cool. Christ. I mean, I think there's a conversation sort of like this going on right now. But how there is a clear pattern. And I guess I won't over pathologize it from there because I haven't, I don't have my thoughts organized about it. But how roles that are cast authentically tend to only be in supporting roles. And then there's always a degree to this day of, you know, even though we are not seeing brown face in movies now, we're seeing colorism. And, and I feel like that sort of speaks to part of what you're talking about with the Rachel Zegler casting and the fact that I mean, even in like this year's Oscar nominee lineup, you really only see people of color that are strong contenters in supporting supporting categories, which has been true for a very, very long time. And it is like, I hadn't even connected this until we started recording. But like the part of Anita is like, I mean, that one, both Rita Moreno and Ariana de Boz, their Oscars, but why are they not considered credible to be the lead? And it's like, why are they not considered credible? And then the fact that they still both like after did not get the work credit that like a person who would win the leading actor role, absolutely would. Like if Timothy wins, and even if he doesn't win, he's going to get a book for a gazillion more projects coming in 2020. So he's set for life. He's set for life. He's been set for life. But it's like, and I know Ariana de Boz is kind of an annoying figure from what I understand in the media a little bit. She's a little corny. I liked I liked her song. She's just a theater kid. Angela Bassett did the thing. Yes. She's just a theater kid. And we have to let, you know, let her be, but let her know she hasn't had a serious role since then. No, no. And that's exactly what happened to Rita Moreno. Like for years, she didn't work after winning that. The years. There's a similar pattern with awards categories where I feel like it's a more general marginalization, but like you'll rarely if ever see a woman or a person of color win in director, they'll win in screenplay. And like there's there's like all of these like little negotiations that it just feels like the industry like needling at marginalized people. And yeah, West Side Story is a frustrating case study for that because you're totally right. Like Rita Moreno has spoken extensively about how she struggled to find parts because then they just wanted to typecast her in this specific type of role like a bad girl, Latina, like a gang affiliated Latina girl. And she's just like, I chose this role, which is heartbreaking because she chose this role from what I read in her memoir and just like all the research I did after watching the movies, she chose this role because it was very authentic to her. She was like, I chose this role because it was a Puerto Rican woman speaking her mind, you know, fighting back against patriarchy with her partner, you know, standing up for herself. You know, I related to her a lot. I did not want to be typecast as this gang girl. And then that's what happened. And it's like, and the reason she won the Oscar for that performance is because she saw the authenticity in what she could bring to the role and brought her whole self to that role. That doesn't mean she wanted to be a gang woman because it wasn't about being in a gang, it was about being Puerto Rican. But the white people saw it as her being in a gang. And you're like, wow, you guys like R-Rays is no matter what. Like, you loved her role because she was Puerto Rican, not because she was good at being in a gang, but you guys refuse to see the nuance in that. Yeah. And then Jamie, you alluded to this already, but that Rita Moreno, her skin was darkened, along with the white actors who were... In spite of her vocal protest against that, like it wasn't... Yeah. Like she was vocal about it at the time and they did it anyways. They're like, how are they going to know? And it's like, well, I guess fair in the sense that you guys didn't hire a single Puerto Rican. Right. The call is coming from inside the house and the answer is not brown face. Well, that's the thing. Like the production clearly sees Puerto Rican people as exactly one type and they look exactly one way, ignoring the racial diversity within the Puerto Rican community because Rita Moreno is pretty light skinned. They were like, well, you don't look Puerto Rican enough. And so they put brown makeup on her and put her in brown face, essentially. Which like Rita Moreno has stated, I don't have the exact quote, but basically along the lines of like, Puerto Ricans come in all shapes, sizes and colors. Like it is... And that's what she told them. She was like, look, Puerto Ricans are all types. So like it's okay if, you know, the cast of Puerto Ricans looks different. But like you're saying, Katelyn, they were like, well, we can't conceptualize an other ring if there's not a clear other ring, which is that yellow brown and they're white. Right. They decided that like there is a Puerto Rican color to be. Which is just, I don't know. I don't know how she survived the experience. I'm glad that she still feels at least comfortable and proud enough of the work that she's making appearances. But it's it's interesting tracking her relationship to the material from 61 to 21 as well. This sort of transitions into a different part of the discussion, but around the assaults and attempted rape, of Anita's character, where Rita Moreno spoke extensively, has spoken extensively over the years about how triggering that shooting that scene was for her because of triggering memories of her own assault by a Hollywood agent. I don't think that there's more specific information about that, but but being assaulted by an agent when she was a teenager and that shooting that scene in the early 60s was deeply traumatic. This scene has been, you know, a topic of discussion understandably for the entire history of this production. As recently as 2020, there was, I don't know if it was a Broadway or off Broadway staging of it, but that it was being staged very violently to the point where it was upsetting to audiences and they had to dial it back in 2020, which is pretty absurd. And then in 2021, that Rita Moreno plays the character of Doc's his wife. Who I again, I haven't seen it, but I know that she her character intervenes in the way that Doc intervenes in the original film. Rita Moreno intervenes in what I mean, and you can both speak to it better, but is a more like an even more aggressive version of that scene. I was yeah. Yeah. What did you think of that? I'm glad you brought this up because I actually have very frustrating thoughts about this, like about the way it was portrayed in the 2021. I'm like, okay, Rita, this role was very, very, very hard for you. It's something you have noted in multiple interviews in your memoir about how violent this role was, how triggering it was for you, how come you didn't get it cut from the 2021 version? Outstanding to me. I feel like it was more violent in the 2021 version. It was very hard to watch. I had a really hard time with it. I think if she was going to rewrite history in the way that she did for the 2021 version, which she like comes too late, they've already roughed her up. And she basically is just like, what are you guys doing? And then Anita goes, you're a traitor, and she does our big moment of being like, you're actually the traitor. You look at you like supporting these men, and then she's like delivers a line about how like Maria was murdered when she wasn't. I'm like, I feel like if we were to perfectly repurpose the scene, Rita could have come in sooner before the men got violent, and they could have still had the same scene and no one would have had to be like abused and assaulted or whatever. And it was still so violent. I'm like, if Rita was so vocal about how violent the scene was, I'm like, why was it more violent for Ariana in this? And I'm like, she has noted in interview after interview how long it took them to shoot that scene in 1961. I can only pray and hope that like in the 2021 version, it did not take as long because if it did, I'm sure that was really hard. And that there were like coordinators or which I'm sure there weren't in the 60s. Exactly. And it's, I don't know, I was a little disappointed rewatching it, being like, yeah, considering Rita was so upset about this scene, I'm surprised they didn't do more to like, change the scene while keeping it contextually like works within the film. I don't think it would have been that hard. You're too, I mean, I was confused to read that as well, because I think that like, whatever in the context of the story, we are like Anita has to realize once and for all that like, this is not a safe environment for Maria, like we talked about to the point where like this white gang does not have a second thought about assaulting a Puerto Rican woman and does not have a second thought of treating her like she doesn't matter and that Maria will likely be treated the same. But there are other ways to demonstrate that point. And like you're saying, you can demonstrate intent without showing a graphic assault. Yeah. Yeah. The response from the character that Rita Moreno plays in the 2021 version, her name is Valentina. Yes, she's Doc's, his wife. We never see Doc on screen. I don't think in the 2021 version. No, they just like, they show a photo of them in the back of the, they got an old shot of them. Yeah. Okay. But when she comes in and intervenes, her response is more heightened than what we saw Doc's response being in the 1961 version where she says, you guys are disgusting pieces of shit, you're rapists. Yeah. So she does, you know, verbally call them out. But it was like after Ariana already got or like Anita already got roughed up and Anita left. And then they gave her her own song. And that's like, I guess kind of what like timing wise replaced that other song that we were talking about earlier. Okay. And I feel like this song was kind of like, I feel like they gave it to Rita, Valentina, whatever, because like she is Rita Moreno. And like this was her, you know, reprising in the movie. But I just, I thought it was kind of, anytime they add a song to a classic musical, it's like, don't do that. Yeah. I was like, it's never good. Yeah. Yeah. It's, I don't know if whose idea this was like, I don't know how this came to be on the set of the 2021 version, but it seemed like it was maybe someone was giving Rita Moreno a chance to sort of like rectify that moment from before feel redeemed or something by the trauma she experienced in 1961. And it's like a career, like it's a career full circle. Like I don't object to her being in the movie, but like, no, no, no. Yeah. But the scene itself, it should have been that she, yeah, it shouldn't have happened so that we still see so much of the violence on screen. Yeah. Like I would, yeah. So this sort of kindness, I know that there's I've been recording for so long. But one of the things that I didn't, or that I was like, oh, this I guess is a slight difference in the 2021 version. But again, I'm not sure. I did do some reading on the portrayal of interracial relationships in West Side Story and how there's, there has been a fair amount written about that over the years. Oh my God, I have so many tabs, so many tabs, so many tabs. Okay. Or basically just to say that like it reinforces, you know, and it makes sense to me in the time it was written, but like, you know, reinforces the idea that interracial relationships are doomed. The point that I honestly hadn't considered that I want to make sure I'm getting the shouting out the name of the writer. Olivia Edmunds Diaz wrote this in bitchflicks.com, great name for a website. But during a feature they were doing on how interracial relationships have been portrayed on film. Obviously, the first issue is this is not actually an interracial relationship we're looking at. It's two white people and one is in brown face. But she also mentioned like, she's like, I'm a huge fan of West Side Story. Like, you know, I grew up with a lot of love for it. But she brought up something that hadn't occurred to me, which is in I Feel Pretty. She was like, I internalized that as like, Maria has never felt pretty before because a white man has never called her pretty. Winning. Really struck me. I felt so. I was like, yeah, duh, Jamie. And how and yeah, that their relationship is portrayed as, you know, just fully doomed. Again, I feel like that little wedding mannequin scene. I don't know, like, I think it's sweet. I guess all I was trying to get at is in the 2021 version, Rita Moreno and Doc being married is like, oh, a successful interracial relationship exists in this world. And that's nice. But then it's almost like twisted because when that scene happens and Anita runs into Rita, she's like, you're a race trader. She's like, you chose them and look at where we're at. Look at how they treated me. You are supporting all of these white boys in your shop while they abused me. And then she leaves. And it's like, yeah, Rita has her moment, Valentina has her moment after to tell those boys what's up. But it's like not when it mattered, you know, so it almost still is having this conversation where it's like, does an original religion works and, you know, it does. Every story is different. You know, there are white people that care about people of color like you guys, you know, so it's not like they're all doomed. But I don't think in this 2021 adaptation, they also created that dynamic. I think they were still like brown people and white people. This doesn't work. Right. It's like, it's kind of impossible if you're building it on Romeo and Juliet to be like, yeah, it's going to work out like it famously doesn't. Yeah. But, but yeah, I guess just acknowledge that dynamic as well as in the same piece, talking about sort of the virgin whore tropes that are present within Maria and Anita. I'll just quote from the piece really quick quote of the two featured Puerto Rican women, Maria is the virgin trope to Anita's whore trope. Maria's virginity is emphasized to make her a safe choice for Tony, lest our white knight be swept into a quote unquote dirty Puerto Rican's bed. One obvious manifestation of this is her white dress for the dance. Despite Maria's wishes for a shorter red dress like her role model Anita, Anita ensures Maria's virginity by keeping the dance dress white and at a respectable length. Anita's hard work pays off as the white knight Tony only has eyes for Maria who visually stands apart from the crowd. So again, not something that I feel like is at the forefront. I do at least appreciate that even in the writing, at least of the movie, it sounds like Anita is portrayed somewhat differently in the original Broadway production, that I think that both of these characters are written with love and like they're certainly I mean, Anita is played with such care and love by Rita Marino that I feel like it's you can almost kind of miss that that is like a very much a dynamic that exists. Yes, I think because Rita is such an incredible actress and she plays a role with such nuance and she is honestly like she steals a show she is so magnetic, you forget that she's supposed to be a whore, I guess in complex or because like if you are looking at the the movie at large, right, it's like they're not married, they may get at such a point that like Bernardo and Anita are together and they're not married. She's talking about having sex after the fight, which I thought was funny. She's like Bernardo gets so horny after a brawl, you're like and then they show her putting on lingerie and it shows many scenes, they're the only couple that like has a kiss and like are romantic to one another, but it's like Rita does such a good job, you're just in love with them. I'm like I'm just I'm rooting for Anita and Bernardo, I find their love story compelling. The best couple in the movie. Yeah, and then I will say this about, okay, I'm watching the 1961 version, I'm like everyone's ugly except for Rita Marino, I'm like wow, everyone is ugly, I'm watching 2021, I'm like all the Puerto Ricans are hot, I'm grateful that in 2021 they were like hot people will be in this movie and every you know most people were hot. We're not going to say Ansel Elgar's hot because he sucks and he's canceled, but I will say Bernardo in 2021, hot, I loved Ariana and Bernardo together and Anita and Bernardo together hot, hot, yeah incredible. I want to go back to the depiction of the jets and the sharks real quick. Obviously the animosity between them largely stems from the jets being racist toward the sharks and the sharks not standing for that treatment, but there's also societal prejudice against the jets because even though they are white Europeans, they are the children of immigrants from European countries that at the time were stigmatized in the US. So it's people of Irish, Polish, Italian descent and obviously the discrimination they experienced pales in comparison to the racism that the Puerto Rican characters would have experienced, the racism that black and brown people in general have always faced throughout the US and elsewhere, but what the movie doesn't seem to acknowledge at what I think the 2021 version could have maybe done more of, but doesn't really seem to do is that it's these two feuding groups of poor men, right? And we know that what usually is happening here is that it's poor white people buying into the propaganda that the reason that they're poor and miserable is because of immigrants from other places stealing their jobs. Yeah. Yeah. Again, this is not explicitly said in the movie, but this is like the context for why these things tend to happen. Poor white people buying into the propaganda that the American Empire has been pushing for a very long time so that they will target their frustration and anger against people of color and immigrants instead of fighting the people they should be fighting, which is obviously the rich ruling class. And that seems to be the basis of the brawl between the Jets and the Sharks. No of the adaptations seem to be... Well, I feel like most movies are not able to just say ACAB. And also to some extent, I do think, like, I don't know, while it would be awesome to see a multiracial coalition that unites to ruin the cops. I mean, I think we're seeing attempts at that right now in Minneapolis, and it's really, really exciting. But it is very rare. And was, for 1961, soft impressed at how the cops... I mean, the cops are more portrayed as like, oafish violent versus murderous violent in this, which I think is a very Hollywood-ified cop with doughnut kind of deal. Especially at that time, totally. But I did appreciate how Officer Shrek and Officer... America and Officer Krupke are numbers that are kind of in conversation with each other because they're talking a lot about how institutions view these groups, respectively. Officer Shrek literally says, at one point, I've got a badge, what do you have? He's like, I know it's a free country, but actually it's not. And get out of here. And he kicks the sharks out of the soda shop and hangs out with the white gang and says, guys, look, I'm rooting for you. You just got to work with me. And that is like a dynamic that very, very much exists, that I was kind of surprised and didn't fully remember, is just like pretty explicitly stated. Basically, every single time that character appears on screen, he is like, I hate all of you, but I hate the Puerto Rican gang much more. So if the white gang can just lay low enough, I will not give you trouble. Yeah, you don't bother me. I won't bother you. Exactly. Which is like a tacit understanding that exists between a lot of bodies of power. I've watched enough Chicago PD. Yeah. It is a real thing. And I don't know, especially in an over-the-top musical based on a Shakespeare play, it was not refreshing, but it was like, oh, that is like a weirdly grounded element of this movie. And that, you know, we see that the jets are openly racist, like constantly. And in Officer Kruppke, you do get some context for like, the jets are aware of how the cops view them and almost play that to their advantage sometimes to play to the cops, kind of like foolish, like they're making all of these racist assumptions about the sharks. But with the jets, they're like, oh, well, their parents are all at it, like all these classist assumptions of like their parents are, because I guess I was not entirely sure. I think I maybe interpreted it more as like sarcasm from the jets. Maybe I'm wrong. But that they're saying like, oh, all of our mothers are junkies. All of our fathers are drunks. Like we're mentally ill. We should be institutionalized. But I guess I interpreted that as them stating what the cops think of them, not what they're actually like. And we don't really get much background for what anyone's home life is like in this. So it's kind of hard to tell. But we know that like Maria comes from a very loving home, like we're not really led to believe that the struggle has to do with an abusive household that has to do with poverty and oppression. And so I don't know, it's not like a great portrayal of cops, but it wasn't as like reflexively defensive of cop. It wasn't pro cop, which is good. Like inherently good that it's not pro cop. Yeah, there are two rivalries in the movie. One is the sharks versus the jets. And the other one is the sharks and the jets versus the cops. And it's like, you guys, if you guys just use like 10% more your brain, you guys could have united on this front. But instead, you guys are like, well, we still got to kill each other and run away from the cops. Like, yeah, like no, kill, kill the cops together. Come on. Speaking of the officer kruppke song, which has a couple lyrics that are transphobic or queerphobic in some regard. Yeah, something like my sister wears a mustache, my brother wears a dress, whatever that's supposed to mean. Very like of the time, transphobic where it's like almost like incoherent. You're like, well, Caitlin, are you getting into that character? Because I actually don't have a lot. So I do want to talk about anybody's. Yes, we should. I don't have a lot of context. And I'm actually, I would love to hear what you guys found out about them, because I'm also lost here. Here is my take on the matter. So this character is portrayed quite differently from the 1961 film adaptation and the 2021 film adaptation. The way this character is framed in 1961 is that anybody's is a woman who wants to be a member of the jets and she's a tomboy, tomboy, queer coding possibly, but it's 1961. So they can't explicitly say anything. The other thing was that I saw that like, because this is not a character that's mapped on a Romeo and Juliet character. So everyone was like, who the hell is this? It was like said that at one point there was someone near the top of production for the Broadway show, who I had, unfortunately, I'm not a slate plus subscriber. So I now, now the article's paywall, but there is a great essay in slate by Isaac Butler that was published about what we're about to discuss, how West Side Story's anybody's went from a tomboy to a trans character. But that this character's origin appears to be that there was a butch lesbian who was at the top of production, and it was almost like an acknowledgement for her within the space of the play. But the origin of anybody's remains somewhat mysterious. And the characterization of the character is quite vague in the 1961 movie. Now in the 2021 version, anybody's is more explicitly identified as genderqueer, trans mask played by an actor named Iris Minas, who is non binary and trans mask. There's a particular scene in the 2021 version where the jets have been arrested and they're waiting at whatever like the precinct to get booked. And they're harassing anybody's one character in particular, I think it's the action care. I again, I lose track of almost everybody. But one character in particular is harassing anybody's in a very queer phobic way saying like, you're a freak, you're a girl stop pretending to be somebody that you're not. And then anybody's responds repeating several times, I'm not a girl, I'm not a girl, I swear to God, I'm not a girl, implying that this is a trans mask character. And I felt like it was handled in a way that felt appropriate for the time that this movie was set. You know, it's not like they're using like super modern language. Did you ever say Super Mario? Super Mario language. Oh, that they would. But no, like they weren't using, you know, the modern language and nuance that we have to discuss gender and gender queerness, because this is set in the 1950s, the character does have a small arc, which you see both in both versions where at some point toward the end, anybody's comes in and gives the jets a helpful piece of information. And then the character responds by saying like, you done good buddy boy. Yeah, which carries more meaning, I think in the 2021 version where a character is saying, like I see you as a girl as a mask person. Yeah, I don't think it comes from the same character who was harassing anybody's earlier. Did it need to that's up for debate, but because they all kind of were harassing them though. So it's like, yeah, you know, that's true. I don't think it matters which character comes from because it's like the group itself was being disrespectful and this was like the group accepting them. Yeah. Well, and another element of that character, and I'm only speaking to the 61 version that I thought was, I guess like what yes, particularly when the when the character was being framed more as as a tomboy and possibly queer coded is that even though you saw how anybody's was struggling and was being constantly dismissed within this hyper masculine group and you feel for them, they are also not allied with a woman as she's being assaulted. They're there. I think as we see happen all the time, allying with whiteness before other women and before they ally with women of color. And I don't know how like intentional that was because anybody's is very much in the room participating in the harassment and assault of Anita in the 61 version. Yeah. And I think in the 21, I can't remember honestly, I can't remember either because they did in the 21 version as a way to like create women solidarity, they did like kind of harass the jets, women's too and like force them out of the room and they were like, you get out of here and the women were like, no, don't hurt her, don't hurt her. And it felt a little random because you were like, well, in reality, I actually don't believe you guys would in 1950. Would this be like, I just, yeah, I don't know. Sometimes I again, that's, I think it's a, it's a sort of a thing that we're trying to figure out culturally of like, yeah, women can be wrong. Like, you know, and in fact, are constantly and it's okay to show that it's not misogynist to show a woman being hateful or wrong. Yeah. Cause it was like, she was hateful to Anita up until the moment they started getting violent. And then all of a sudden it was like, wait, wait, you're gonna hurt a woman. I can't just like spit on her and call her a spik. It's like, and you're like, wait, well, if you were willing to call her a spik, then you probably put on the pink pussy hat. Wait a second. No. You're like, hmm, like I don't think you would care if she's getting hurt. If you were willing to call her a slur. And obviously it's like, I'm not encouraging like hate crimes between women to be shown on screen work. But I do think that sometimes it feels a little like defensive and dishonest to, especially when it's like specifically being like a white woman in this situation would do the right thing. Because you know, that's, that is historically usually not true. It really is not the sure thing that it's often presented as. Yeah. Yeah. I think as there are other stuff that that Yolanda to touch on, I was like, this is, I think I've gone through everything in my gigantic encyclopedia. Yeah. I'm like looking at my notes. I feel pretty thorough. The last thing I want in this doesn't need to be a long conversation or anything, but I do want to point out the misogyny. I mean, we've already been talking about it, but like just the misogyny that the men from both groups display toward the women. I feel like it's focused on a little bit more with Bernardo, where there's a part where he's talking to Anita and she's like, choose between me or the war council meeting. And he says something like back home women knew their place. Or like with Maria, again, Bernardo, he's being protective. He's being perhaps overprotective of Maria. She's feeling controlled by him. And he says something like, well, when you're old and married and have five kids, you can tell me what to do. But right now it's the other way around. Yep. And Anita steps in and she's like, well, you know, she's, she's free to do whatever she wants, because this is America where everyone is free, which is a little bit what I was talking about earlier, where it's like, I do think there's this idea. I mean, I, I found that very truthful in a way where there is this ingrained, really toxic machismo, even to this day in Puerto Rico that we're fighting as women in Puerto Rico, that we do not have time to get into all the politics of that. But Femmecide is still very high in Puerto Rico. A lot of Puerto Rican men who are not working on themselves and liberation of Puerto Rico and things like that, like they are harming women. And I don't think Bernardo was harming the women in his life, but I don't think what he said is inaccurate to a family dynamic of a Puerto Rican family. Sure. Right. Cause multiple things can be true. These characters can be the recipient of prejudice and racism. And then they can also turn oppression onto the people around them. And that like there's very few cultures that patriarchal abuse and control is not a facet of. Right. And worth noting that this happens with white Americans all the time is that they will use that as an excuse. They will be like, well, this group of people are really horrible to women or they're really horrible to gay people. And that's why it's okay to genocide them. That's like the Israel playbook. Yeah. No, literally. And it's like, yeah. Well, that doesn't mean you deserve to be prejudiced towards everybody. And it's also like, well, look in the mirror, babe. Like, you're like, you would also kill me. Like, what, what are you talking? It's like, we saw the fight scene and they just shoved all the women out of the room and basically assaulted them too. So it's like, right. You guys are being just as bad to women. The hypocrisy is staggering. You're like, you're like, okay, we get it. Everyone hates women. Next. Like, it's, yeah. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. I, if the movie was trying to make me dislike Bernardo, I would say like, I've found him like, you know, he was being overly controlling and like, I understand as a teenager why you would be frustrated with him. But context, like in the context of the fact that Natalie would, first of all, supposed to be Puerto Rican, supposed to be a teenager. And like you said earlier, Becca is very new to a country that Bernardo is kind of seeing right through the promise of the American dream and doesn't want his sister's optimism and naivete taken advantage of, which it is. Like, they can't make me hate Bernardo. Yeah. Right. Well, and this is, I think contextualized a little bit more in the 2021 version, where it seems to be pretty widely known that the reason Tony is no longer a member of the Jets is because he went to prison for some time for beating and nearly killing a brown person. Yeah. Oh, that they had already gotten to a fight before they had had a rumble, maybe not with the shark specifically, but like, they had a rumble different, a different gang. Yeah. And they he beat a man to death. And then in this 2021 version, in the rumble, he almost beats Bernardo to death. But then Bernardo still ends up dying by knife instead. Right. Right. Right. Right. So the Jets had to be like, stop. So the backstory that like Tony almost killed a non white person seems to be something that like everyone knows about. And so Bernardo is like, he like this man is racist. Yeah. He is violent toward people who look like us. Maria stay away from him. And I think Bernardo even brings up in the 2021 version where he's like, Hey, like you went to prison and now you think you're cool with the Puerto Ricans because you were in prison with us. Like kind of something to that nature in the rumble when they were like head to head. And like Bernardo was like going at him and was trying to like provoke him, I guess, but it was like, he's not wrong. It's like, Oh, you went to prison and you like became reformed, I guess, like now you're not racist. Like Bernardo didn't believe that. Well, yeah, it's just like that also implies that prison works. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't know that was an adjustment for 2021. I mean, it sounds like 2021 was an attempt. And it wasn't an attempt. Yeah. And it was not a perfect attempt. But I gotta say, I'm not I haven't been really effectively sold of like, well, I gotta run. I gotta run and see this thing crawl. Don't walk. Well, I think there were some scenes that were great. But I do think there was a lot left to be desired. And I think a huge eyesore of it is the Anselt algorithm and all because it's like you can't be like, we're trying to like fix the racism of this movie and fix all these things with this movie and then hire a predator user. Yeah. And then I do remember the like whole the whole like Rachel Zegler, as she so often is, being like, how dare you speak to this man and press appearances. And I was like, that is not her call to make. And she's a kid, like she is being forced to make appearances with a predator, which question the system and not the teenage girl for once with the predator situation. I'm like, you guys hired a kid and he is like 28. It's like, we couldn't have fixed that either. We couldn't have hired another kid. I can't I just can't the yeah. I mean, we still live in hell. It's just different now. But yeah, that was pretty much all I had. Anything else for me? Oh, my God, I mean, we could keep going. But like, I know I'm like, again, but we've been on long enough. Yes, we I think we need to liberate ourselves from from the my last thing. It's a really quick, really silly one. But I was going to propose an alternate title for the movie, which is Shark Tail, or perhaps sharks. Shark tail. Shark tail. A shark's tail. An extremely shark tail movie. An extremely sharky movie. Wow. I love it. Thank you. Perfect. No notes. Yeah. Great. Well, that brings us to the Bechtel test. I know I was like, shit, I forgot about this part. Wait, hold on. Okay. I hate we were I will say we were all on it today. Let's see. I think that the okay, I'm gonna go to Bechtel test.com as we so often do. We forgot to do. I don't think they do. Here's what I've gathered. Maria and Anita, they talk about a dress. I actually do think that the dress, even though it is sort of laying out the Madonna horror dynamics between them, the dress conversation isn't a passing conversation. It is like, supposed to be telling us how we are perceiving Maria. She wants to grow up, but she's not going to be allowed to grow up. She still has to wear this girlish white dress. I feel like that is actually significant enough to warrant a pass. It is not a great pass. Yeah, I think it is a pass. No, because even like the song where the where Maria is singing about feeling pretty and all of her friends are there and almost everything is still in the context of like, I feel pretty because a white man told me I'm pretty or or just like very explicit conversations about either Tony or Bernardo. But yeah, I think there are at least a few brief exchanges where yeah, you could say it passes. But what about the Bechtelkast nipple scale where we write the movie on a scale of zero to five nipples based on examining it through an intersectional feminist lens? Uh oh, I don't know. It's not a high number. But I do know that a lot of people connected with this movie because it was sort of all the representation that there was for the time. I know that this movie both adaptations had performances, one from Rita Moreno as Anita that won her an Academy Award. Also shout out to her because she has e-gotted. Yes, one of the few. One of the few, but she Rita Moreno was the first Latina actress ever to win an Oscar. And then Ariana DeBose, who also won for playing Anita, was the first Afro Latina actor to win an Oscar as well as the first openly queer woman of color to win an Academy Award for acting. Which is amazing. And also that should be rewarded in their subsequent careers. Yes, precisely. So, you know, this is a groundbreaking movie in some ways, but obviously as we've talked about, still relied on many stereotypes, the nuances that could have been present in discussions about class and race, and all the other things that the movie examines just doesn't do it well because it was conceived of by white non-Portican Americans. So didn't really hit the mark. I'm going to give it one nipple with all of that in mind. Yeah, I guess I'll go one and a half for no reason at all. Because I know we have to wrap up. I'll go one and a half. I will give one to Rita Moreno. And I will give the other half to Chidi Rivera. Slay, I will give it also one and a half nipples because as much as I grew really fond of the movie revisiting it, I do think the 1961 version, you know, still represents women pretty poorly. I wish all the best for Rita Moreno because she did not deserve all that bullshit and all my nipples go to Rita Moreno. Yes. And best of luck to her and her recovering from Marlon Brando. Ultimately, this was about Marlon Brando's penis somehow. That's a lot of babies. I mean, it really is. And that is a conversation I want to have with you guys offline. I will, I can explain this. Please. Please. Well, Becca, thank you so much for joining us in this discussion. Thank you for having me. Yes. Congratulations on the new show. We're so excited. Yeah, working people. Listen, plug away. My first episode will be out February 3rd this past Tuesday. So listen, go check it out. This first episode is like very endearing to me because it's like a very intimate look at my life and my identity and like why I decided to do this project. Why, how I came to be, why am I questioning about my Puerto Ricanness? So yeah, check it out. Give me feedback. If you are Puerto Rican, I want to hear from you. Email us at welcometoabario.com. You can find me on all platforms using a podcast. You can follow our Instagram at welcometoabario. My Instagram is Bex, P-E-C-C-S Ramos. And yeah. Yay. Come back anytime. Thank you so much for returning. Yes. I love when we have a two-time guest and the movies could not be more different. So yes, another curveball next time. I am Hilo, baby. I will also watch horny, but also give you very thoughtful takes on Puerto Rican identity. She can do it all. And with that, we are going to what, stand in the middle of a basketball court and really reflect on the events of the last three hours. Bye. The Bechtel Cast is a production of iHeart Media, hosted and produced by me, Jamie Loftus. And me, Caitlin Durante. The podcast is also produced by Sophie Lichterman. And edited by Caitlin Durante. Ever heard of them? That's me. And our logo and merch and all of our artwork in fact are designed by Jamie Loftus. Ever heard of her? Oh my God. And our theme song, by the way, was composed by Mike Kaplan with vocals by Catherine Voskresensky. Iconic and a special thanks to the one and only Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit linktree slash Bechtel Cast. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.