Latest / The Bechdel Cast / West Side Story (1961) with Becca Ramos

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West Side Story (1961) with Becca Ramos · The Bechdel Cast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: On the Bechdel Cast.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: The questions asked if movies have.
• 0:04
  Speaker 3: Women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
• 0:08
  Speaker 3: or do they have individualism? The patriarchy, Zephy and Beast
• 0:12
  Speaker 3: start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.
• 0:22
  Speaker 4: This is how all podcast should start. Now, that's a
• 0:26
  Speaker 4: good way to sink audio is to do uh to
• 0:29
  Speaker 4: do the West Side wos. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like
• 0:33
  Speaker 4: that was a solid intro. We just did what the
• 0:35
  Speaker 4: movie did, right. I feel good about that.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: I feel great about it. Welcome to the Bechdel Cast.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: My name is Caitlin Derante.
• 0:44
  Speaker 4: My name is Jabie Loftus. This is our podcast where
• 0:46
  Speaker 4: we talk about your favorite movies using an intersectional feminist
• 0:52
  Speaker 4: lens and the Bechdel Test as a jumping off point
• 0:56
  Speaker 4: for discussion. But Caitlin, what is the Bechdel Test? Please
• 0:59
  Speaker 4: tell me for the five probably literally the five hundredth time.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Probably yes, yes. The Bechdel Test is a media metric
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: created by a dear friend of ours, Alison Bechdel. We
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: go way back with her last year to last year.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: It appeared in her comic Dykes to Watch out For
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: in the eighties. Originally also known as the Bechdel Wallace test.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: It has many versions of it. The one that we
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: use is this, do two characters of a marginalized gender
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: have names? Do they speak to each other? And is
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: there conversation about something other than a man? Also, we
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: like it when it's like narratively meaningful dialogue and not
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: just like throw away nonsense.
• 1:42
  Speaker 4: It can't be about Tony as the point, we cannot
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: be talking or Bernardo about Tony or Bernardo and we're
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: gonna encounter some challenges this week. Were to encounter some
• 1:53
  Speaker 4: challenges this week, but we have. I mean I was
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: talking with someone about the podcast yesterday as I've as
• 1:59
  Speaker 4: I've been known to do. Oh sure, a friend of
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: his show, Michael Hobbs, and he was saying he was like, oh,
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: it must be like hard after almost ten years to
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: keep finding, you know, new movies. And I was like,
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: you would be surprised at like how many movies have
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: been made and just like I don't know, there's no
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: telling why, Like there's just some movies we haven't gotten
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: to or like we there was a re release or
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: a remake and it just didn't happen. I don't know
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: all I had to say today is a movie that
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: is probably one of the most famous movies that exists,
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: and here we are covering it ten years later. Yeah,
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: all I had to say podcast life is long, baby.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, we're talking about West Side Story nineteen
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: sixty one, the original film adaptation. Here to talk about
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: this movie with us is a cherished guest. She's the
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: producer of some of your favorite podcasts such as Last Cult, Trista's,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: The Daily Zeitgeist and Mess. And she's the host of
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: the new podcast Welcome to El Barrio. And you remember
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: her from our episode on Magic Mike XXL. Never forget.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: It's Becca Ramos.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Hello, God back a coveted stop on my press tour,
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: the Bechtel Cast. I'm so excited to be back and
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: to be here.
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: Welcome back.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: It's great to have you here.
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: Before we before we get into the rich text that
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: is West Side Story, I want to know more about
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: the podcast all us about Welcome to El Barrio.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: Yes, so, Welcome to a Barrio is a podcast about
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: all things Puerto Rico, where I interview notable port riquas,
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: whether they are artists, taste makers, community leaders, musicians, et cetera.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: About you know what they are doing to redefine what
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: it means to be Puerto Rican, Puerto Rican, not Puerto Rico.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: And you know with the host by the end of
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: every episode that all the listeners feel a little bit
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: close to boring matter where they are in the world.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: So I'm so excited to be doing it. It's been
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: like five years in the making, from like inception of
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: idea to like it live, So it's crazy. It's like
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: I've been working on this for so long and it's like,
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: oh my got a doubt.
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: Here, it is here, it is. Congratulations, that's so exciting.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: Thank you. We got our first few episodes already recorded.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: I just finished doing the first episode, which is a
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: narrative style episode, kind of giving everybody a taste of
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: what the show will be and why am I doing
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: it and why now. I think a lot of people
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: right now are assuming maybe this podcast is coming out
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: because of Bad Bunnies Rise, but that's not true. We
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: are more than Bad Bunny, as much as we love him,
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: and so it's a little bit of an introduction to me.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: And then the rest is going to be talk show,
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: chat show, and we have already three episodes recorded. I
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: went to Puerto Rico to record them, which was like
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: really fun and very like exciting.
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: But yeah, oh, congratulations, and also so silly that anyone
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: would be like, oh because bad bunny and you're.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: Like and you're like, yeah, he's one guy, but you know,
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: the island has existed for centuries, so great god.
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: But but but just one guy?
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: But just one guy?
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: People love to say, is it because of one guy?
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: The answer is never.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: Yet They're like, he's the most famous guy though, and
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: I'm like no, no, no, I mean.
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: Yes, but no. Well, congratulations, we can't wait to listen.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: And we wanted to talk about a movie today that
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: that is in conversation with the topic of your podcast,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: hence West Side Story. So Becca, tell us about your
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: relationship with this film.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: Well, you know what's funny you guys, hopefully you can
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: hear me over my two loud hot dogs. But uh,
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: what I find interesting is that I thought you guys
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: had covered when I had pitched a bunch of Puerto
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: Rican movies. I was like, yeah, but they've already done
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: West Side Story, like obviously shocking.
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: I don't, I honestly don't. I feel like it's a
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: movie we've almost covered several times and it just is
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: like never made someone's final pick. I don't know why.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but to say my history, this is a movie
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: that I feel like, if you are Puerto Rican, if
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: you grew up, you know, with very Puerto Rican parents,
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: They're like, yeah, and West Side Story it's, you know,
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: a historical text of our culture. And I'm like, okay, yeah.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: And I remember my dad because he's a big movie buff.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: It's probably where I got my love for movies. He
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: also loves old Hollywood shit, and so he made me
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: sit down and watch this among like Bush Cassidy and
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: The Sun Dance Kid and like things like that nature
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: And I remember watching it and being a little bored
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: the first time I watched it as a kid, but
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: then since then, I went and saw it with my
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: family the twenty twenty one you know redo, and I
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: remember having lots of complicate feelings about that version, but
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: upon this rewatch, I have grown a lot of love
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: for both versions of the movie and it's place in
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: Puerto Rican history at large. And I actually, you know
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: what's funny, I asked my parents what their history with
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: the movie was, because all I knew was like, this
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: is a strong movie my Household, but I couldn't remember
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: for the life of me why it mattered to my parents.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: And my mom actually sent a voice note and I
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: honestly forgot to listen to it before this. But my
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: dad sent an email which was very.
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: Long, strong multimedia family.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: You know, my dad is a man of literature. He
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: loves to write, and let me see if I can
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: do a little summary of it for you, because I
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: thought it was like very sweet, because he's a man
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: of few words in person, but in email he loves
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: to write a lot yapper. He's a yapper.
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: There's many dads that I've like, really come alive in
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: an email.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: They're just like I can never express to you how
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: much I love you in person, but I will write
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: you a lovely letter.
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, just kind of nice, which.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: Is beautiful, but as I'm like skimming it, it is long.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: But essentially, my dad is somebody who he never really
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: identified with his Puerto ricaness. He's not, which is why
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: I actually was shocked he loved the movie so much
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: because he's not a proud Puerto Rican like my mom is.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: But I guess like when he was young, this is
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: like one of the few movies. His cousin took him
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: to who had moved in with him for the summer,
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: and it was like one of the first pieces of
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: media that he saw Puerto Ricans portrayed in and it
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: was such a successful movie that he really fell in
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: love with it and was like one of the first
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: and only times he felt proud to be Puerto Rican
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: was watching this movie. So he also grew up in
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: La so big movie town obviously, and I think being
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: in La when you don't have a Portrican community, there's
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: not a large community. He didn't identify with the Chicano
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: Comunity too much either, so I think this was just
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: like one of his first moments where he was like,
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: oh my god, there's me. Representation matters.
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: Wow, that's so lovely. Yeah, it's so interesting listening to
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: especially people who were like alive when it came out
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: or even like pre the twenty twenty one movie coming out,
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: because there is like such a specific relate, like it's
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: a very individual relationship that people formed this movie, and
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: it seems like specifically Puerto Rican Americans where where there's like,
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: I mean, there's like a Lin Manuel Miranda connection all
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: I mean, all over this musical he like, oh yeah
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: translated lyrics in two thousand and nine, to have Spanish
• 9:37
  Speaker 4: lyrics on stage all this stuff.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: But you can hear some of the music is also
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: like I know, I don't think he taunted as like
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: the composer, but you can hear like I'm like, oh,
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: I hear in the Heights in some of these songs
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: in the twenty nine one.
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: Version, ot yeah, and like the visual influence is like
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: very clear. Twenty twenty one was a very interesting year
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: for movie musicals that starred Puerto Rican characters. It was like,
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: because we still haven't covered In the Heights. I think
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: because we were sort of trying to give some time
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: because it was such a fraught conversation going on around colorism,
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: rightfully so at the time that we still were still
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: waiting to cover it. But I mean in the same
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: year that Steven Spielberg directs West Side Story, which was
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: the conversation all its own and you know, beautiful movie.
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: But why you know all this stuff? And wasn't it
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: was John cho who directed In the Heights.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: I believe, right, I have so many thought's why I
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: put on my list. I was like that one I
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: have a lot of thoughts on John two yeah, John Chu, Slade, wicked, obvi, Slade,
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: crazy rich Asians.
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: But Slade step up two yeah, three yeah, and.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: Justin Bieber's documentary question.
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: A generational artist.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: But but this was not I think. I think he
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: was set up for failure in a way, and I
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: was actually shocked. And this is obviously a discussion to
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: come back on for In the Heights later, But I
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: was shocked Lynn didn't directed himself, because later I think
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: that year he directed Tictik Boom as his directorial debut.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: So I was like, yes, you were already putting your
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: hat in the director ring. Why didn't you just direct it?
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: I was also confused. I wonder, I don't know. I
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: was also sort of confused at that. But he gave
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: an interview around I think it was for a documentary
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: release about Rita Moreno, around the time that the re
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: release came out in twenty twenty one, talking about the
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: first time he saw Westside Story, and it sounds very
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: similar to your dad's anecdote where he was, you know,
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: saying like he saw for the first time on VHS
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: when he was twelve and was like shocked that the theme
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: of being Puerto Rican was explored at all, and yeah
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: it was like, you know, like flawed but exciting, and yes, yeah,
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: it's it's interesting here. And then you hear the total
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: opposite of Puerto Rican viewers who are like, I hated
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: it from moment one because brown face, and you're like, yes, it's.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: Like such a caricature of the Puerto Rican identity for sure.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: And I think I always felt complicated about that because
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: I watched it and I was like, huh. But now
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: that I am like doing the show and I've done
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: a lot of research for this episode and I now
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: watched both of them back to back, I was like, Okay,
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: I see both sides of this conversation. I see why
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: the generation before us loved and hated it, because there
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: are people of my dad's generation that were like, this
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: is awful. And when the Broadway musical came out, like
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: on Broadway, it was obviously very poorly received by Puerto Ricans,
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: but I do think because it was it was truly
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: white people in brown face, like it was vaudeville. You know,
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: there were no Puerto Rican actors doing any of the
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: roles when it was on Broadway. But then in the
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: movie production. They had at least like a couple latinos.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: They had to rita moreno, but like you know, it
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: was just like a slight sup from what was on Broadway.
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I was. I mean, researching what the original Broadway
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: production is like is pretty horrific. Yeah, and as well
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: as I mean, we'll talk about this later in the episode,
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: but specifically how the song America was like revised and
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: revised and it's kind of still being revised is frustrating
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: and fascinating to learn about. Yeah, have you ever seen
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: it on stage? I've never. I think I haven't seen
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: a high school production of it.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: They I'm from Texas, so they did not care to
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: do this in any of our high school productions. I mean,
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: I wasn't a theater kid, but I had a lot
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: of theater friends, so I would go see all of
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: their shows. But I remember our town being a big one.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: I don't remember the other few that they did, but
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: it was never West Side, and even at Baylor, where
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: it is a big theater arts program at Baylor, we
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: never did it at Baylor either won or why shocker,
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: So I had never seen it and they only revived
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: it recently when the twenty twenty one came out, but
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: I didn't get a chance to see it here in
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: New York. So no, I haven't seen it, but I would.
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: Love to, Kitlyn. What is your history with West Side Story?
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. I saw it for the first time
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: during either during the great Caitlin movie binge of two
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: thousand and five, or I also did a smaller movie
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: binge in like two thousand and three when I was
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: still in high school and I was like deciding that
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: I wanted to be a film major and I have
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: to watch some movies to prepare for that. I think
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: it might have been then. Whatever. Either way, it's like
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: been twenty or more years since I've seen it, and
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: I didn't quite realize this until I rewatched to prep
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: for this episode. But almost every song in this movie
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: is so entrenched in the zeitgeist.
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: Yea.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: They were all very, very familiar to me, and I
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: was like, oh, I didn't even realize that that song
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: was from this I feel pretty musical. I didn't remember
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: that at all. That was the one that I was like,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: wait a minute, that's from What Side Story?
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, So it's weird. It's like seeing the Nutcracker
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: and you're like, wait, I know all of these Yeah,
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: I didn't realize.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right, So that was you know, that was kind
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: of a pleasant surprise. But listeners of the podcast might
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: know this, But I'm not the biggest musical head, so
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: I tend not to seek them out, or if I
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: do watch them. It's kind of that one time. Although
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: I did see the twenty twenty one Spielberg adaptation when
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: it came out, and I was like, why is the
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: lighting in this movie so weird? Why am I watching
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: all these people dance all the time?
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: Why am I looking at angel El's court the al.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sex criminal ansel El Gordon.
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: I I do appreciate that at very least he has
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: sort of been removed from the culture, it seems like,
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: to the point where I no longer know his name. So,
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: you know, good job everyone, good job.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, he wasn't good enough for people to want
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: to keep him around, so they were like, Okay, you're
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: getting canceled, we can just let you go.
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Also totally forgot that the guy from Challengers Mike Face.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Mike Feist.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah Feist?
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: Is is it East? I'm not sure.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: I have no idea how to.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: Know either way, he stole the show.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: He is he is so great casting and I have
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: some notes about the twenty twenty one version, but most
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: of this episode will be focused on the nineteen sixty
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: one adaptation, just because.
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: There's so much, Like I feel we should almost do
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: an entirely separate episode about Toy Toy one, but we
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: should talk about like some of the adaptation changes and
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: stuff for sure.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: But yeah, that's pretty much my history. It has catchy songs,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: and those are the main things that I remembered about it.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: But as we've been saying, it's a rich text and
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: there's a lot to discuss, So I'm excited to get
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: into it. Jamie, what is your relationship with West Side Story?
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: Nothing and a lot, I feel like, definitely. I remember
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: seeing this movie for the first time in middle school
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: with a very impactful music teacher. I had missus Vallani
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: shout out to her. She showed it to us during class,
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: and I think, similar to you, Becca, I was like,
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: this is long. This is very long.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: It's three hours and there's an intermission built into the movie.
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and for that reason, I'm sure it took us
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: like four school days to watch. And I was sort
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: of like, sure, right now. I definitely saw a community
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: production of it as a kid that I don't recall,
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: and then I didn't see it for a long time.
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: I actually I will out myself as I have done
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: a lot of research about the spielbrain adaptation. I still
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: haven't seen it. That's okay, But I am a member
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: of Rachel z Eggler Nation. Proud member of Rachel z
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: Eglar Nation. Yes, but yeah, I haven't seen the new one.
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: But I did get a chance last year to see
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: I'm a big read a Marino fan. I got to
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: interview her five years ago and it was like one
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: of the highlights of life. She's so amazing. And last year,
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: my friend works at the Academy Museum in LA and
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: got us tickets to see West Side Story with Rita
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: Moreno introducing it, and it was so wonderful. It was
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: a great I mean, I definitely liked it a lot
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: better seeing it in a huge theater because it was
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: both Rida Moreno and Tony Oh my god, Tony who's
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: also in Twin Peaks. Richard Bamer was there and at
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: the time, yeah, and he's still alive, but he and
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: Rida Moreno had this very sweet dynamic. I guess they've
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: been friends for like our parents' entire lifetimes. Riada Moreno
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: is so funny, and I mean, we'll talk about this
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: as we get into the discussion, but I really appreciate
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: how she I don't know, I feel like she's really
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: able to hold a lot of truths at once when
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: it comes to this movie. She is not shy about
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: talking about the obvious glaring issues with this movie of
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: the aggressive use of brown face. She had a lot
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: of comments on stage this time, I believe, in like
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: over the years, about how the scene with Anita Layt
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: in the movie where she's assaulted by the Jets, how
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: that personally affected her. But the most impactful part of
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: the discussion to me was when apropos of Nothing. In
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: the middle of this talk back, where she was talking
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: about West Side Story in a way that i'd heard
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: her talk before, she randomly brought up that she had
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: fucked Marlon Brando and his dick was huge. Oh, I
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: have a lot.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: I have a lot to add to that discussion on
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: the Marlon Brando of it all because I just read
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: her memoir.
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: Oh my god, there is It's like.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: It's like girl at ninety years old, my love, I
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: let it go.
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: She is still she's still hung up.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: We get we'll get into that, but like I'm like,
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: I have so much knowledge right now about it. It's crazy.
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: Please I want I haven't read her memory yet. But
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: it was so funny because everyone was like, wait, what
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: question prompted this anecdote?
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: Like she if she can, she will. She's like, and
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: the love of my life, even though I was married
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: to a man for fifty something years and have my
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: child with them. I love Marlon Brando, and you're like,
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: you're liked Moreno, he did not love you that way, Like.
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: Oh, but that's the But isn't that the one you
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: end up hung up on? Too bad for her? I
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: know I was that. I looked up her like her
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: mar I was like, oh and she was married for
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: so long. He did not come up.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: No, she's truly like, that's my daughter's father, and that's it.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: I might have been married to him, but that's my
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: that's my daughter's father, not my husband.
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, my husband was a beard for Marlon Brando.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: Basically, it's like in Titanic when old Rose is like
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: my husband, who I only care about? Jack? Dawson.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: No, it literally is like that, except it's more romantic
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: in Titanic because Jack Dawson obviously loved her and Marlon
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: Brando abused read.
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: Morne for yeah like a dad man, And I do
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: reck recommend it's a rare experience, but I do recommend
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: the version of watching was Eel White gets so much
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: better if Riedom Morano talks about Marlon Brando's penis immediately
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: before it starts. That was the most recent time I
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: had seen it. And yeah, I mean I am able
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: to appreciate a lot of this movie. I love a musical.
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: It's beautiful. It's likeaful, colorful Riadom Moreno steals the show.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: Steals the show.
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: I do you know. I will always feel that Natalie
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: Wood and Richard Bahmer, bless their hearts, are stinking up
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: the place. Well, we'll obviously be talking in depth about
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: the use of brown face throughout the history of this production.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: And I have some notes on her on Natalie Wood's racism.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: That's from Riadam Morino's book.
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: Really okay. Yeah, So, in spite of the fact that
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: the two leads, I will say are very poorly cast
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: for multiple reasons, the supporting cast is wonderful and I
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: appreciate it with many asterisks, and I'm excited to talk
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: about it.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, indeed. Well let's take a quick break and
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: then we'll come back for the recap. We're back. I
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: wonder how that's going to actually.
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: Sound on the recording on the zoom.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: So it's like, yeah, we can hear it in your
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: mic probably, but not in our minds.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: We're like, yes, exactly, uh huh, I did it perfectly,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: just so you know. Okay, here's the story. We open
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: on a street gang of young men slash. Are they teenagers?
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: They're like c W. I think that I like the
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: CW casting here where everyone's like kind of forty.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: Everyone's definitely at least thirty, because Rita Moreno's thirty yea
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: at this time.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: So but they're playing like sixteen, eighteen, maybe early twenties.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: It's all like very young, so right, Yeah, anyway, this
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: street gang of men are snapping their fingers and dancing
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: their way through New York City. Ever heard of it?
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: These are the jets.
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: I love the snaps. The snaps are iconic.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: Yes, they are white men. An unsettling number of them
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: are blonde.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: Which is purposeful, mind you that was a casting choice. Yeah.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: Their leader is Riff, played by Amber Tamblin's dad.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, wow, I didn't know that she was
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: a Nippo baby.
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: It's a it's yeah, I guess if you don't know
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: about nineteen fifties Broadway star Russ Hamblin, it's a not starter.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: And then a few others. We meet our characters named nice,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: horrible name with the current affiliation. There's a character named Action.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: There's a character with a name that I don't even
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: want to say because it's a slur for Arab people.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: Not sure what's happening there anyway? Are those are the jets?
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: They encounter various members of the Sharks, a group of
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: Puerto Rican men, and as we've alluded to several times already,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: it is a lot of white actors in brown face.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: Can I know which ones are actually Puerto Ricanan not?
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: Yes? Yes, please?
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: Okay? So Chino who is Jose de Vega. He is
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: not Puerto Rican, but he is Colombian and Filipino. He's
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: one of the few actual men of color in the Sharks.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: Him Rogers Loco is Puerto Rican and he's from Junko's
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: which is where Rita Moreno's from. Oh and the main
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: Shark though Bernardo he is actually Greek and he played
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: a riff in the West Side Story Broadway production, so
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: they literally just like race traded him and brown faced
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: him and they're like, you could be Bernardo and.
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: He won an oscar, and he won an Oscar for it.
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: Which is the amount of times the Oscars have awarded
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: performances of this nature is I mean, in like just
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: openly offensive performances still happens, Still happens. I'm looking at you,
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: Eddie redmain Danish girl still happens to this day. Yeah.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: So the thing about the Jets and the Sharks is
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: that they are rivals. You might even call it a
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: heated rivalry.
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: But I do reely well, I mean, this is like
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: what there's in the twenty thousand things that are to
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: talk about in this movie, the like top gun nature
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: to the fraternal like the fraternal nature of the gangs,
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: like there there is some eroticism. This was written by
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: will not shock you or anyone if you don't know
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: that this was a musical written by white gay guys.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: Yes correct at the time closeted and therefore they were,
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: from what I read, exercising some of their own issues
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: through the text.
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: Yes, yes, yeah.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: So the point is the Jets and the Sharks are rivals,
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: kind of like the Capulets and the Montagues. What is
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: this a Romeo and Juliette adaptation, except in this case
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: one group is very racist toward the other group, and
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: you can guess which. So they're like on the same
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: playground or some They're in the streets together and they
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: are dance fighting for a while until a couple of
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: cops show up. This is Lieutenant Shrank, and I'm like,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: Lieutenant sure.
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: Crack, there's not the only shark connection reaction to this,
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: because I feel like we have to have brought this
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: up at some point. Rachel Zegler iconically, when she got
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: the part of Maria in the twenty twenty one version,
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: they wanted her to start filming and she's like, well,
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: I have to finish starring as Princess Fiona in my
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: high school's production of musical and then I'll join your
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: little movie, Steven Spielberg. She's so awesome.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: I did not know that. That's amazing. Yeah, wow, shout
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: out Rachel Zegler a very outspoken pro Palestine advocate.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: Yes, which I'm a fan of Rachel Zegler as a person.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: I will say, did not like her as Maria, and
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: that's a conversation for later. But I'm like, I'm a
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: fan of her, but I just don't think she was
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: quite right for the part. I think people are very
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: wrapped up in her vocals, which are, no question, some
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: of the best vocals out there, right, and they were
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: incredible in the movie. But I don't think she was
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: a good Maria. And we can have that just later.
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: And I'm so curious for your thoughts. Yeah, I still haven't.
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: I still haven't seen her as Maria, but she does
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: have perfect politics and is a podcast listener. She's like,
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: yeah on blank fan of you, Rachel Zegler, Yeah, she
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: should come on our show. Yeah, but I'm I'm excited
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: to talk about the twenty twenty one version. Interesting.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: Okay, so it's Lieutenant Shrek.
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's Shrek, and Shrek is a bad man.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: He's a really bad man. Yeah, and we'll talk about
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: the character's relationship to the police in this movie, because
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: I think it's quite interesting.
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: I think it's more it's way more nuanced that I
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: recalled Yes, yeah, for sure.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: So so it's Lieutenant Shrank and Officer kup Key. They
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: show up to try to like kind of break up
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: the dance fight, but the various members of the two
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: gangs refuse to rat on each other, and one of
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: them even suggects that it was the cops who injured
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: one of the Jets. So the Jets and the Sharks
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: say a cab.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: They said a cab street rules.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the cops were like, stop you guys, stop it,
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: and then they eventually leave.
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: Also, in this version of New York, if only it
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: were real, there's two cops.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: There's there's only two cops that are following this specific
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: gang around. They're like, I'm with you.
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we're racist too. The other officer, Kraftkey, reminded me
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: of Kronk from Emerson Group. He's just like not a
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: thought in this man's head. Many such cops.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: He's just bully. He's just like, yeah, hey, guys, stuck
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: it off.
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: Knock it off.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: Yes. So the cops eventually leave, and the Jets wonder
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: what to do about the Sharks quote unquote encroaching on
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: their turf riff. The leader of the Jets, announces the
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: they should have one huge fight, a big rumble, a
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: fight to end all fights with the Sharks. But first
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: they need to negotiate with the Sharks about the terms
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: of this rumble. So Riff goes to Tony, who used
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: to be a Jet, and Tony is still friends with them,
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: but he's like not really involved and they are gang
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: activities anymore.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: They do not give enough backstory as to like why
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: and like what happened, which twenty twenty one version tries
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: to revise.
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: But yeah, correct, I feel like, yeah in sixty one,
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: it's just like he's like I'm kind of over it.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, you're like, that's not how gangs work.
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: Really, it's my part time job now, guys. Sorry. Yeah.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: Uh So he's out of the group, but Riff wants
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: to rope him back in and if he loves Tony,
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: he's like he's basically like, hey, babe, want to go
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: to the dance with me tonight. I from the and
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: start a War.
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: I do really like the Tony's first song. There's like
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: this something that I think this this movie does really
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: well is like very like romanticizes and captures naive optimism
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: and love and I like that first Tony song and
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: I like the dance scene for that reason.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so Tony reluctantly agrees to join this negotiation. But
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: again with Tony, he's more of a lover than a fighter,
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: and he's talking about how he's been yearning for something
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: and maybe that's something is the love of a woman,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: and maybe that woman is Maria, who we cut too.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: She is played by Natalie wood Oops, another white person
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: in brown face.
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: Who, as is very common at this time, is not
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: singing her own role. So there's the only justification for
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: her play this role is that she was famous at
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: the time.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah right, Yeah, So Maria is getting ready for the dance.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: She is Bernardo's sister who has recently arrived in New
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: York from Puerto Rico. She's hanging out with her friend
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: Anita played by Rita Marino, who is dating Bernardo. Maria
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: is supposed to marry or she's like kind of been
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: linked up with this guy named Chino, one of the Sharks,
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: but she's not thrilled about it, which.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: Some insight on why they probably named him Chino specifically
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: based on who they casted. I don't I mean I
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: don't know if they had this thought with the actual
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: Broadway production, but in a lot of like Latino communities,
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: they will give you a nickname based on like a
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: characteristic of you. And I'm assuming they casted a Filipino
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: and Latino actor because Chino usually means that person is Asian,
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: so they were probably like, he's Chinese and Puerto Ricans,
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: so we call him Gino.
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: Interesting, Okay, interesting? Yeah, there were certain nicknames throughout the
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: Jets and Sharks that I was like, I don't know
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: if there is a ground for this or if it
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: is just like vaguely racist free form jazz.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: It's a little bit of both, because it's like Gino
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: could be like some racist shit the white people wrote,
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: because that's why I'm like, I don't know how much
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: historical contacts they have, but it's also not out of
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: character for Latino communities, Like I was called Laka my
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: whole life because I was like the skinny cousin, you know,
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: So yeah, it's partially that. Oh sure.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: So then we cut to the dance. The Jets and
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: the Sharks are both there because her four be damned.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: When there's a school dance to be had, you gotta
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: dance and this means another dance fight. Although okay, so
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: in this movie there are fight dances and then there
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: are dance fights. Yes, and there are two different things. Yes,
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: this you know when you see it's precisely this is
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: an example of a dance fight.
• 34:04
  Speaker 4: It's so good.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: I love like this is one of my favorite scenes.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: It's so fun. It's so like old Hollywood, but like
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: the best parts of old Hollywood where people really like
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: were like focused on their craft and they were dancers
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: and they were singers and their actors, and it's like
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: the colors and the editing. It's you see readA Morino
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: really shine like as a dancer here, it's like good. Oh,
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: it's so good.
• 34:27
  Speaker 4: It's so cool. Like and the Jerome Robins choreography, Yes,
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: so beautiful for those that are locked into Jerome Robin's culture.
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: He directed and was an iconic choreographer. I feel like
• 34:39
  Speaker 4: he's like kind of on par with Bob Fosse for
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: like the most influential choreographers of like the twentieth century.
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: He did on The Town, Peter Pan, The King and I,
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: The Pajama Game, West Side Story, Fiddler on the Roof.
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: He won two oscars.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: He's just like incredible.
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: The dance fights and the fight dances are just undeniable.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: Very well choreographed.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: So at the dance, Maria and Tony meet and they
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: go hubba hubba a wooga and they fall immediately in love.
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: I love the editing. They're so in love, you're like, and.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: They're about to kiss, but Bernardo butts in and separates them,
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: being like, stay away from my sister. Thus the forbidden
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: Romeo and Juliet esque love story. Then Riff and Bernardo
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: make arrangements to have their rumble negotiation meeting that night
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: at midnight, So everyone leaves the dance. Tony heads home.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: He's singing about how much he loves Maria. He just
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: met a girl named Maria.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: Well yes, yeah, say loud and there's music playing, say
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: it softly and it's almost like pray.
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: I really so good. This musical really captures falling in love.
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: It's so sweet. This reminded me a lot of because
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: Stephen Sondheim wrote the lyrics for these songs. Yes, and
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: it's very similar to another song he writes later in
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: Sweeney Todd Joanna, which is basically the same song but
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: different where he's like, I feel you Joa No, Like,
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: it's just like I just met a woman and now
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: I'm screaming her name in the streets. It's a vibe.
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: I like it. It's like, oh, yeah, I guess this.
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: Sondheim was like, uh, so you meet a lady and
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: it feels a little something like this.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: Well, it's funny that you say that. This movie like
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: captures falling in love, and it's nice because the cynic
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: in me. I was like, Oh, these characters have known
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: each other for two days and they're already so obsessed
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: with each other that they're willing to die for each other.
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: That's Shakespeare.
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: The kids, It's exciting, like, that's.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: The exact thing, that is what Shakespeare did. It was like,
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: what three days and all of them happens in Yeah.
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: I mean, at least Natalie Wood isn't a twelve year old,
• 36:58
  Speaker 4: you know, there's true.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I agree watching this version, you are kind
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: of like, oh, I feel like I will give the
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty one credit. I feel like they gave a
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: little bit more for them to like fall in love,
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: at least a little bit.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: More talking I don't know, and then other characters being
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: like you've known him for a day.
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah, like ohous.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: I don't like when movies do that. I feel like
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: that started in like when Frozen did that where it's
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: like you have to like call out this like romantic narrative.
• 37:27
  Speaker 4: I don't know, I'm I'm hopeless romantic mode. But whenever
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: something like that is happening in a movie and someone's
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: like record scratch, Wait a second, you just met, I'm
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: like shot at a movie.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: I'm the one. I'm the one making the record scratch
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: because I'm.
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: Just like it's ridiculous and I'm saying, shut the hell up,
• 37:44
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna go have sex, like I think it's exciting.
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: It's less like I feel like in this nineteen sixty
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: one version it works for me because it is so
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: shot like an actual play, whereas they do actually in
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: the nineteen or nineteen the twenty between one version, they
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: try to make it a movie, and I do think
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: that's way more different in the two, whereas like I
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: can I'm like I'm in the world in the nineteen
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: sixty one one because You're like this is a play,
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: like it actually looks like I'm watching something on Broadway.
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: But the twenty Tway one. They're trying to like world,
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: build it more and it feels like a feel more
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: like sense. Yeah, so then I'm kind of taken out
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: of it a little more in the twenty tway one version,
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: which is.
• 38:26
  Speaker 4: Wild too because in the I didn't know there's a
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: I feel like we cite her on the show pretty frequently.
• 38:31
  Speaker 4: There's a b kind rewind video essay that sort of
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: compares the two versions and like how the productions were
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: very different and all that, and this movie was considered
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: to be very It feels like ridiculous to say if
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: it was considered to be very gritty in comparison to
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: other musicals of the time. Yeah, because it was actually
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: shot outside and like not completely on a sound stage,
• 38:54
  Speaker 4: but it looks so Broadway. I don't know, it looks
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: like a broad Bay set. It's shocking that it is not.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: But also most of it is on a Broadway set
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: from what I write. So I was like, what they
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: shot two scenes outside and you're calling it gritty.
• 39:07
  Speaker 4: It's just like the beginning basically, and they're like, never
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: been done before, it's filthy.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: Okay, sure, yeah, Okay, So Tony is in love with
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: Maria and Maria is in love with Tony. Meanwhile, the
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: Sharks talk about the racial prejudice they face, how they
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: are treated horribly by white people. This is the scene
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: where they sing I like to be in America, which
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: okay by me and.
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: America, well we'll sidebar on that yes song, which is
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: the whole episode in and of.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: It's unpacked there. Yeah, Tony goes to Maria's apartment, but
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: like the outside balcony part, and they sing at each
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: other again. They're obsessed with each other. They make plans
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: to meet up again the following night, MEANWHI. While the
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: Jets are waiting for the Sharks to show up for
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: this negotiation, they're hanging out at this little store owned
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: by a guy named Doc. There are also a few
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: women there, like the women who pile around with the.
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: Jets, the groupies kind of right.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: We've got Graciela Velma and a character named Anybody's who
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: we will talk about, and we see the various men
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: be sexists toward these young women. Then that cop officer
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: Krupke shows up again and hassles the Jets, so they
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: sing a song about him and about how society perceives
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: them as delinquents. Then the Sharks finally show up and
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: they agree to do a fight tomorrow after dark under
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: the Highway, where the best fighter from the Jets and
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: the Sharks will go against each other. It's Bernardo versus Ice,
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: but Bernardo was hoping to fight Tony since he's been
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: noodling with his sister Maria.
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: And objectively would be pretty easy to be in the flight.
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he's got a very punishable face.
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: He does. He does. You're like, yeah, of course you
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: want to beat this guy.
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: Then Lieutenant Shrank or whatever shows up, wanting to know
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: the details of the fight, but once again they all
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: refuse to talk. They do not cooperate with the cops.
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: Then we have the intermission cut to the next day.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: Maria is with her friends. She sings, I feel pretty,
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: so pretty, and then she finds out from Anita that
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: there's a big rumble that night between the Sharks and
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: the Jets. So when Tony up a little bit later,
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: Maria asks him to go and stop it, so he
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: heads out, but not before they sing what I'm Sorry
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: I think is a very boring song.
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: Yes, okay, I actually really like this song. I think
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: it's like really cute and fun and funny that they're like,
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: oh my god, like look at our little wedding.
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: I love them. I love how that scene looks.
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: Yes, cute. I think it adds levity to this story
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: that like is not what Steven Spoberg wanted to do.
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: And then re like he cuts the song completely. Yeah,
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: and I was kind of sad that he cut this
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: song because it did just like make the movie like
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: very dark in the new remake versus this one kind
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: of has that old Hollywood like comedy too, because like
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: all the Broadway Hollywood movies were kind of like this
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: like sea song, like dark but like comedic tone, and
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: I liked that, but yeah, they get rid of it
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: in the new one, and I was sad.
• 42:54
  Speaker 4: I like it. I like, I mean, I like this.
• 42:57
  Speaker 4: I don't like the song, but I do like this sequence,
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: especially because the actors do not look as young as
• 43:04
  Speaker 4: they're supposed to be and it is kind of nice
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: to I don't know, like following like the same with
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: like the romantic thing. It's like they're so desperate to
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: be with each other that they like stage a cutie
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: pile little wedding with I don't know, I think it's
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: I think it's a sweet yeah.
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: Like I think this moment in the movie worked for
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: me in general because it kind of a showed their
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: age of like they're young, they're in love, Like we're
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: showing that they're like just naive young people, and it
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: kind of like shows what it means to be like
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: newly in love that like giddy puppy love feeling. And
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: I hate that they got rid of that in the
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: New one because I do think the tone being so
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: serious in the New one where it's like they're like
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: doing this like instead this very declarative like love scene
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: in the New one that I was like, we haven't
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: worked up to that, Like it takes me out of
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: be like Kela was saying, where I'm like, we're a
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: day in you guys have already agreed to flee some together,
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: and now you guys are like having this serious talk
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: where she's like like you need to stop this fight
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: and then he's like I want to marry you and
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: you're like huh, like y'all don't know each other.
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: Yere okay.
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: In this version, it's like, oh, this is silly. It's
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: supposed to be, Like it's not serious. They are getting
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: to know each other, having fun.
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: I also thought like it was I wonder what you
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: even think about this? Like on this watch in particular,
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: it felt like part of what makes that scene like
• 44:25
  Speaker 4: sweet and clearly ominous. Yes, is, and this is obviously
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: severely undercut by the fact that Natalie Wood is white.
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: But they're like acting out this play situation of their
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: families accepting each other because they know that that would
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: never happen in real life. Yes, And like, I don't know,
• 44:43
  Speaker 4: I think it's like it's a weirdly kind of lighthearted
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: way of addressing that in the movie.
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: I agree.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I liked the part where they're role playing
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: and like the mannekins are there in the various like
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: dresses and tuxedos and all the stuff that happens before
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: the song charming nice the song itself.
• 45:02
  Speaker 4: Okay, the song's kind of mid.
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: I guess you're right. I don't like the song asself.
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: I just like this scene.
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, scene, good song bad Yeah.
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: Okay. So that happens. Then the two groups make their
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: way to the rumble spot and they're about to start fighting.
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: Tony shows up to try to stop it, but he
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: kind of gets roped into the fight again. Bernardo has
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: it out for Tony, so they're scuffling. Things escalate, knives
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: are drawn. There is a fight dance not to be
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: confused with a dance fight, where Bernardo stabs Riff and
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: then Tony retaliates and stabs Bernardo. She know goes to
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: Maria to tell her that her new boyfriend just killed
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: her brother. So she is devastated.
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: Okay, but we have to note here that Gino tells
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: Maria because Maria is too focused on like Tony. After
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: he goes, your boyfriend killed your brother, She's like, but
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: it's Tony, okay, and she knows, Like what the fuck right, Belie,
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: because you're like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. This man you've
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: known for forty eight hours murdered your brother. And you're
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: still like, but I'm gonna run.
• 46:21
  Speaker 4: Away with that Tony?
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: Is he okay?
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: I for me.
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: And it's like I know that she's supposed to be
• 46:26
  Speaker 4: very young and naive, but like, Maria's behavior is impossible
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: to rationalize, impossible starting here, I mean, especially the way
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: that she treats Anita, and like the gravity of what
• 46:37
  Speaker 4: she asks from Anita.
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, is just like I think they handle it better
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: in the new version, but still it's just like in
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: this one, you're like, huh.
• 46:47
  Speaker 4: Absurd, Like you get actively frustrated with her and Tony.
• 46:50
  Speaker 4: Like by the end of this movie a movie I enjoy,
• 46:53
  Speaker 4: I'm not rooting for them. I'm just not.
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: No, you're like, good riddens, everyone's dead, good ridden?
• 46:59
  Speaker 4: How fucking title this? Tony to'd be like, oh, the
• 47:02
  Speaker 4: things happen and she's like, okay, makes sense, Like.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what, no problem.
• 47:06
  Speaker 4: It's yeah infuriating.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because Tony shows up to say that he needs
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: her forgiveness, and he intends to go to the cops
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: to turn himself in, and she's like, no, don't do that.
• 47:19
  Speaker 4: I love you.
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: Let's run away together. So they form a plan to flee.
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: Cut to the Jets who are dealing with the aftermath
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: of Riff's death. They're sad, they're angry. They sing a
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: song about how they have to be cool and keep
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: a level head.
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: This is I'm interested to talk about this because the
• 47:42
  Speaker 4: dancing is funny. To be like, it does feel like
• 47:48
  Speaker 4: a very like a dance sequence interpreting white masculine repression
• 47:53
  Speaker 4: question mark something like that. I think I like it,
• 47:57
  Speaker 4: but it's weird. It's very long.
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: It's very long. I think it's one of the longest
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: numbers that I felt like kind of was.
• 48:02
  Speaker 4: Like like I get it.
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: I was like, okay, move it along.
• 48:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: Well, because there's also the scene right before this. I
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: think the character's name is.
• 48:12
  Speaker 4: Baby John or something like the comic book kid.
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and then another character approaches him. Baby John has
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: been crying, but he like brushes it off.
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: Like, no, gotta be tough.
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: I don't want the guys to see me like this. Yeah,
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: so he like regains his composure and then they meet
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: up with the rest of the jets. But yeah, I
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: think there's very much a like we have to suppress
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: our emotions and be.
• 48:39
  Speaker 4: Cool, right, But also I feel like we don't see
• 48:43
  Speaker 4: the sharks go through a similar process, which I'm I
• 48:48
  Speaker 4: don't know I'm interested to talk about that because I
• 48:51
  Speaker 4: don't know. Maybe I'm overthinking it, but I was like,
• 48:53
  Speaker 4: be cool is first of all, I would rather have
• 48:55
  Speaker 4: cut back to see how the sharks are processing Bernardo's
• 48:58
  Speaker 4: death because we don't really get to see that outside
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: Maria and Anita no, which doesn't make any sense. But
• 49:04
  Speaker 4: it also but like in that context, I'm like, I
• 49:06
  Speaker 4: wonder if be cool is like part of why they
• 49:08
  Speaker 4: have to be cool is because they have to preserve
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: this very racially informed relationship they have with the cops,
• 49:15
  Speaker 4: because the cops yes literally say to them, we want
• 49:18
  Speaker 4: to believe you. And so it's like, if they can
• 49:20
  Speaker 4: pull off, you know, appearing credible to the cops, it
• 49:25
  Speaker 4: won't be that hard for them. They just have to
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: like sort of keep it together. And like, I don't know,
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: it just like added an interesting, it's still too long,
• 49:33
  Speaker 4: but I don't know. Yeah.
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: No.
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: So then that character named Anybody's shows up saying that
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: Chino has a gun and he's planning to kill Tony.
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: So the Jets realize they have to find Tony and
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: keep him safe. Tony, who is still with Maria, he
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: goes off to borrow some money so that they can flee.
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: They arrange for Maria to meet up with him at
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: Doc's store. Anita comes in finds out that Maria is
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: still with Tony even after he killed Bernardo. So Anita
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: is like, you'll never believe it.
• 50:15
  Speaker 4: She's upset, like.
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, She's like, what the fuck he killed my boyfriend.
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: He's a murderer brother, You're a inerader.
• 50:24
  Speaker 4: So baffling to me because it's like Maria and Bernardo
• 50:27
  Speaker 4: had a complicated relationship. He was over exerting control over her.
• 50:31
  Speaker 4: But they I wouldn't say they had a bad relationship,
• 50:34
  Speaker 4: Like it was very affectionate.
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: And it's like contextually, it's like she just immigrated here
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: from Puerto Rico. So he's being very protective of her
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: because he's like, you are my responsibility now, like I
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: have to make sure you're safe in this new foreign
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: land that we are all trying to navigate. You don't
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: speak very good English.
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: In theory, obviously Nally Wood is doing it so like whatever,
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: But if we're talking realistically, she had just gotten off
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: the boat from Port ric Go, she wouldn't speak very
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: much English, and she's a child, so it's like, of course,
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: young there is tension, but it's like not any worse
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: tension than like a parent with a child, Like that
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: is normal tension.
• 51:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, her, I don't know, I mean, I it wasn't abusive.
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: He wasn't, you know, hitting her, hurting her, harming her,
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: you know, No, he was just.
• 51:19
  Speaker 4: Being like I mean again, it's like this, I understand
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: that teenagers are upset when like someone exerts control over them,
• 51:25
  Speaker 4: and fair enough, but it's like not upset to their
• 51:28
  Speaker 4: point that you would not react to their death untimely
• 51:32
  Speaker 4: murder by your guy you're.
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: Dating, because it was like when he he murdered him
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: like on purpose, Like it wasn't like, oh my god,
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: there was all these knives and I actually knifed him.
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: It was like he chose his white brethren over his
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: love for you, to be honest, because he wouldn't have
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: chose your boyfriend.
• 51:51
  Speaker 4: Why are you choosing him? Yes, Like it doesn't make
• 51:54
  Speaker 4: any sense. He chose the other person. I uh, it's so.
• 51:58
  Speaker 4: I mean I think that that the probably a lot
• 52:00
  Speaker 4: of that is because of like how randomly like this.
• 52:04
  Speaker 4: I feel like this movie is very committed to mapping
• 52:07
  Speaker 4: exactly onto Romeo and Juliet at moments where it's like
• 52:09
  Speaker 4: you probably should have considered the relationships of the characters
• 52:14
  Speaker 4: and their culture and their predicament instead of just being like, well,
• 52:17
  Speaker 4: Romeo kills tibblets, so yeah whatever, Like you're like, well,
• 52:21
  Speaker 4: people are famously bumped by that, so maybe do something.
• 52:24
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: Yes, So Anita is calling out Maria for being a trader.
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: But Maria is like, but I love Tony and love
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: is beautiful, fine that I love him. Then Lieutenant Shrink
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: shows up to question Maria about Bernardo's death, and so
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: since Maria can't leave right away to meet up with Tony,
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: she sends Anita to Doc's store to tell Tony that
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: I think like Maria will just like come as soon
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: as she can.
• 53:00
  Speaker 4: That is like the I mean, Rita. Marina is has
• 53:03
  Speaker 4: such incredible range in this movie, and like that even
• 53:07
  Speaker 4: though the Maria's behavior feels so irrational, I feel like
• 53:11
  Speaker 4: how Anita reacts in that moment when Maria asks her
• 53:15
  Speaker 4: to do something so impossible and so like, you know,
• 53:19
  Speaker 4: insensitive to what Anita is going through, but you can
• 53:23
  Speaker 4: just tell, like you know why Anita's doing it because
• 53:26
  Speaker 4: she doesn't want to lose another person, and it's just
• 53:28
  Speaker 4: like it's heartbreaking. Yeah.
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, So Anita shows up at the store, the Jets
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: harass and assault her until Doc comes in and intervenes,
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: and because of what she just experienced, she's like, fuck
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: you guys, you're monsters, and then she tells a.
• 53:51
  Speaker 4: Lot so fuck Maria, yeah for putting me in this position,
• 53:54
  Speaker 4: and I also think in a.
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: Way she almost is also trying to protect Maria and
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: be like, I'm not gonna let you be a part
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: of this whatever this is. Like, if they were so
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: quick to do this to me, you think they're gonna
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: protect you just because you're with Tony? Like absolutely, Yeah.
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: So she tells a lie to try to keep everyone safe,
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: her loved ones safe, and to try to kind of
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: put an end to this whole thing. Unfortunately, it backfires,
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: but she tells the Jets to tell Tony that Chino
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: found out about Tony and Maria, and so Chino killed Maria.
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: Doc relays that information to Tony, who is devastated. So
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: he goes out into the street. He's flailing around, but
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: then Maria she's able to come outside, so she sees
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: him and they're like running toward each other, but before
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: they can embrace, Chino shows up and shoots Tony. Maria is,
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: of course distraught. Tony dies in her arms. The Jets
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: and the Sharks have all gathered around, and Maria calls
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: them out for their needless hate and violence. She threatens
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: to kill them all and herself, but then the cops
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: show up and the movie ends with the Jets and
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: the Sharks seemingly putting aside their differences and helping to
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: carry away Tony's body together.
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: Like at the end of the day, Acaby.
• 55:26
  Speaker 4: Right, right, that is their single unifying issue.
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: So that's the movie. Let's take another quick break and
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: we'll come back to discuss. And we're back back.
• 55:48
  Speaker 4: Becca. We know you've done a ton of research. Is
• 55:50
  Speaker 4: there anywhere where you are really wanting to start here?
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: I do want to give some like nineteen fifties context
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: that I think this version, specifically the nineteen sixty one
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: version tries to like sprinkle because it's obviously kind of
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: in real time, but I think the two thousand and
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: one or twenty twenty one version rectifies a lot of
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: that like lack of context and kind of just in
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: conversation of the lack of real representation of Puerto Ricans.
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: It's like using Puerto Ricans as this like platform to
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: have this story versus like actually thinking about them in
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: the context of this time. But in the nineteen fifties,
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: you're having the Puerto Rican Great Migration to New York City,
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: where it's a rapid population growth, intense discrimination, and an
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: emergence of the new Eurekan identity, thank you Wikipedia, centered
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: in neighborhoods like East Harlem, South Bronx, and West Side,
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: which is San Juan Hill, which is where this story begins.
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: But San Juan Hill is actually a very particular neighborhood.
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: It was an original slum of Puerto Ricans and black Caribbeans.
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: And then in this time that the movie's happening, which
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: they portray better in the new version, it's being demolished
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: for the Lincoln Center. The Lincoln Center to this day
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: sits on top of black and brown bodies. Like to
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: be as explicit as possible, they killed lots of people
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: to have that because they try to migrate them uptown.
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: That's how you ended up with Puerto Ricans in Harlem,
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: the Bronx, Washington Heights. All of that is because basically
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: the rich people were like, we want this because it's
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: by the park. This has to be for the whites now,
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: and so they like literally bulldoze over this whole slum
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: of Puerto Ricans and try to push them out. And
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: I think in the new version they ad trust that
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: a lot more of like this actual dialogue in the
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: movie about like why are the people migrating and like
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: the opportunities that the realtors promised them that were not true.
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: They got to these housings and the Bronx and Washington
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: hids and they were filled with rats and cockroaches and
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: they were built and they literally like evicted these people
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: saying no, we have housing for you up there, like
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: just pack your stuff today and go and there will
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: be a house for you. And then there wasn't. So
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: it was just like this really dark time to be
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: Puerto Rican. And obviously they don't really highlight that in
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: the movie, and I don't think it gives enough context
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: as to why there's such racial tension between these two communities.
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: And I mean, of course besides the factor they're brown
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: and white, but like there is a lot of like
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: real shit happening like in real time at this time
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: for Puerto Ricans.
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: Can I follow that up with context about the conception
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: of the stage musical, because I.
• 58:40
  Speaker 4: Was going to say, because it's like I feel like
• 58:42
  Speaker 4: the reason it's not there is because the writers and
• 58:45
  Speaker 4: creators probably didn't even know and didn't have interest. No
• 58:49
  Speaker 4: Puerto Rican culture is kind of randomly selected for this.
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: Yes, Yeah, so here's what happened there. So Roame Robbins
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: conceived of this idea for the original Broadway musical that
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: debuted in nineteen fifty seven.
• 59:09
  Speaker 4: From an idea from Montgomery Cliff, which is just an
• 59:12
  Speaker 4: interesting piece of queer history. They were like on vacation together.
• 59:15
  Speaker 4: Montgomery Cliff is like, I have a little idea. This
• 59:17
  Speaker 4: like came out of Fire Island.
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: But the idea originated in nineteen forty nine, where Jerome
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: Robbins was like, Okay, what if I tell a story
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: about a Catholic family and a Jewish family living on
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: the Lower east Side of Manhattan. So originally the story
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: was called east Side Story, Yes, and it would center
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: on the Catholics being anti Semitic to the Jewish characters.
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: And based on my research, it seems like the Maria
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: character would have originally been a Jewish girl who had
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: survived the Holocaust and emigrated from Israel.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 4: And you're like, what do you mean? Yeah, literally he
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 4: was less.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So you know, there's that. So Arthur Lorentz gets
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: brought onto the project to write the book for this musical,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: and he finishes a draft and then everyone who was
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: involved realized that this play had already been written basically,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: and that these same themes were explored in a play
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: called Abby's Irish Rose.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: They're like, oh, man, we already did it.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: They're like, oh shucks. So Jerome Robbins drops out of
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: the project. He Arthur Lwentz and Leonard Bernstein, who had
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: also been brought on. They all go their separate ways
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: for years. The project was shelved for like five years.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: Cut to nineteen fifty five. They come back together. They
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: decide to work on the project again. Lorentz and Bernstein
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: meet up in Hollywood in Beverly Hills. Wow, and they're like,
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: what about all these juvenile street gangs and turf wars
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: that we've been hearing about in the news, right.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 4: Which is like a very popular thematic. I think that
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 4: that's like a part of the reason that Natalie Wood
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 4: ends up in this part, because she appeared in a
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 4: lot of these sort of juvenile, delinquent exploratory stories, which
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 4: of course is like couched in a lot of bullshit. Yeah,
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 4: but it was like such a popular theme in the fifties.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: It was such a popular theme. But also I think
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: specifically as Kaelin was knowing this meeting was happening, in
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: Hollywood at this time. Specifically, there were a lot of
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: Chicano turf wars happening in La so they were like, well,
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: what if we flip it, because they still wanted it
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: to be in New York. So you're like, what if
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: we there's those new Puerto Ricans coming in to New York, right,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: like what do we do that? And so I think
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: that like literally was it like they were just like, well,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: we can't have we don't have Mexicans in New York,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: So what do we what do we do about that?
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: So let's just we know those new Reakens are coming
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: to get them in the mix.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: That is literally what happened.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 4: And that seems like the beginning and end of the.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 5: Conation of because the rest is just like stereotypes and
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 5: they weren't like not wrong, like that San Juan Hill
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 5: stuff was happening.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: There was a lot of like turf happening, I guess
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: in a degree, but really it was just like people
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: who were like already were marginalized and forced to come
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: to America and then being displaced in their one home
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: that they've known that they've been able to build since
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: the thirties when the migration kind of started post World
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: War One. There's a really great exhibit. The reason I
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: know all this is because in New York at Centro
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: Pire Hunter College, it's a really great Portrigan Studies program.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: It's probably like nationally known as like one of the
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: biggest Portrigan Studies programs. They have an exhibit called San
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: Juan Hill and they go over all these different artifacts
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: and they do these different interviews with families whose families
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: immigrated from San Juan Hill and it's just like really
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: incredible like piece of like preserving archival history of Puerto
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: Ricans in New York that like the governments try to
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: wipe away. And I think like they've done a little
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: bit of like well we put up a memorial of
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: San Juan Hill in the Lincoln Center and you're like, okay,
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: but it's still or Juilliard is and it's still the
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: Lincoln Center, Like like where's the money for those family?
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: About all the people you displaced?
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And it's like how frequently, I mean, I feel
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 4: like every major city has there. I mean I feel
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 4: like Dodger Stadium and has a very very similar thing,
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 4: and we are seeing it happen here right now to
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 4: historically black communities and to unhouse people for over the Olympics.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 4: Like it's just it's so I was glad to hear.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 4: And again I haven't seen the movie that, you know.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 4: I maybe I'm wrong, but that like Robert Moses is
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 4: even kind of like name checked in the twenty twenty
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 4: one version as like this is the person doing this. Yeah,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 4: but I don't know. Yeah, I not surprising, but just
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 4: like it's so egregious how like especially I mean, I
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 4: feel like the America is a perfect case study for
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 4: this of like presenting some valid issues but in a
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 4: completely like contextless void.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: Yes, if we want to talk about that, let's get
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: into it, because I do have a lot of conflicting
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: feelings about that song because I think in this lens,
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: I'm like, you know what, that song is not invalid,
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: because I do think a lot of Puerto Ricans, especially
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: at that time, who were trying to like make an
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: honest living and like make a life for themselves in
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: the United States, felt that way. And I think that's
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: like a very common immigrant story of like our you know,
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: parents and our grandparents who had to assimilate by any
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: means necessary to survive, and so they are like we're
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 2: in America. We're Americans.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: We have to adapt, we have to conform so that
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: we can be successful and live the American dream. But
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: a bunch of white people wrote it, and they did
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: not care for the cultural context of those Puerto Ricans
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: singing it, what it meant to them, what it was about.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: So it's like it's like almost like a a bad
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: clock is right twice a day or whatever, you know,
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: a broken clock is right twice a day. It was
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: kind of like that, where it's like they weren't wrong,
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: but the way they came from was not nice, versus
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: like the reality of the situation is true.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 4: It was interesting tracing how this song has been modified
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 4: over time because it's and this isn't a full his
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 4: My notes are disorganized, so I apologize, but for I
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 4: mean Rita Moreno has mentioned that like she was a
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 4: reason that part of the lyrics were adjusted for the
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 4: nineteen sixty one version originally. I also think that there's
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 4: like a gender dynamic change in the way this song
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 4: is delivered. America is originally only song with women. It's
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 4: only Puerto Rican women singing to each other, and it's
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 4: a character named Rosalia who exists in the movie, but
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 4: far less so. Who is you know, expressing like I
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 4: really miss Puerto Rico so beautiful, like feeling homesick, and
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 4: then Anita is aggressively like, no, like it sucks. There's
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 4: a ugly island, tropic diseases like this very very internalized
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 4: hatred of Puerto Rico. It's changed for the movie. Some
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 4: of the language is softened and the gender dynamic is
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 4: changed so that it's Bernardo and Anita singing to each
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 4: other about this, and Anita's character is I've seen it argued,
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 4: is presented as a little more flippant and not like
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 4: she is saying necessarily this is the truth, which I
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 4: guess is how it was presented on Broadway. And then
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 4: it's changed again for twenty twenty one, where Ariana Debo's
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 4: does not disparage Puerto Rico in America, but there is
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 4: still kind of this like confusing amount of context. And
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 4: then also in the movie, I'm curious for what you
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 4: think about this, because Bernardo is like making some excellent points, yes,
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 4: throughout the song, which.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: Is why I don't hate the song, because I'm like,
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: I don't think it's inherently like I think I did
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: not have the context of the actual Broadway lyrics, and
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: that makes more sense why people hated the broad because
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: I'm like everything I read was like everyone hated the
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: Broadway version than they love the movie, and I didn't
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: notice how much had changed. I knew Rito was a
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: big part of any changes that were made to the
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: movie experience versus the Broadway musical. But I think it
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: is a real conversation that those who are immigrating have
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: of like this, like we love our homeland, but those
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: who are I think it's very common. I have this
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 2: conversation with my dad and my grandmother, like in the podcast,
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: of like the way that they will rewrite history to
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: make themselves not feel the pain. And I think it's
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: a part of it is the assimilation, where it's like
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: if we don't love this place, if we don't make
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 2: ourselves love this place, then we'll be reminded of how
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: painful it is to be here. And I think that
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: is like the push and pull between Anita and Bernardo,
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: where he I think it's just like this is temporary,
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: I'm here to make money, I'm gonna go back home anything.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 2: Anita sees the realities that like there is no home.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 2: We're not going back. We don't have the resources, We're
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: never gonna have the money to go back, Like, we
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: have to make a life here, so get used to it,
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: almost And I don't think this is a wrong narrative
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: that was had in the fifties. I think it's very real.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 4: So yeah, yeah, I.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: Wish that specific sentiment that you just detailed was more
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: explicit in the movie, because the way the nineteen sixty
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: one movie handles this dynamic of like the conflicting attitudes
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: between it seems like it's all of the women being like,
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: I love America, it's awesome. And the reasons that they cite,
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: like the lyrics are things like skyscrapers bloom in America,
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: cadillacs zoom in America, industry booms in America. They're talking
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: about how they can buy stuff on credit, how they
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: can have all these pretty dresses. All this stuff makes
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: them seem like they're obsessed with like American capitalism and
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: consumerism in a way that makes them seem kind of shallow.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: And then the men come in with points like we
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: get paid half the amount as white people do for
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: the same labor. We are charged twice the amount to
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: buy things than white people. The only jobs that we
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: are able to ever get are things like waiting tables
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: and shining shoes. We are treated like outsiders and foreigners,
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: even though Puerto Rico is part of the US, like
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: but we are treated as though we are not Americans.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: So there's like what feels like a very like stereotypical
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: gender dynamic almost happening where it's like, well, the girls
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: love America because they can buy pretty dresses here.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 2: They can shop because when to be shopping, they get job,
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: they can drive, they can do all this stuff, and
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 2: it's so hard because it's like I as someone who's
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: had a lived Portagon experience with Portagon grandparents and parents,
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 2: and like my Aula is from Spanish Harlem like born
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: and raised in New York during this time, Like my
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 2: great grandmother and Rito Moreno's moms both immigrated to the
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: United States at the same time, which was before the
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 2: Big Boom. But they immigrated for probably similar reasons, which
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 2: was like stuff back home, like really gendered abusive, like
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: parental or familial misogynist stuff back home. And I do
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: think there is like this idea as a woman in
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 2: Puerto Rico coming to the United States that you have
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: freedom in a way that you don't have in a
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: very traditional machismo society, especially back then. So but it's
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 2: like I have that context. I know the writers don't
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: have that context. So it's like I am putting a
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: lot on this song where I'm like, I see the benefits,
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: I see how this is relatable. But then it's like
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: I get angry knowing like, well, they're actually not doing
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: it in that same way. They're not giving it as
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: much heart and depth of care and reasoning for those reasons.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: They just luckily kind of fell into it.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 4: It like improves slightly over time. Yeah, there is. On
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 4: the West Side Story official website, they have the fifty
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 4: seven sixty one lyrics side by side, and the fifty
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 4: seven one is just full on American propaganda and it's
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 4: white people in brown face being like America's amazing, Puerto
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 4: Rican women love America and have no notes, no, and
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 4: so the sixty one one is an improvement. But I
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 4: agree with both you that like there is I think
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 4: and this was something Okay, I want to quote a
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 4: piece I read that was written for the LATINX Project
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 4: by Aurora Flores Hostos back in twenty twenty one when
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 4: the Spielberg version came out, where she's taking a look
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 4: at the entire movie and how it like existed in
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 4: response to its predecessors, but specifically brings up these lyrics
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 4: and says something similar bucka of like in the sixty
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 4: one movie, there are things that were gotten right, probably
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 4: almost by mistake. Yeah, but that she didn't love the
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 4: changes that were made to the song. In twenty twenty one,
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 4: she writes, quote, west Side Story was written in a
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 4: controversial time that resulted in a convoluted story about misplaced culture,
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 4: identity and survival in a hostile world. But it was
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 4: real that those early America lyrics were racist, is true,
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 4: But shouldn't we hear how America really felt about us
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 4: at that time? That nascent purity of thought is what
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 4: is sealed in the stereotypes, and trying to undo it,
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 4: its archetypical credibility is altered, which I think is interesting.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 4: And I mean of all three because I did listen
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 4: to the Ariana Debo's Steven Spielberg version of America. And
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 4: even though that is a version that is not openly
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 4: hostile to Puerto Rico, which is important, I still feel
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 4: like no version of this song, at least that I've heard,
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 4: addresses that the problem is the title of the song. Yeah,
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 4: like there is no acknowledgment of like, you know, even
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 4: though Bernardo and the men in the sixty one version
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 4: are making a lot of valid points as to what
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 4: their predicament is and how they're being forced into these awfuls,
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 4: that it's not really explicitly stated that that is the
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 4: fault of what America was doing in Puerto Rico at
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 4: that time. Like there's just like this history.
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 2: Void absolutely, like they were forced to leave. Like I
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 2: think there's this idea in American history and the way
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 2: that it's taught about the Puerto Rican Great Migration, like
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 2: it was like this win for Puerto Rico. It's like
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 2: literally America came in through the Jones Act, like wreak
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 2: tavoc to this industrial revolution in Puerto Rico basically to
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 2: make Puerto Rico a tax even strip it of all
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 2: its resources. And then when the industrial boom fell and
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 2: there were no longer job like all the jobs that
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 2: Puerto Ricans had being forced to do in this industrial
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 2: revolution and then the industrial revolution fell, they were like, well,
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 2: there's no jobs in Puerto Rico. All the factories took
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 2: all our jobs, and now the factories are closed, so
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 2: what do we do? We have to And then in
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 2: that like America's like we feel bad. They kind of
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 2: like promoted this like exile of Puerto Ricans because the
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 2: population had double. They were like, well, we'll just make
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 2: room for you in America. I guess like we have
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 2: to now. And there was also a lot of and
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 2: Portocan historians don't get at me, this is like a
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 2: lot of jumbled history that.
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: I have in my brain.
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 2: But from what I understand, also there was like a
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 2: little bit of a globalization of port Rico for the
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 2: first time because flights were finally coming to and from
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 2: Puerto Rico around this time, which also added to the boom.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 2: It was no longer by boat, but you could take
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: PanAm flights to Puerto Rico. And so because of America,
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 2: Puerto Ricans can't live in Puerto Rico, right, Like that
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 2: is the reality, like America destroyed Puerto Rico and then
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 2: expected Puerto Rico to just like fix itself.
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 4: I don't know, like it is in no way a
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 4: one to one comparison for many reasons, but I was
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 4: reminded as we were like looking at particularly how this
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 4: movie ends, where it's like both sides of this conflict
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 4: have to admit that things have gone too far because
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 4: a white man has done yes, it wasn't enough when
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 4: Bernard and no, the reaction, the void of reaction to
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 4: Bernardo's death is shocking except for Anita, but it reminded
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 4: me a lot of how the conflict between the Indigenous
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 4: community and the Europeans is presented in Pocahontas, where it's
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 4: like they're presented as equally violent and just man is
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 4: inherently violent and there is no context as to why,
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 4: even though in West Side Story you do get more
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 4: certainly than you get in Pocahontas, which is a horrible yardstick,
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 4: like not saying much, I feel like the I don't know,
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 4: maybe there is stuff I missed, but like the closest
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 4: you get for like clear headed context is I think
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 4: it's in that that first, like they're making terms for
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 4: the for their brawl or whatever they call it.
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 2: No, but I think you're so right, because like if
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 2: I think about the context of the Puerto Ricans throughout
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 2: the whole movie, and I do think the twenty twenty
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 2: one version does a lot to try to rectify some
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 2: of this with like its dialogue and you know the
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 2: inclusion of Spanish language in the change version.
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: But that's not subtitled either, and it's yeah.
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 2: It's not subtitled. But in the nineteen sixty one A
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 2: obviously none of them are Spanish because none of them can.
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 2: But b it's like we get that Greek, yeah, because
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 2: they're Greek, but we get that whole song contextualizing why
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 2: these white boys are bad boys, right, like why the
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 2: Jets are bad. They got bad mothers, they got bad fathers, whatever.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 2: You're getting a whole context on why these white boys
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 2: are bad white boys. But then you never get any
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 2: context of why the Puerto Ricans are strifed. Why and
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 2: the reality the closest you get is the America song.
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 2: And even then it's like played is almost like, oh
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 2: my god, the men are overreacting. They have such a
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 2: beautiful life here in the United States. But in reality,
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: it's like these men by these white boys are being
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 2: pushed out of their neighborhood. They also are poor. They
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 2: also and they also I think in this version versus
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 2: the twenty one one version, they make it a point
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 2: that like, the Porto Ricans have jobs and the white
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 2: boys in the Jets in the twenty twenty one don't
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 2: have jobs. So they're like, the Puerto Ricans are better
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 2: in that one way.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 4: Let's tie it to capitalism. That's important, yes, yes, yes, but.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 2: In this sixty one version, the Portterians never have jobs,
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 2: it seems like, and that's purposeful. I think it's like
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 2: to be like they're lazy. They're fighting.
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 4: The women do. It's just women do, but the men don't. Yeah,
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 4: it's confused. I mean, they're they're they're the one line
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 4: that stood out to me on this and it's so small.
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 4: And then one thousand year long movie is when the
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 4: Jets and the Sharks are agreeing on the terms of
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 4: the brawl or whatever, and the Jets are trying to
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 4: explain why they're so upset, and Bernardo says like they're
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 4: they're like, well, why did you yell at our friend today?
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 4: He's like, well, why did you start picking on me
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 4: and everyone I know the second we got there and
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 4: then you start shouting slurs and so it's like it
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 4: is in there, but it's so fleeting yea and spoken
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 4: in actor by actors in brown face that you're just like, well,
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 4: it didn't happen. There was one quick I mean, there
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 4: was so much written about the legacy of this movie,
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 4: and will include a bunch of please drop your links in, yes,
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 4: because there's so much that I know, we can't possibly
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 4: touch on all of it. But there was a really
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 4: interesting essay I read from twenty seventeen by a writer
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 4: named Urasapi about how Westside Story I think Becca, as
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 4: you were alluding to earlier in the episode, sort of
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 4: became a lot of non Puerto Rican people's first introduction
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 4: to Puerto Rican culture in a way that is still
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 4: echoed in culture today, even though it was written entirely
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 4: by white people that weren't even able that, like, you know,
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 4: whatever Robert Ager's style wouldn't even go to the library
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 4: to figure out like what was at least Robert Agres
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 4: went to the library once in his Defender.
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: Well, West Side Story was the first large scale Hollywood
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: movie to even acknowledge the presence of Puerto Rican people
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: in the mainland of the US.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 4: Yes, So in this essay, I think what Eurosapi is
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 4: arguing here is is that there's like an undeniable cultural impact,
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 4: but also that its existence and how it is like
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 4: talked about is like the first mainstream acknowledgment of Puerto
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 4: Ricans in like White America. Is that it served to
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 4: erase a lot of existing Puerto Rican art that was
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 4: being made in New York at this time. So she
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 4: wrote specifically about a play that debuted and was very
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 4: successful in the US in nineteen fifty three, So a
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 4: pre West Side Story by a Puerto Rican playwright named
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 4: Renee Marcus that was called La Caretta the ox Cart
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 4: and was prior to West Side Story sort of positioned
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 4: to be the most successful Puerto Rican workstage in America
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 4: at the time. But then West Side Story came out
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 4: and it kind of faded into the background. It didn't
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 4: receive a major adaptation, and then West Side Story became
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 4: White America's main association with Puerto Rican culture. And yeah,
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 4: I was able. I think the only have we discussed
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 4: this already. The only Puerto Rican cast member in the
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 4: original Broadway production was also Anita.
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 2: Was Cheeta Rivera. We have not discussed this, but I
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 2: do have notes on this because Okay, Rita Moreno, in
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 2: her memoir is a little shady bitch and I love it.
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 2: She's very much like I think she's a product of
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 2: her time in this way where it's like women were
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 2: forced to compete against each other at every fascinating so
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 2: I feel like every old Hollywood woman she mentioned she
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 2: kind of has to do like a little dig to
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 2: be like a little jab, but I'm better.
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 4: And also sometimes it's just like whoever lives the longest
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 4: gets the final word exactly.
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 2: And that two and so she did give a little
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 2: jab at Rivera because Cheetah is half Puerto Rican half white.
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 2: I can't remember her mix of white immigrant, but is
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 2: half white. And she was the original Yes and the
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 2: Broadway and apparently she was up for doing it. But
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 2: then in the movie Yeah, for the movie, Rita Moreno
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 2: then studied her ass off and like went to all
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 2: these different productions and like did dance classes for like
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 2: two months, and also had Marlon Brando call and was like,
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 2: can you get Rida Morino in this movie because they
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 2: were also talking to Marlon Brando for Tony And it
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 2: didn't end up helping at all, like the Marlon Brando,
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 2: but basically she ended up becoming the shoe in for
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 2: Anita and she was just like, ha ha ha, I
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 2: beat Cheita Rivera off of it. And she was like,
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 2: and Cheida must have been so upset because her husband
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 2: was in the movie, because her husband is the other
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 2: main jet, not Riff, but the other one that to
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 2: me looks like Joey from Friends.
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: Oh, yes, yes, I know exactly who you're talking about.
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: That's action.
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 2: Yes, So that was like Cheeta Rivera's actual husband in
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 2: real life. And so she was like, she was like, yeah,
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 2: it must have sucked that she wasn't rip anyway.
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but wow, I love a memoir, but.
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 2: That's my my Cheeta Rivera note. But yeah, I mean
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 2: that is beautiful that like, that is the it seems
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 2: to be that is the one role that the Puerto
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 2: Rican gets to play because like obviously Arinabo's is Porto
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 2: Rican Dominican, which brings us back to like the Maria discussion.
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 2: You know, I was a little disappointed when I saw
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 2: Rachel Zegler got the Maria. I understand why she did,
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 2: because she was the right age, obviously, the right vocal range,
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 2: incredible talent, but she's not Puerto Rican, and I'm like,
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 2: when will we get to have a Puerto Rican Maria?
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 2: You know, she's half white, half Colombian. Yeah, and I'm like,
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 2: and she's still half white. And that's not to say
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 2: Rachel hasn't been a great advocate for colorism in media
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 2: and all that stuff, but I'm like, it is just
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 2: like this Hollywood thing where it's like, when it comes
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 2: to Latinos and Puerto Ricans in general, we never get
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 2: to be the lead, even if you go like in
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 2: The Heights same year. Yeah, that was the huge controversy, Yeah,
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 2: because they didn't hire Puerto Ricans for the main role.
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 2: And it's like, Lynn, we'll get there later. But you know,
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 2: I just was a little disappointed in the Rachel casting
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 2: for Maria for the twenty May one and I don't
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 2: think she like played a good job at it, because
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 2: I do think you're so much more intrigued by all
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 2: the supporting characters. There's so much more enticing. There's so
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 2: much more interesting than Maria and Tony. And that might
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 2: just be a fault of the musical in and of
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 2: itself and not the actors. But in this nineteen sixty
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 2: one version, Natalie wood is because as you mentioned Jamie earlier,
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 2: she's a hot lady. At the time, they're like of
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 2: course she seems like shee and there was like a
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 2: lot of other actresses considered that were white. All of
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 2: them were white. Apparently Rito was like roughly considered. But
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 2: she I think was too scared to actually be in
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 2: a leading role at the time, because she hadn't been
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 2: in a movie in a while when she got this role,
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 2: So she was like very intimidated by the idea of
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 2: applying for a lead in a movie. So that's ultimately
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 2: why I don't think she did it. That's what she
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 2: says in her memoir. But I want to pull this
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 2: quote from him memoir about Natalie Wood, specifically in her
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 2: role as Maria. She says, and of course it was
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 2: uncomfortable for the Hispanics to see Natalie would play Maria,
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 2: especially because we had heard that Natalie hadn't wanted the part,
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 2: but had been so prevailed upon to take it that
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 2: she couldn't refuse. Natalie seemed uncomfortable in her role as
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 2: Maria when she was around us, a rowdy, ferocious group
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 2: of dancers. This may explain her non engaging demeanor with
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 2: US Gypsies, which en quote from Marina throughout the shoot.
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 2: It might have been helpful had we been able to
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 2: bombit Natalie, but she kept her distance. So I find
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 2: that very telling. I think that was like the nicest
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 2: way Rita could put that she was racist on set.
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I think that was read in the way
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 2: that her sheep performed Maria. You could tell she did
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 2: not have any care for this character. I think that's
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 2: why they're so annoying together Tony and Maria. You're not
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 2: like sold on their love story. Yeah, And I just
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 2: think it was like, this was like the most obvious
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 2: fix they could have done for the twenty twenty one version,
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 2: and they didn't.
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 4: I mean, I think the other thing and this also
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 4: applies to the conversation around in the Heights where it's like,
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 4: why are we not hiring Puerto Rican directors like John
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 4: Choos Steven Spielberg. Their talent is not remotely in question exactly,
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 4: but it feels very, very pointed, and it felt I
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 4: don't know, I am still curious to see the Spielberg adaptation,
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 4: because Spielberg movies are great, but this was not his
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 4: job to take be a producer, contribute like and I
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 4: think that we see this a lot in beginning of
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 4: the twenty tens into now I feel like it stuck
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 4: out to me, particularly in how the conversation around Moano
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 4: has had back in twenty sixteen was like, sure, the
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 4: directors are white men, but we've hired consultants.
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we have a lot of consultants.
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 4: We actually went to Puerto Rico one time and we
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 4: learned so much on in our four days in Puerto
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 4: Rico that like we're kind.
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 2: Of good and we hired Linn to do the soundtrack.
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 3: Was that it not enough?
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 4: It's I mean truly, I mean that's it's the I
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 4: mean Lima and Weil Miranda's fingerprints over the last decade
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 4: of culture should be studied, because he does come up
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 4: in every single reference point here. But it's frustrating and
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 4: I mean like the fact that they're that I don't know,
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 4: and I think we used to talk about this differently
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 4: on this very show, but I feel like at this
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 4: point it is like I feel like consultants are not enough.
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 4: It is better than what we're doing in nineteen sixty one, certainly,
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 4: where it is all YadA YadA, and even and even
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 4: the one Puerto Rican actor in the movie is having
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 4: their skin darkened, which is absurd. Yes, but like you know,
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 4: in the twenty tens and twenty twenties, it's also like
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 4: it's not sufficient to say I mean it's basically to
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 4: be you know, with due respect to the consultants whose
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 4: labor a demonstrable effect on the work, but these are
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 4: the people who should be directing it, like you know
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 4: it it shouldn't. I don't know. It's like remove the
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 4: elephant in the room, which is the need for a
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 4: white director or a white celebrity or a celebrity director
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 4: in general.
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 2: It's almost this way of how do I put this kindly,
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 2: like when we think about like times up, me too,
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 2: all these things, right, whereas like we're gonna like like
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 2: like that white pussy half feminism right where it's like no, no, no,
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 2: like we're changing things, but it's like only for a
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 2: certain demographic. And I do feel like this is a
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 2: prime example where it's like we're hiring consultants, we're putting
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 2: people of color in the roles, we're doing all these things,
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 2: but it's like you're still not letting people of color
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 2: in the room. You're still not letting them actually make
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 2: the work. And it's because a lot of these higher
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 2: ups do not want to dethrone themselves because they know
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 2: the reality is if they start letting us in the room,
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 2: then they don't get to make the work anymore, and
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 2: they don't want that. So they are trying to circumvent
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 2: in all these ways that they can still keep their
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 2: little hands on power, you know, instead of just doing
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 2: the right thing, which is like maybe the project's not
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 2: for you, you know.
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 4: And that's okay, like you can's like Steven spielt still
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 4: give money to the project, like that is a great
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 4: way to support exactly. I don't know. I'm I'm sure
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 4: that it is like wonderful, because Spielberg movies are wonderful,
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 4: but it did not have to be a Spielberg movie.
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 4: And I feel like the press tour around it felt
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 4: indicative of like, yes, no, I totally get it. I
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 4: am famously white, but but but I did this.
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 2: I did this. I did I'm also to Steven Spielberg,
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 2: so like I did all this stuff because I'm Steven
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 2: Spielberg and you're like, okay, yes, And and I think
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 2: his whole thing was like, well, I because I'm Steven
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 2: Spielberg could get this giant budget to do this movie.
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 2: And it's like that's true, but then you could also,
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 2: just like you said, Jimmie, produce it and secure the
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 2: budget for them and not be the director and actually
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 2: give that Puerto Rican person a chance to do this.
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 2: But I think that was also indicative in the choice
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 2: for doing Rachel, because like, her accent is so bad.
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 2: I didn't really I didn't remember how bad her accent
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 2: was until watching it again, and it just like was
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 2: very similar to the Maria of nineteen sixty one Natalie
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 2: would where it's just like Rachel clearly speaks Spanish. I
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 2: think her mom is the Colombian of the two, which
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 2: you know, I think maternal figures tend to be the
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 2: ones like leading language for the children and stuff. So
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 2: like you could tell her Spanish was authentic, and she
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 2: did great at speaking in Spanish, but I think she
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 2: did not have a Puerto Rican accent. She sounded like
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 2: a person trying to have an accent, like trying to
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 2: sound like a native speaker of another language, and it
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 2: felt very phony to me, whereas like when you heard
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 2: Ariana Debo speak, I'm like, no, she sounds Puerto Rican,
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 2: Like whether she Spanish is her first language or not,
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 2: you can tell she has Portocan people in her family
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 2: and in her home, and she studied how to speak
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 2: in that native like Spanish first Puerto Rican accent, and
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 2: that was the difference that made a huge difference to me.
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 2: And same thing with Maria. It's like, yes, I know
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 2: an Rita Moreno had a lot of complaints about being
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 2: forced to like over accent herself, but you could still
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 2: tell it was Puerto Rican and she had to teach
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 2: Natalie Wood how to have that accent, which sucks. It's
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 2: like it's like, oh, wow, you make the one Puerto
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 2: Rican girl teach the person who hates her right how
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 2: to do her job.
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 4: It's like cool, Christ, It's I mean, I think there's
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 4: a conversation sort of like this going on right now.
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 4: But how there is a clear pattern, and I guess
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 4: I won't overpathologize it from there because I haven't I
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 4: don't have my thoughts organized about it. But how roles
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 4: that are cast authentically tend to only be in supporting roles.
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 4: And then there's always a degree to this day of
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 4: you know, even though we are not seeing brown face
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 4: in movies now, we're seeing colorism, and I feel like
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 4: that sort of speaks to part of what you're talking
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 4: about with the Rachel zeglercastik and the fact that, I mean,
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 4: even in like this year's Oscar nominee lineup, you really
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 4: only see people of color that are strong contenders in
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 4: supporting supporting categories, which has been true for a very
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 4: very long time. And it is like I hadn't even
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 4: connected this until we started recording. But like the part
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 4: of Anita is like, I mean that won both Rita
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 4: Marino and Ariana Deboe's their oscars, But why are they
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 4: not considered credible to be the lead And it's like.
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 2: Why they're not consider credible? And then the fact that
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 2: they still both like after did not get the work
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 2: credit that like a person who would win the leading
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 2: actor role absolutely would like if Timothy wins, and even
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 2: if he doesn't win, he's gonna get booked for a
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 2: gazillion more projects coming out for life. He's set for life.
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 2: He's been set for life. But it's like, and I know,
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 2: Ariana Deboe's is kind of an annoying figure from what
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 2: I understand in the media a little bit. She's a
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 2: little corny. I like, she's just a theater kid.
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 4: Ajelavasa did the thing.
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 2: Yes, he's a theater kid and we have to let
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 2: you know, let her be. But you know she hasn't
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 2: had a serious role since then. No, And it's exactly
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 2: what happened to Riada Marino, like for years she didn't
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 2: work after winning.
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 4: That the years there's a similar pattern with awards categories
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 4: where I feel like it's a more general marginalization. But
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 4: like you will rarely if ever see a woman or
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 4: a person of call her win and director they'll win,
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 4: and screenplay and likes, there's like all of these like
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 4: little negotiations that it just feels like the industry like
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 4: needling at marginalized people. And yeah, Westside Story is a
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 4: frustrating case study for that, because you're totally right. Like
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 4: Rida Marinos spoken extensively about how she struggled to find.
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 2: Parts because then they just wanted to typecast her in
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 2: this specific type of role, like a bad girl Latina,
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 2: like a gang affiliated Latina girl. And she's just like
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 2: I chose this role, which is heartbreating, because she chose
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 2: this role from what I read in her memoir and
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 2: just like all the research I did after watching the
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 2: movies she TOSU because it was very authentic to her.
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 2: She was like, I chose this role because it was
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 2: a Puerto Rican woman speaking her mind, you know, fighting
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 2: back against patriarchy with her partner, you know, standing up
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 2: for herself.
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 2: I related to her a lot. I did not want
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 2: to be typecast as this gang girl. And then that's
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 2: what happened. And it's like, and the reason she won
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 2: the Oscar for the performance is because she saw the
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 2: authenticity in what she could bring to the role and
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 2: brought her whole self to that role. That doesn't mean
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 2: she wanted to be a gang woman because it wasn't
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 2: about being in a gang. It was about being Puerto Rican.
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 2: But the white people saw it as her being in
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 2: a gang. And you're like, wow, you guys, like are
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 2: raises no matter what, Like you loved a role because
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 2: she was Puerto Rican, not because she was good at
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 2: being in a gang. But you guys refuse to see
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 2: the nuance in that.
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and then Jamie, you alluded to this already, but
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: that rita Moreno, her skin was darkened along with the
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: white actors who were.
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 4: In spite of her vocal protest against that. Like it
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 4: wasn't like she was vocal about it at the time,
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 4: and they and they related it anyway, how are they
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 4: gonna know?
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 2: And it's like, well, I guess fair in the sense
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 2: that you guys didn't hire a single Puerto Rican.
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 4: Right the call is coming from inside the house and
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 4: the answer is not brown face.
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: Well that's the thing, like the production clearly sees Puerto
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: Rican people as exactly one type and they look exactly
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: one way, ignoring the racial diversity within the Puerto Rican community.
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: Because Moreno is pretty light skinned. They were like, well,
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 1: you don't look Puerto Rican enough, and so they put
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: brown makeup on her and put her in brown face essentially.
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 2: Which, like Ritom Marino has stated, I don't have the
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 2: exact quote, but basically along the lines of like, Puerto
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 2: Ricans come in all shape, sizes and colors, like it is,
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 2: and that's what she told them. She was like, look,
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 2: Puerto Ricans are all types. So like it's okay if
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 2: you know the cast of Puerto Ricans looks different, but
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 2: like you're saying, kiln, they were like, well, we can't
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 2: conceptualize and other if there's not a clear other ring,
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 2: which is that y'all are brown and they're white.
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 4: Right, They decided that like there is a Puerto Rican
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 4: color to be yeah, which is just I don't know.
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 4: I don't know how she survived the experience. I'm glad
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 4: that she still feels at least comfortable and proud enough
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 4: of the work that she's you know, making appearances. But
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 4: it's interesting tracking her relationship to the material from sixty
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 4: one to twenty one as well. This sort of transitions
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 4: into a different part of the discussion, but around the
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 4: assault and attempted rape of Anita's character, where Rita Marino
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 4: spoke extensively. It has spoken extensively over the years about
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 4: how triggering that shooting that scene was for her because
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 4: of triggering memories of her own assault by a Hollywood agent.
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 4: I don't think that there's more specific information about that,
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 4: but being assaulted by an agent when she was a
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 4: teenager and that shooting that scene in the early sixties
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 4: was deeply traumatic. This scene has been, you know, a
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 4: topic of discussion understandably for the entire history of this production.
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 4: As recently as twenty twenty, there was I don't know
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 4: if it was a Broadway or off Broadway staging of it,
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 4: but that it was being staged very violently to the
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 4: point where it was upsetting to audiences and they had
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 4: to dial it back in twenty twenty, which is pretty absurd.
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 4: And then in twenty twenty one that Raadom Moreno plays
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 4: the character of Doc's his wife, who, again I haven't
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 4: seen it, but I know that she her character intervenes
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 4: in the way that Doc intervenes in the original film.
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 4: Radam Morillo intervenes in what I mean, and you can
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 4: both speak to it better, but as a more like
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 4: an even more aggressive version of that scene. I was, yeah, yeah,
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 4: what did you think of that?
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 2: I'm glad you brought this up, because I actually have
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 2: very frustrating thoughts about this, like about the way it
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 2: was portrayed in the twenty twenty one I'm like, Okay, Rita,
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 2: this role was very, very, very hard for you. It's
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 2: something you have noted in multiple interviews in your memoir
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 2: about how violent this role was, how triggering it was
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 2: for you. How come you didn't get it cut from
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 2: the twenty twenty one version outstanding to me, I feel
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 2: like it was more violent in the twenty twenty one version.
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 2: It was very hard to watch. I had a really
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 2: hard time with it. I think if she was going
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 2: to rewrite history in the way that she did for
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 2: the twenty one version, which she like comes too late.
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 2: They've already roughed her up, and she basically just like,
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 2: what are you guys doing? And then Anita goes, you're
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 2: a trader, you know, and she does her big moment
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 2: of being like, you're actually the trader you you know,
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 2: look at you like supporting these men, and then she's
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 2: like delivers a line about how like Maria was, you know,
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 2: murdered when she wasn't. I'm like, I feel like, if
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 2: we were to perfectly repurpose the scene, ye, Rita could
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 2: have come in sooner before the men got violent, and
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 2: they could have still had the same scene and no
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 2: one would have had to be like assault abused and
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 2: assaulted or whatever, and it was still so violent. I'm like,
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 2: if Rita was so vocal about how violent the scene was,
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 2: I'm like, why was it more violent for Ariana in this?
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, she has noted an interview after interview
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 2: how long it took them to shoot that scene in
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 2: nineteen sixty one. I can only pray and hope that,
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 2: like in the twenty twenty one version, it did not
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 2: take us long, because if it did, I'm sure that.
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 4: Was really hard and that there were like coordinators or
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 4: which I'm sure there weren't in the sixties.
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 2: Exactly, and it's I don't know. I was a little
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 2: disappointed rewatching it, being like, yeah, considering Rita was so
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 2: upset about this scene, I'm surprised didn't do more like
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 2: chain the scene while keeping it contextually like works within
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 2: the film. I don't think it would have been that
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 2: hard to.
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 4: I mean, I was confused to read that as well,
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 4: because I think that, like whatever, in the context of
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 4: the story we are, like Anita has to realize once
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 4: and for all that like this is not a safe
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 4: environment for Maria, like we talked about to the point
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 4: where like this white gang does not have a second thought, yeah,
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 4: about assaulting a Puerto Rican woman and does not have
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 4: a second thought of treating her like she doesn't matter,
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 4: and that Maria will likely be treated the same. But
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 4: there are other ways to demonstrate that point, and like
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 4: you're saying, you can demonstrate intent without showing a graphic assault.
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The response from the character that Rita Marino plays
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 1: in the twenty twenty one version, her name is Valentina. Yes,
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: she's Doc's his wife. If you never see Doc on screen,
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: I don't think In the twenty t twenty one version.
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 2: No, they just like they show a photo of them, yeah,
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 2: in the back of the the like an old shot
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 2: of them. Yeah.
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: Okay. But when she comes in and intervenes, her response
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: is more heightened than what we saw Doc's response being
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixty one version, where she says, you
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: guys are disgusting pieces of shit, you're rapists. Yeah, so
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: she does, you know, verbally call them out, But it was.
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 2: Like after Ariana already got or like Anita already got yeah,
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 2: so and Anita left, and then they gave her her
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 2: own song, and that's like, I guess kind of what
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 2: like timing wise, replaced that other song that we were
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 2: talking about earlier, Okay, And I feel like this song
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 2: was kind of like I feel like they gave it
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 2: to Rita Valentino whatever, because like she is Rita Marino
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 2: and like this was her, you know, reprising in the movie.
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 4: But I just I thought it was kind of any
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 4: time they add a song to a classic musical, it's like,
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 4: don't ye don't do that. I was like it's never
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 4: very good.
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's I don't know if whose idea this was, Like,
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: I don't know how this came to be the set
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: of the twenty twenty one version, but it seemed like
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: it was maybe someone was giving Rita Marino a chance
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 1: to sort of.
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 2: Like rectify that moment from but feel redeemed.
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: Or something by the trauma she experienced in nineteen sixty one.
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 4: And it's like a career, like it's a career full circle.
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 4: Like I don't object to her big in the movie,
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 4: but no, no, no, yeah, but the scene.
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: Itself, the scene should have been that she Yeah, it
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: shouldn't have happened so that we still see so much
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: of the violence on screen like I would.
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so this sort of connect I know that there's
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 4: I've we've been recording for so long. But one of
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 4: the things I didn't or that I was like, oh, this,
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 4: I guess is a slight difference in the twenty twenty
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 4: one version, but again I'm not sure. I did do
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 4: some reading on the portrayal of interracial relationships in West
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 4: Side Story and how there there has been a fair
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 4: amount written about that over the years. Oh my god,
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 4: I have so many tabs, so many tabs, so many tabs, okay,
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 4: or basically just to say that, like it reinforces, you know,
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 4: and it makes sense to me in the time it
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 4: was written, but like it, you know, reinforces the idea
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 4: that interracial relationships are doomed, the point that I honestly
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 4: hadn't considered that. I want to make sure I'm getting
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 4: the shouting out the name of the writer, Olivia Edmunds
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 4: Diaz wrote this in bitchflicks dot Com. Great name for
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 4: a website, but during a feature they were doing on
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 4: how interracial relationships have been portrayed on film. Obviously, the
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 4: first issue is this is not actually an interracial relationship
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 4: we're looking at. It's two white people and one is
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 4: in brown face. But she also mentioned like she's like,
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 4: I'm a huge fan of west Side's story, like, you know,
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 4: I grew up with a lot of love for it.
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 4: But she brought up something that hadn't occurred to me,
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 4: which is in I feel pretty, she was like, I
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 4: internalized that as like Maria has never felt pretty before
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 4: because a white man has never called her pretty. It
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 4: really struck me, I felt, so I was like, yeah, duh,
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 4: Jamie and how and yeah that their relationship is portrayed
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 4: as you know, just fully doomed again. I feel like
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 4: that little wedding mannequin scene, I don't know, like I
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 4: think it's sweet. I guess all I was trying to
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 4: get at is in the twenty twenty one version, Rita
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 4: Moreno and Doc being married is like, oh, a successful
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 4: interracial relationship exists in this world, and that's nice.
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 2: But then it's almost like twisted because when that scene
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 2: happens and Anita runs into Rita, she's like, you're a
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 2: race trader. She's like, you chose them, and look at
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 2: where we're at, look at how they treated me. You
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 2: are supporting all of these white boys in your shop
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 2: while they abused me. And then she leaves and it's like, yeah,
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 2: Rita has her moment, Valentina has her moment after to
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 2: tell those boys what's up. But it's like not when
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 2: it mattered, you know, So it almost still is having
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 2: this conversation where it's like, does interracial related works? And
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 2: you know it does. Every story is different. You know,
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 2: there are white people that care about people of color
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 2: like you guys, you know, so it's not like they're
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 2: all doomed. But I don't think in this twenty twenty
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 2: one adaptation they also created that dynamic. I think they
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 2: were still like brown people and white people. This doesn't
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 2: work right.
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 4: It's like it's kind of impossible if you're building it
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 4: on Romeo and Juliet to be like, yeah, it's gonna
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 4: work out, like if famously it doesn't. Yeah, but but yeah,
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 4: I guess just to acknowledge that dynamic as well as
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 4: in the same piece talking about sort of the virgin
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 4: horror tropes that are present within Maria and Anita, I'll
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 4: just quote from the piece really quick. Quote of the
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 4: two featured Puerto Rican women, Maria is the virgin trope
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 4: to Anita's horror trope. Maria's virginity is emphasized to make
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 4: her a safe choice for Tony, lest our white night
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 4: be swept into a quote unquote dirty Puerto Rican's bed.
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 4: One obvious manifestation of this is her white dress for
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 4: the dance. Despite Maria's wishes for a shorter red dress
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 4: like her role model, an Anita ensures Maria's virginity by
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 4: keeping the dance dress white and at a respectable length.
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 4: Anita's hard work pays off as the white knight. Tony
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 4: only has eyes for Maria, who visually stands apart from
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 4: the crowd. So again, not something that I feel like
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 4: is at the fore, I do at least appreciate that
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 4: even in the writing, at least of the movie, it
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 4: sounds like Anita is portrayed somewhat differently in the original
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 4: Broadway production, that I think that both of these characters
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 4: are written with love and like there's certainly I mean,
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 4: Anita is played with such care and love by Rita
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 4: Marina that I feel like it's you can almost kind
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 4: of miss that that is like very much a dynamic
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 4: that exists.
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 2: Yes, I think because Rita is such an incredible actress,
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 2: and she plays a role with such a nuance, and
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 2: she is honestly like she steals a show. She is
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 2: so magnetic you forget that she's supposed to be a whore.
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 2: I guess in complex or because like if you are
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 2: looking at the movie at large, right, it's like they're
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 2: not married. They make it it such a point that
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 2: like Bernardo and Anita are together and they're not married.
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 4: She's talking about having sex after the fight, which I
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 4: thought was funny. She's like Bernardo gets so horny after
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 4: a brawl.
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 2: You're like, sure, and then they show her putting on
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 2: lingerie and it shows many scenes. They're the only couple
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 2: that like has a kiss and like are romantic to
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 2: one another. But it's like, Rita does such a good job,
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 2: You're just in love with them. I'm like, I'm just
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 2: I'm rooting Bernita and Bernardo. I find their love story compelling.
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 4: Best couple in the movie.
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and then I will say this, Okay, I'm watching
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 2: the nineteen sixty one version. I'm like, everyone's ugly except
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 2: for Rita Marino. I'm like, wow, everyone is ugly. I'm
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 2: watching twenty toy one. I'm like, all the Puerto Ricans
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 2: are hot. I'm grateful that in twenty two one they
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 2: were like hot people will be in this movie and
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 2: every you know, most people were hot. We're not gonna
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 2: say ansel Ugger is hot because he sucks and he's canceled.
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 2: But I will say Bernardo in twenty May one hot hot.
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 2: I loved Ariana and Bernardo together and Eat and Bernard together.
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: Hot hot hot, Yeah, incredible. I want to go back
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: to the depiction of the Jets and the Sharks real quick. Obviously,
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 1: the animosity between them largely stems from the Jets being
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 1: racist toward these sharks and the Sharks not standing for
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: that treatment. But there's also societal prejudice against the Jets
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 1: because even though they are white Europeans, they are the
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 1: children of immigrants from European countries that at the time
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 1: were stigmatized in the US. So it's people of Irish,
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 1: Polish Italian descent, and obviously the discrimination they experienced pales
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 1: in comparison to the racism that the Puerto Rican characters
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 1: would have experienced, the racism that black and brown people
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 1: in general have always faced throughout the US and elsewhere.
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 1: But what the movie doesn't seem to acknowledge at all,
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 1: or what what I think the twenty twenty one version
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 1: could have maybe done more of, but doesn't really seem
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 1: to do, is that it's these two feuding groups of
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 1: poor men, right, and we know that what usually is
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 1: happening here is that it's poor white people buying into
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 1: the propaganda that the reason that they're poor and miserable
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 1: is because of immigrants from other places learning and stealing
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: their jobs. Again, this is not explicitly said the movie,
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 1: but This is like the context for why these things
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 1: tend to happen, poor white people buying into the propaganda
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 1: that the American Empire has been pushing for a very
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 1: long time, so that they will target their frustration and
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 1: anger against people of color and immigrants instead of fighting
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 1: the people they should be fighting, which is obviously the
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 1: rich ruling class, and that seems to be the basis
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 1: of the brawl between the Jets and the Sharks. Movie
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 1: doesn't None of the adaptations seem to be well.
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 4: I feel like most movies are like not able to
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 4: just say a cab and also to some extent, I
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 4: do think, like, I don't know, while it would be
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 4: awesome to see a multi racial coalition that unites to
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 4: ruin the cops, I mean, I think we're seeing attempts
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 4: at that right now in Minneapolis, and it's really really
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 4: exciting you. But it is very rare and was four
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 4: nineteen sixty one soft impressed at how the cops, I mean,
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 4: the cops are more portrayed as like oafish violent versus
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 4: murderous violent in this, which I think is a very hollywoodified,
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 4: like cop with a donut kind.
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 5: Of deal, especially at that time totally, yeah, for sure,
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 5: But I did appreciate how like Officer Shrek an officer
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 5: like how America and Officer Krupkey are like numbers that
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 5: are kind of in conversation with each other because they're
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 5: talking a lot.
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 4: About how institutions view these groups respectively. And like Officer
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 4: Shrek literally says at one point, I've got a badge.
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 4: What do you have? He's like, I know it's a
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 4: free country, but actually it's not, and get out of here,
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 4: and he kicks he kicks the Sharks out of the
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 4: out of the soda shop and hangs out with the
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 4: White Gang and says, guys, look, I'm rooting for you.
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 4: You just got to work with me. And that is
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 4: like a dynamic that very very much exists that it
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 4: was I was kind of surprised and didn't fully remember.
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 4: Is just like pretty explicitly stated basically every single time
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 4: that character appears on screen, he is like, I hate
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 4: all of you, but I hate the Puerto Rican Gang
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 4: much more so. If so, if the White Gang can
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 4: just like lay low enough, I will not give you trouble.
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 2: And yeah, you don't bother me, I won't bother you exactly, which.
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 4: Which is like a tacit understanding that exists between a
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 4: lot of bodies of power.
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 2: I'm watched enough Chicago PD.
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like it is. It is a real thing,
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 4: and I don't know, like especially in an over the
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 4: top musical based on a Shakespeare play, it was not refreshing,
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 4: but it was like, oh, that is like a weirdly
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 4: grounded element of this movie. And that, you know, we
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 4: see that the Jets are openly racist, like constantly, and
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 4: in Officer krup Key you do get some context for
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 4: like the Jets are aware of how the cops view
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 4: them and almost play that to their advantage sometimes to
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 4: play to the cops kind of like foolish, like they
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 4: they're making all of these racist assumptions about the Sharks,
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 4: but with the Jets, they're like, oh, well, their parents
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 4: are all at it, like all these classist assumptions of
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 4: like their parents are. Because I guess I was not
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 4: entirely sure. I think I maybe interpreted it more as
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 4: like sarcasm from the Jets. Maybe I'm wrong, but that
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 4: they're saying like, oh, all of our mothers are junkies,
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 4: all of our fathers are drunks, Like we're mentally ill
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 4: we should be institutionalized. But I guess I interpreted that
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 4: as them stating what the cops think of them, not
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 4: what they're actually like. And we don't really get much
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 4: background for what anyone's home life is like in this
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 4: so it's kind of hard to tell. But we know
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 4: that like Maria comes from a very loving home, Like,
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 4: we're not really led to believe that the struggle has
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 4: to do with an abusive household that has to do
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 4: with poverty and oppression and so get I don't know.
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 4: It's not like a great portrayal of cops, but it
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 4: wasn't as like reflexively defensive of cops.
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 2: It wasn't pro cop, which is good, like inherently good
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 2: that it's not pro cop.
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there are two rivalries in the movie. One is
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 1: the Sharks versus the Jets, and the other one is
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 1: the Sharks and the Jets versus the cops.
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 2: And it's like, you guys, if you guys just used
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 2: like ten percent more of your brain, you guys could
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 2: have united it on this front. But instead you guys
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 2: are like, well, we still got to kill each other
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 2: and run away from cops, Like yeah, like.
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 4: No, kill the cop, kill that together. Come on.
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 1: Speaking of the Officer Krupkey song, which has of a
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 1: couple lyrics that are transphobic or queer phobic in some regard,
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 1: something like my sister wears a mustache, my brother wears
• 1:53:22
  Speaker 1: a dress. Yes, whatever that's supposed to mean, very.
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 4: Like of the time transferred where it's like almost like incoherent.
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 2: You're like, well, Kitlin, are you getting into that character?
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 2: Because I actually don't have a lot.
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 1: So I do want to talk about anybodies, Yes we should.
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 2: I don't have a lot of context, and I'm actually
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 2: I would love to hear what you guys found out
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 2: about them, because I'm also lost here.
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 1: Here is my take on the matter. So this character
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 1: is portrayed quite differently from the nineteen sixty one film
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 1: adaptation and the twenty twenty one film adaptation. The way
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 1: this character is framed in nineteen sixty one is that
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 1: Anybody's is a woman who wants to be a member
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 1: of the Jets, and she this is a tomboy tomboy
• 1:54:05
  Speaker 1: queer coding possibly, but it's nineteen sixty one, so they
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 1: can't explicitly say anything.
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 4: The other thing was that I saw that like, because
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 4: this is not a character that's mapped on a Romeo
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 4: Juliet character, So everyone was like, who the hell is this?
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 4: It was like said that at one point there was
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 4: someone near the top of production for the Broadway show
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 4: who I Unfortunately, I'm not a Slate Plus subscriber, so
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 4: now the article's paywalled. But there is a great essay
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 4: in Slate by Isaac Butler that was published about what
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 4: we're about to discuss, how West Side Stories Anybody's went
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 4: from a tomboy to a trans character, but that this
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 4: character's origin appears to be that there was a butch
• 1:54:51
  Speaker 4: lesbian who was at the top of production and it
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 4: was almost like an acknowledgment for her within the space
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 4: of the play. But the origin of Anybody's remains somewhat mysterious, and.
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 1: The characterization of the character is quite vague in the
• 1:55:08
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixty one movie. Now in the twenty twenty one version,
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 1: Anybody's is more explicitly identified as gender queer trans Mask,
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 1: played by an actor named Iris Manas who is non
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 1: binary and trans Mask. There's a particular scene in the
• 1:55:28
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty one version where the Jets have been arrested
• 1:55:32
  Speaker 1: and they're waiting at whatever like the precinct to get booked,
• 1:55:36
  Speaker 1: and they're harassing anybody's. One character in particular, I think
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 1: it's the action care Again, I lose track of almost everybody,
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 1: but one character in particular is harassing anybody's in a
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 1: very queer phobic way, saying like, you're a freak, you're
• 1:55:55
  Speaker 1: a girl, Stop pretending to be somebody that you're not.
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 1: And then anybody's responds repeating several times, I'm not a girl.
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 1: I'm not a girl. I swear to God, I'm not
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 1: a girl, implying that this is a trans masque character.
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 1: And I feel like it was handled in a way
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 1: that felt appropriate for the time that this movie was set.
• 1:56:12
  Speaker 1: You know, it's not like they're using like super modern language.
• 1:56:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah, did you have to say super Mario sup super
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 4: Mario language? Oh that they would, But no, like they weren't.
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 1: Using, you know, the modern language and nuance that we
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 1: have to discuss gender and gender queerness because this is
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 1: set in the nineteen fifties. The character does have a
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 1: small arc which you see both in both versions, where
• 1:56:40
  Speaker 1: at some point toward the end, anybody's comes in and
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 1: gives the jets a helpful piece of information and then
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 1: the character responds by saying like you done good, buddy boy, Yeah,
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 1: which carries more meaning. I think in the twenty twenty
• 1:56:56
  Speaker 1: one version, where a character is saying, like, I see you,
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 1: it's not.
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 4: A girl as a mask person.
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think it comes from the same character
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 1: who was harassing anybody's earlier. Did it need to That's
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 1: up for debate, But because.
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 2: They all kind of were harassing them though, so it's like, yeah,
• 1:57:15
  Speaker 2: you know, I don't think it matters which character comes from,
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 2: because it's like the group itself was being repatful and
• 1:57:23
  Speaker 2: this was like the group accepting them.
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:57:26
  Speaker 4: Well, and another element of that character. And I'm only
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 4: speaking to the sixty one version that I thought was
• 1:57:33
  Speaker 4: I guess like what, Yes, particularly when the when the
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 4: character was being framed more as a tomboy and possibly
• 1:57:41
  Speaker 4: queer coded, is that even though you saw how anybody's
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 4: was struggling and was being constantly dismissed within this hyper
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 4: masculine group and you feel for them, they are also
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 4: not allied with a woman as she's being assaulted. They are,
• 1:57:59
  Speaker 4: I think, as we see happen all the time, allying
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 4: with whiteness before other women and before they ally with
• 1:58:06
  Speaker 4: women of color. And I don't know how like intentional
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 4: that was, because anybody's is very much in the room
• 1:58:13
  Speaker 4: participating in the harassment and assault of Anita in the
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 4: sixty one version, Yeah.
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 2: And I think in the twenty nine one ver I
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 2: can't remember. Honestly, I can't remember either, because they did
• 1:58:23
  Speaker 2: in the twenty one one version, as a way to
• 1:58:25
  Speaker 2: like create women's solidarity, they did like kind of harass
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 2: the jets women's too and like force them out of
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 2: the room, and they were like you get out of here,
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 2: and the women were like, no, don't hurt her, don't
• 1:58:37
  Speaker 2: hurt her.
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 1: And I would go a little.
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 2: Random because you were like, well, in reality, I actually
• 1:58:42
  Speaker 2: don't believe you guys would.
• 1:58:43
  Speaker 4: In nineteen fifty with this feel like I just yeah,
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 4: I don't know. Sometimes I again, that's I think it's
• 1:58:49
  Speaker 4: a it's a sort of a thing that we're trying
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 4: to figure out culturally of like, yeah, women can be wrong,
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 4: like you know, and in fact are constantly, and it's
• 1:58:59
  Speaker 4: okay to show that up. It's not misogynous to show
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 4: a woman being hateful or wrong.
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because it was like she was hateful to Anita
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 2: up until the moment they started getting violent.
• 1:59:07
  Speaker 4: And then all of a sudden it was like, wait,
• 1:59:08
  Speaker 4: I was like, when you're gonna hurt a woman, I
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 4: can't just like spit on her and color spick.
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 2: It's like and you're like, wait, well, if you were
• 1:59:15
  Speaker 2: willing to call her spick, then you probably.
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 4: Put on the pink pussy hat.
• 1:59:19
  Speaker 2: H Wait a second, No, You're like like, I don't
• 1:59:22
  Speaker 2: think you would care if she's getting hurt if you
• 1:59:24
  Speaker 2: were willing to call her a slur.
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 4: And obviously it's like I'm not encouraging like hate crimes
• 1:59:29
  Speaker 4: between women to be shown on screen, but I do
• 1:59:32
  Speaker 4: think that sometimes it feels a little like defensive and
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 4: dishonest too, especially when it's like specifically being like a
• 1:59:39
  Speaker 4: white woman in this situation would do the right thing,
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 4: because you know that's that.
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 1: Is historically usually not true.
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 4: It really is not the sure thing that it's often
• 1:59:51
  Speaker 4: presented as. Yeah, yeah, I think is there there's stuff
• 1:59:56
  Speaker 4: that that y'all wanted to touch on? I was like,
• 1:59:58
  Speaker 4: this is I think I've gone through everything in my
• 2:00:02
  Speaker 4: gigantic encyclopedia.
• 2:00:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm like, looking at my notes, I feel pretty thorough.
• 2:00:07
  Speaker 1: The last thing I want in This doesn't need to
• 2:00:09
  Speaker 1: be a long conversation or anything, but I do want
• 2:00:13
  Speaker 1: to point out the misogyny. I mean, we've already been
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 1: talking about it, but like just the misogyny that the
• 2:00:22
  Speaker 1: men from both groups displayed toward the women. I feel
• 2:00:26
  Speaker 1: like it's focused on a little bit more with Bernardo
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 1: where there's a part where he's talking to Anita and
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 1: she's like, choose between me or the war council meeting,
• 2:00:40
  Speaker 1: and he says something like back home, women knew their place.
• 2:00:45
  Speaker 1: Or like with Maria again, Bernardo, he's being protective. He's
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 1: being perhaps overprotective of Maria. She's feeling controlled by him,
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 1: and he says something like, well, when you're old and
• 2:01:00
  Speaker 1: married and have five kids, you can tell me what
• 2:01:03
  Speaker 1: to do, but right now it's the other way around.
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 2:01:06
  Speaker 1: And Anita steps in and she's like, well, you know,
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 1: she's free to do whatever she wants because this is
• 2:01:11
  Speaker 1: America where everyone is free.
• 2:01:14
  Speaker 2: Which is a little bit what I was talking about earlier,
• 2:01:15
  Speaker 2: where it's like, I do think there's this idea. I
• 2:01:17
  Speaker 2: mean I found that very truthful in a way where
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 2: there is this ingrained, really toxic machismo even to this
• 2:01:27
  Speaker 2: day in Puerto Rico, that we're fighting as women in
• 2:01:30
  Speaker 2: Puerto Rico, that we do not have time to get
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 2: into all the politics of that. But femicide is still
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 2: very high in Puerto Rico. A lot of Puerto Rican
• 2:01:38
  Speaker 2: men who are not working on themselves in liberation of
• 2:01:42
  Speaker 2: Puerto Rico and things like that, like they are harming women.
• 2:01:47
  Speaker 2: And I don't think Bernardo was harming the women in
• 2:01:49
  Speaker 2: his life, but I don't think what he said is
• 2:01:51
  Speaker 2: inaccurate to a family dynamic of a Puerto Rican family.
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 1: Sure, right, because multiple things can be true. These characters
• 2:02:01
  Speaker 1: can be the recipient of prejudice and racism, and then
• 2:02:04
  Speaker 1: they can also turn oppression on to the people around them.
• 2:02:09
  Speaker 4: And that like there's very few cultures that patriarchal abuse
• 2:02:12
  Speaker 4: and control is not a facet of right.
• 2:02:16
  Speaker 1: And worth noting that this happens with white Americans all
• 2:02:20
  Speaker 1: the time is that they will use that as an excuse.
• 2:02:22
  Speaker 1: They will be like, well, this group of people are
• 2:02:24
  Speaker 1: really horrible to women, or they're really horrible to gay people,
• 2:02:27
  Speaker 1: and that's why it's okay to genocide it like the.
• 2:02:30
  Speaker 2: Israel playbook, Yeah no literally, and it's like, yeah, well
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 2: that doesn't mean you deserve to be prejudice towards everybody.
• 2:02:36
  Speaker 2: And it's also like, well look in the mirror.
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 4: Babe, Like you're like, you would also kill thee Like
• 2:02:41
  Speaker 4: what do you talk.
• 2:02:42
  Speaker 2: It's like, we saw the fight scene and they just
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 2: shoved all the women out of the room and basically
• 2:02:46
  Speaker 2: assaulted them too. So it's like, right, you guys are
• 2:02:48
  Speaker 2: being just as bad to women.
• 2:02:50
  Speaker 1: The hypocrisy is staggering.
• 2:02:53
  Speaker 4: They're like, you're like, Okay, we get it, everyone hates women.
• 2:02:57
  Speaker 4: Next like it's yeah, uh, yeah, I don't know. Yeah,
• 2:03:02
  Speaker 4: I've If the movie was trying to make me dislike Bernardo,
• 2:03:08
  Speaker 4: I would say, like I've found him, like, you know,
• 2:03:10
  Speaker 4: he was being overly controlling, and like I understand as
• 2:03:14
  Speaker 4: a teenager why you would be frustrated with him. But context,
• 2:03:18
  Speaker 4: like in the context of the fact that Natalie would is,
• 2:03:22
  Speaker 4: first of all, it's supposed to be perto Rican, supposed
• 2:03:23
  Speaker 4: to be a teenager, and like you said earlier, Rebecca
• 2:03:26
  Speaker 4: is very new to a country that Bernardo is kind
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 4: of seeing right through the promise of the American dream
• 2:03:33
  Speaker 4: and doesn't want his sister's optimism and naivete taken advantage
• 2:03:37
  Speaker 4: of which it is like, they can't make me hate Bernardo. Yeah, right, well,
• 2:03:42
  Speaker 4: and this is.
• 2:03:43
  Speaker 1: I think contextualized a little bit more in the twenty
• 2:03:45
  Speaker 1: twenty one version, where it seems to be pretty widely
• 2:03:49
  Speaker 1: known that the reason Tony is no longer a member
• 2:03:54
  Speaker 1: of the Jets is because he went to prison for
• 2:03:58
  Speaker 1: some time for beating and nearly killing a brown person.
• 2:04:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 2:04:03
  Speaker 2: Oh, the Jets had already gotten to a fight before.
• 2:04:06
  Speaker 2: They had had a rumble, maybe not with the Sharks specifically,
• 2:04:10
  Speaker 2: but like they had a different a different gang. Yeah,
• 2:04:14
  Speaker 2: and they he beat a man to death. And then
• 2:04:17
  Speaker 2: in this twenty twenty one version, in the rumble, he
• 2:04:20
  Speaker 2: almost beats Bernardo to death, but then Bernardo still ends
• 2:04:23
  Speaker 2: up dying by knife instead, right right, right right, So,
• 2:04:27
  Speaker 2: but the Jets had it'd be like stop right.
• 2:04:30
  Speaker 1: So the backstory that like Tony almost killed a non
• 2:04:35
  Speaker 1: white person seems to be something that like everyone knows about,
• 2:04:39
  Speaker 1: and so Bernardo is like he like, this man is racist. Yeah,
• 2:04:43
  Speaker 1: he is violent toward people who look like us. Maria,
• 2:04:47
  Speaker 1: stay away from him.
• 2:04:49
  Speaker 2: And I think Bernardo even brings up in the twenty
• 2:04:51
  Speaker 2: twenty one version where he's like, hey, like you went
• 2:04:55
  Speaker 2: to prison, and now you think you're cool with the
• 2:04:57
  Speaker 2: Puerto Ricans because you were in prison with us. Kind
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 2: of something to that nature in the rumble when they
• 2:05:03
  Speaker 2: were like head to head and like Bernardo was like
• 2:05:05
  Speaker 2: going at him and was trying to like provoke him,
• 2:05:07
  Speaker 2: I guess, but it was like he's not wrong. It's like, oh,
• 2:05:10
  Speaker 2: you went to prison and you like became reformed. I guess,
• 2:05:13
  Speaker 2: like now you're not racist, Like Bernard didn't believe that.
• 2:05:16
  Speaker 4: Well, yeah, it's just like that also implies that prison works. Yeah, okay,
• 2:05:20
  Speaker 4: like r yeah, I didn't know that was an adjustment
• 2:05:26
  Speaker 4: for twenty twenty one. I mean it sounds like twenty
• 2:05:28
  Speaker 4: twenty one was an attempt.
• 2:05:31
  Speaker 1: And it was an attempt. Yeah, and it was not
• 2:05:34
  Speaker 1: a perfect attempt.
• 2:05:35
  Speaker 4: But I gotta say I'm not I have I haven't
• 2:05:38
  Speaker 4: been really effectively sold of like I gotta run, I
• 2:05:41
  Speaker 4: gotta run.
• 2:05:41
  Speaker 1: And see this thing crawl, don't walk.
• 2:05:44
  Speaker 2: Well, I think there were some scenes that were great,
• 2:05:47
  Speaker 2: but I do think there was a lot left to
• 2:05:49
  Speaker 2: be desired. And I think a huge eye sore of
• 2:05:51
  Speaker 2: it is the ansel ugward of it all, because it's
• 2:05:53
  Speaker 2: like you can't be like we're trying to like fix
• 2:05:56
  Speaker 2: the racism of this movie and fix all these things
• 2:05:58
  Speaker 2: with this movie. And then high and abuse.
• 2:06:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, and then I do remember the like whough
• 2:06:04
  Speaker 4: the whole like Rachel Zegler, as she so often is
• 2:06:08
  Speaker 4: being like, how dare you speak to this man and
• 2:06:12
  Speaker 4: press appearances? And I was like, that is not her
• 2:06:14
  Speaker 4: call to make and she's a kid, Like she's being
• 2:06:17
  Speaker 4: forced to make appearances with a predator, which question the
• 2:06:20
  Speaker 4: system and not the teenage girl for once.
• 2:06:22
  Speaker 2: With the predator situation, I'm like, you guys, hired a
• 2:06:25
  Speaker 2: kid and he is like twenty eight. It's like we
• 2:06:28
  Speaker 2: couldn't have fixed that either. We couldn't have hired another kid.
• 2:06:31
  Speaker 4: I can't. I just can't. The Yeah, I mean, we
• 2:06:35
  Speaker 4: still live in hell, it's just a different now.
• 2:06:39
  Speaker 1: But yeah, that was pretty much all I had for me.
• 2:06:42
  Speaker 4: Oh my god, I mean we could keep going, like
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 4: I know.
• 2:06:45
  Speaker 2: I'm like again, but we've been on long enough.
• 2:06:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yes, I think we need to liberate ourselves from.
• 2:06:51
  Speaker 1: From my last thing, it's a really quick, really silly one.
• 2:06:55
  Speaker 1: But I was going to propose an alternate title for
• 2:06:58
  Speaker 1: the movie, which is Shark Tale, perhaps.
• 2:07:02
  Speaker 4: Sharks Sharks Tail Sharkstail, A shark's tail, an extremely sharkstail movie.
• 2:07:08
  Speaker 1: It's an extremely sharky movie.
• 2:07:10
  Speaker 4: Wow, I love it. Thank you perfect no notes? Yeah?
• 2:07:14
  Speaker 1: Great. Well that brings us to the Bechdel Test.
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 2: Oh god, I know I was like, shit, I forgot
• 2:07:19
  Speaker 2: about this part.
• 2:07:20
  Speaker 4: Wait, come on, okay, I hate we were. I will
• 2:07:23
  Speaker 4: say we were all on it today except for the podcast.
• 2:07:27
  Speaker 4: Let's see. I think that the mood. Okay, I'm gonna
• 2:07:29
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna go to Bechdel Test dot com. We forgot
• 2:07:33
  Speaker 4: to do.
• 2:07:34
  Speaker 2: I don't think they do.
• 2:07:35
  Speaker 1: Here's what I've gathered. Maria and Anita. They talk about
• 2:07:39
  Speaker 1: a dress.
• 2:07:39
  Speaker 4: I actually do think that the dress, even though it
• 2:07:42
  Speaker 4: is sort of laying out the Madonna horror dynamics between them. Uh,
• 2:07:46
  Speaker 4: the dress conversation isn't a passing conversation. It is like
• 2:07:50
  Speaker 4: supposed to be telling us how we are perceiving Maria.
• 2:07:54
  Speaker 4: She wants to grow up, but she's not going to
• 2:07:56
  Speaker 4: be allowed to grow up. She still has to wear
• 2:07:58
  Speaker 4: this girlish white dress. I feel like that is a
• 2:08:00
  Speaker 4: like significant enough yeah to warrant a pass. It is
• 2:08:04
  Speaker 4: not a great pass. Yeah, I think it is a pass.
• 2:08:07
  Speaker 1: No, because even like the song where the where Maria's
• 2:08:12
  Speaker 1: singing about feeling pretty and all of her friends are there,
• 2:08:16
  Speaker 1: and almost everything is still in the context of like,
• 2:08:20
  Speaker 1: I feel pretty because a white man told me I'm pretty,
• 2:08:22
  Speaker 1: or or just like very explicit conversations about either Tony
• 2:08:27
  Speaker 1: or Bernardo. But yeah, I think there are at least
• 2:08:30
  Speaker 1: a few brief exchanges where yeah, you could say it passes.
• 2:08:36
  Speaker 1: But what about the Bechdel cast nipple scale where we
• 2:08:40
  Speaker 1: write the movie on a scale of zero to five
• 2:08:42
  Speaker 1: nipples based on examining it through an intersectional feminist lens
• 2:08:46
  Speaker 1: uh Oh, I don't know. It's not a high number,
• 2:08:52
  Speaker 1: but I do know that a lot of people connected
• 2:08:55
  Speaker 1: with this movie because it was sort of all the
• 2:08:57
  Speaker 1: representation that there was for the time. I know that
• 2:09:02
  Speaker 1: this movie. Both adaptations had performances won from Rita Moreno
• 2:09:09
  Speaker 1: as Anita that won her an Academy Award. Also shout
• 2:09:13
  Speaker 1: out to her because she has egotted.
• 2:09:15
  Speaker 4: Yes, one of the few, one of the few.
• 2:09:17
  Speaker 1: But Rita Mareno was the first Latina actress ever to
• 2:09:21
  Speaker 1: win an Oscar and then Ariana Debos, who also won
• 2:09:26
  Speaker 1: for playing Anita, was the first Afro Latina actor to
• 2:09:30
  Speaker 1: win an Oscar as well as the first openly queer
• 2:09:33
  Speaker 1: woman of color to win an Academy Award for acting.
• 2:09:37
  Speaker 4: Which is amazing and also that should be rewarded in
• 2:09:40
  Speaker 4: their subsequent careers precisely.
• 2:09:44
  Speaker 1: So, you know, this is a groundbreaking movie in some ways,
• 2:09:50
  Speaker 1: but obviously, as we've talked about, still relied on many stereotypes.
• 2:09:56
  Speaker 1: The nuances that could have been present in discussions about
• 2:10:00
  Speaker 1: and race and all the other things that the movie
• 2:10:04
  Speaker 1: examines just doesn't do it well because it was conceived
• 2:10:08
  Speaker 1: of by white, non Puerto Rican Americans, so didn't really
• 2:10:15
  Speaker 1: hit the mark. I'm going to give it one nipple.
• 2:10:18
  Speaker 4: With all of that in mind, Yeah, I guess I'll
• 2:10:21
  Speaker 4: go one and a half for no reason at all.
• 2:10:25
  Speaker 4: I would just just because I know we have to
• 2:10:26
  Speaker 4: wrap up. I'll go one and a half. I will
• 2:10:29
  Speaker 4: give one to Rita Moreno, and I will give the
• 2:10:32
  Speaker 4: other half to Cheta Rivera.
• 2:10:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Sleigh, I will give it also one and a
• 2:10:38
  Speaker 2: half nipples, because as much as I were really fond
• 2:10:42
  Speaker 2: of the movie, revisiting it, I do think the nineteen
• 2:10:46
  Speaker 2: sixty one version, you know, still represents women pretty poorly.
• 2:10:51
  Speaker 2: I wish all the best for ridom Marino because she
• 2:10:55
  Speaker 2: did not deserve all that bullshit, and all my nipples
• 2:10:57
  Speaker 2: go to Riada Mareno.
• 2:10:58
  Speaker 4: Yes of luck to her and her recovering from Marlon
• 2:11:03
  Speaker 4: brand having section. Ultimately, this was about Marlon Branda's penis somehow.
• 2:11:11
  Speaker 4: I mean, it really is.
• 2:11:12
  Speaker 2: And that is a conversation I want to have with
• 2:11:14
  Speaker 2: you guys offline. I will I can explain this please so.
• 2:11:18
  Speaker 1: Well, Becca, thank you so much for joining us.
• 2:11:20
  Speaker 2: Yes, thanks for having me.
• 2:11:22
  Speaker 4: Yes, congratulations on the new show. We're so excited.
• 2:11:25
  Speaker 1: Where can people listen? Plug away?
• 2:11:28
  Speaker 2: My first episode will be out February third, past Tuesday,
• 2:11:33
  Speaker 2: so listen, go check it out. This first episode is
• 2:11:36
  Speaker 2: like very endearing to me because it's like a very
• 2:11:38
  Speaker 2: intimate look at my life and my identity and like
• 2:11:40
  Speaker 2: why I decided to do this project, Why how I
• 2:11:44
  Speaker 2: came to be? Why am I questioning about my Puerto ricanness?
• 2:11:48
  Speaker 2: So yeah, check it out. Give me feedback. If you
• 2:11:52
  Speaker 2: are Puerto Rican, I want to hear from you. Email
• 2:11:54
  Speaker 2: us at Welcome to a Barrio at gmail dot com.
• 2:11:56
  Speaker 2: You can find me on all platforms. You listen to podcast.
• 2:11:59
  Speaker 2: You can follow her in Instagram at Welcome to Our Boudio.
• 2:12:02
  Speaker 2: My Instagram is bex p e ccs Ramos.
• 2:12:05
  Speaker 1: And yeahy come back any time.
• 2:12:08
  Speaker 4: Thank you so much for returning. I love when we
• 2:12:11
  Speaker 4: have a two time guest and the movies could not
• 2:12:14
  Speaker 4: be more different. So he has another curve ball.
• 2:12:16
  Speaker 2: Next time I am high low Baby, I will also
• 2:12:20
  Speaker 2: watch Horny, but also give you very thoughtful takes on
• 2:12:23
  Speaker 2: Puerto Rican identity.
• 2:12:26
  Speaker 4: Yes, she can do it all. And with that we
• 2:12:29
  Speaker 4: are we are going to stand in the middle of
• 2:12:32
  Speaker 4: a basketball court and really reflect on the events of
• 2:12:34
  Speaker 4: the last three hours. Bye bye. The Bechdel Cast is
• 2:12:44
  Speaker 4: a production of iHeartMedia, hosted and produced by Me, Jamie
• 2:12:48
  Speaker 4: Loftus and.
• 2:12:49
  Speaker 1: Me Caitlyn Dorante. The podcast is also produced by Sophie Lichtermann.
• 2:12:53
  Speaker 4: And edited by Caitlyn Durrante.
• 2:12:55
  Speaker 1: Ever heard of Them? That's me and our logo and
• 2:12:59
  Speaker 1: merch and all of our artwork in fact are designed
• 2:13:02
  Speaker 1: by Jamie Loftus, Ever heard of her?
• 2:13:05
  Speaker 4: Oh my God? And our theme song, by the way,
• 2:13:08
  Speaker 4: was composed by Mike Kaplan.
• 2:13:09
  Speaker 1: With vocals by Katherine Voskrasinski.
• 2:13:12
  Speaker 4: Iconic and especial thanks to the one and only Aristotle Acevedo.
• 2:13:17
  Speaker 1: For more information, about the podcast, please visit Linktree Slash
• 2:13:21
  Speaker 1: Spectelcast