West Side Story Is a Film About

West Side Story is a film about two rival gangs, the Jets and the Sharks. The Jets are American and the Sharks are of Puerto Rican descent. The movie has a Romeo and Juliet storyline -- however, in West Side Story the two lovers, Tony and Maria, are from two different ethnic groups as opposed to two sparring families in Romeo and Juliet. It is ethnocentrism that stands in the way of Tony and Maria's love.

Ethnocentrism is defined by Spector (2009, 12) as the "belief in the superiority of one's own ethnic group" and/or and "overriding concern with race." This is exactly what the problem is in West Side Story. The film is rife with concerns about ethnicity and where it places on in society. The film is about a fight over territory as it shows how immigrants from Puerto Rico come to New York and, in a sense, take over the space that was formally completely Anglo-American. It is also a film about the confrontation of two different groups of people with different color skin. Because the boys from the Jets are Anglo-American, there is a sense that they feel they are superior and that the West side is their territory. This comes across in their very first song where they sing, "I want the Jets to be Number One, to sail, to hold the sky! We're Jets! The greatest!" While this may seem completely innocent, the message is that because of their "American-ness," they are the greatest and they see themselves as the first race.

The film doesn't just make us think about the Jets vs. The Sharks; it makes us think in more specific terms such as USA vs. Puerto Rico or even Native vs. foreigner (Sandoval-Sanchez 1994, 62) This is apparent in the film, this sort of condescending view of the immigrant, when the police officer doesn't want to hear anything from the Sharks, but rather will only speak with the Jets. In a way, this is taking away the voice of the immigrants. It says, "we do not want to hear what you have to say" or "your voice doesn't matter."

Spector (2009, 12) states that ethnocentrism and xenophobia causes the down-and-out group, the minority, to "cluster together against the majority, who in turn may be discriminating against them." This is exactly what we see in West Side Story.

There are factors that indicate heritage consistency, according to Spector (2009, 15), and one of them is that the individual has personal pride about his or her heritage. In West Side Story this is very apparent. Both sides are equally proud of their heritage, and this is apparent in the dance scene in the gym. The two gangs are divided on a number of different levels -- skin color, the way they dress (especially pertaining to the women), and even the way they dance -- which defines and divides them (Sandoval-Sanchez 1994, 64).

West Side Story is a love story, but Maria and Tony both know that their love can never amount to anything because they are not the same. Tony sings later that there will be a time and a place for them to be together. He is singing not only of a place where nobody can bother them, but also a time when there isn't any racism in the world. This would be an ideal world. It could be suggested that this melodrama that is created between Tony and Maria is simply a way to mask the blatant racist undertones in the film.