Line #42 Headscratchers/WestSideStory


1	* Maybe I'm missing something, but this bunch of lyrics in "A Boy Like That" confuse me: "...he'll murder your love, he murdered mine!" Obviously by "murdered mine", Anita is clearly referencing Bernardo, but Maria's love IS Tony, who did kill Bernardo (i.e. Anita's love)! Unless maybe Anita meant Maria would lose her own ability to love and turn into a murderer like Tony. Definitely gives a different spin to Maria's "...and everything he is, I am too."
2	** I think Anita means literally in regards to her love (i.e. Tony killed Bernardo) and metaphorically with regards to Maria's love (i.e. she believes Tony will end up breaking Maria's heart). It's not a stretch; Sondheim is the kind of writer who would be aware of the double meaning.
3	** In the 2021 film she might more simply mean Chino, since everyone thinks he and Maria will get together. Anita might just think Tony and Maria are a fling, while Chino is the ideal boy for her.
4	* Right after Riff and Bernardo die in the rumble, I wondered why Tony and Maria didn't try to take over their respective gangs and stop the gang war. Tony's got an easy shot at it (the other gang members clearly respect him for killing Bernardo and he seems to have been relatively high up in the gang already). Maria was Bernardo's sister, so that's a point for her, but I admit I have no idea how they'd pull this side of it off. Still, I wonder why neither of them even ''thought'' of this.
5	** After their best friend and brother, respectively, got killed, I can see how they probably wouldn't be thinking straight. Or if they were, they could probably realize themselves that there was extremely little chance they'd succeed.
6	** Maria is a girl and a pretty young one at that. Neither gang seems to be into women's rights, and Maria is treated as barely more than a child. As for Tony, he's about to be arrested for murder. It seems highly unlikely that he's going to be able to stick around long enough to take control of the Jets and broker a peace with the Sharks.
7	*** No way would Hispanic men in that time period accept a woman their own age or younger as any sort of leader. Some gang member's ''mother'' could ''maybe'' have a shot, but not a girl of their generation.
8	** Isn't that exactly what Maria ends up doing? When Tony is killed in front of her, she grabs the gun and shames everyone for the senselessness of it all. And that's enough to bring an end to it all. So that's what Maria did in the end - she was just too late to prevent one more death.
9	* The ending. Just... the ending. It just... ends!
10	** My friend has the deluxe DVD version with script and writers'/director's commentary. According to her, Maria kills herself offscreen.
11	** This troper has always assumed that was the point. It's mostly stuff that happened. The plot isn't the entire point, the characters are, and the gangs coming to a peace, too. Once that is accomplished, Maria, our main character walks off, with no idea where her life is going. And the audience has no idea either. Her killing herself, assuming the above poster is correctly informed, would change it from a WhatNowEnding to a DownerEnding. In other words, life there is screwed up and it's hard to find a direction, you don't get one handed to you even if you are a main character.
12	** It was supposed to be a Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet type of story, and we all know the fairy-tale ending to THAT one...
13	** Maria most definitely does not kill herself. West Side Story is not Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet, it only follows the same basic architype.
14	*** Mmm, no, West Side Story is Romeo and Juliet in almost every way - the only plot point that doesn't have a parallel in the Shakespeare is that Maria doesn't kill herself.
15	*** Hey, don't argue with WordOfGod.
16	*** Who was it that said it? If it wasn't Bernstein, Sondheim, or, most importantly, Robbins or Laurents, it doesn't count.
17	*** Well, as the first response to this post actually says, it's the writers' and directors' commentary that says this happens. Seems like WordOfGod to me.
18	*** Except no, since they're the ''movie's'' directors/writers, not the play's. Those who worked on the movie may have their own interpretation, but it's not WordOfGod.
19	** The Blu-Ray includes the same documentary as the DVD, and it says that Maria did '''''not''''' kill herself, because of how much stronger her character had become by that point.
20	** Some theatre versions (Melbourne, Australia 2010) also makes it clearer that Maria refuses to commit suicide.
21	** In an odd way; Her committing suicide would've been less of a downer. That way the story could end with Maria & Tony embracing in the hereafter, taking the sting out of thee DownerEnding.
22	** For that matter, if Maria loved Tony so much, why didn't she [[TakingTheBullet take the bullet]] for him?
23	** It happens too fast for her to take the bullet. In the 1961 movie and most stage productions, neither she nor Tony even see Chino there until he fires the shot.
24	** Either option is perfectly valid, considering the ending doesn't tell us either way. But the context of adaptation between Juliet to Maria is important to note. Juliet doesn't just kill herself to be with Romeo; she's living in a world where she's to be married to a man she doesn't know to get her family wealth or political favour. She would be completely ruined if she were discovered to have faked her death and married someone behind her father's back, and so would her family. Juliet's only option was to die, and that served to shock her parents into realising just what they'd put their daughter through - as Shakespeare wanted to give the audience AnAesop about the evils of child marriage (Juliet's counterpart in the story he got it from was eighteen, and she's fourteen in the play). Maria is eighteen in the 20th century and, while the 1950s weren't the best time for women either, she's got far more opportunities than Juliet. She doesn't face dishonour or ruin for her family if she lives (her parents are dead in the 2021 film, and we know nothing about them in the originals but it's safe to assume they wouldn't disown her for falling for a white boy). It's possible she will end up leaving New York like she'd planned to after all; since she didn't have anything keeping her there if she was so quick to elope with Tony. Things between her and Anita would certainly be strained when Maria finds out that Anita's meddling got Tony killed.
25	* In the movie during "Anita's rape scene", Ice and Anybodys magically disappear. I have been thinking that this is because the directors did not know what to do with the characters-- Anybodys, of course, because she is female, and standing by while another female is being raped is gonna be bad. Ice is considered cool headed and logical, so he would think better than to harass her, but probably not stop everyone else from doing that-- and he is supposed to be likable, and standing off to the side and letting everyone else rape Anita would be, eh, UNLIKABLE. So he poofed too. Then Anybodys magically reappears after Doc tells them to leave.
26	** Anybodys can actually be seen during much of the attempted rape scene, sort of skulking about at the cellar door. I didn't see Ice in the drugstore at all, in that scene.
27	*** Anybodys is going to have such big therapy bills in late adolescence/early adulthood, I predict?
28	*** This is easy to miss, but Anybodys starts out verbally taunting Anita, but gets very quiet and looks unnerved once the scene gets more rapey.
29	*** In the 2019 Seattle production, Anybodys joins in with the taunting at the start of the scene, still high on Ice's approval and being one of the boys at last, but when she realizes things are escalating toward a rape, she panics and tries (frantically and fruitlessly) to get the boys to stop, in a heartbreaking bit of blink-and-you'll-miss-it background business among the chaos. At the end of the scene, as the rest of the Jets are being kicked out of the drugstore, she's sitting slumped at the counter with her head in her hands, [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone visibly stunned at what almost happened]]. It's a really deft twist in her character arc and a nice way to avoid erasing her from the scene.
30	** Before Anita arrives, Ice goes out the back door to check and make sure things are all right, i.e., that neither Chino nor any of the other Sharks are lurking around.
31	* Okay, so both gangs are supposed to be seen as sympathetic and flawed, right? Then why the hell are the Jets such assholes? They were bordering on monstery for me, but when they tried to rape Anita, I was like "Fuck Dis". The Sharks attitude made them easier to relate to, and I'm white as snow and have never faced discrimination. Ever.
32	** Maybe it is positive discrimination?
33	** Long story short, they basically thought that Anita was either out to kill Tony or a major player in the plot to do so. Also, depending on the production and the director, it's not necessarily rape or even attempted rape; [[RapeAsDrama it's more dramatic if it is]], but I've seen two or three excellent portrayals of the scene where the Jets basically just beat the crap out of her. Also, what did the Jets do prior to that? And in any case, can you imagine a similar scene with Graziella and the Sharks going much differently?
34	*** Wait, are you saying that being out to kill Tony is an excuse to rape her?
35	*** In the moments before, she came to the café and asked them where Tony was and they were harassing her, flipping up her skirt, and groping her. I saw the Broadway version, and to me, the Sharks all seemed like greedy assholes. Also, yeah, person above. It's no excuse, it's plain monstery.
36	*** [[SarcasmMode Yes. I was implying in any way, shape or form that there is an excuse to rape somebody]]. I was saying ''why they did it.'' UsefulNotes/CharlesManson killed people because he was fucking crazy. It's not an excuse, but it's why he did it. The situation was brutal and one where non monstrous people do monstrous and inexcusable things to each other.
37	*** Nobody was asking their thought process in doing so, they asked why they were being so damn terrible. Whether they had a reason rather than just for shits and giggles, it ''still'' makes them complete assholes.
38	*** If someone's out trying to kill your best friend--and her boyfriend just killed another one of your best friends--I can definitely imagine getting pissed off and doing something stupid. After all, Tony killed Bernardo for accidentally killing Riff. Why wouldn't the Jets rape Anita for purposely killing--or trying to kill, whatever--Tony?
39	*** Also, part of the point of the show is a commentary on gang mentality. If any of the Jets had been alone, of course no rape would have occurred.
40	*** It's also possible that given the time this was written and who the bulk of original audience probably was, they had to make the Jets a bit worse to even out audience prejudice.
41	*** Agreed
42	*** It was also a dramatic escalation of sorts. I don't think at the beginning of the movie the Jets were that bad, but violence begot more violence which begot more violence. I think that's what Maria's speech was getting at at the end of the film.
43	** Nearly being raped also gave Anita the incentive to get revenge on Tony (and possibly Maria too for sending her there in the first place) to further emphasize that innocent people still suffer if a CycleOfRevenge continues.
44	** It's also a commentary on the gang behavior from both sides. The Jets are all together and to them, it's just a bit of fun. They think it's funny to harass this woman who's from the other side and don't see the reality of how horrific it is for Anita herself because they're caught up in the joke of it all. It parallels the fights, which to each side seem like harmless rough housing, until it goes sour and gets two people killed.
45	* I don't know about you, but this trouper would NOT automatically sleep with the person who JUST killed her brother. OK, it was an accident, OK, he was sorry, OK, he didn't mean to do it and wanted to turn himself in. But still...HE KILLED YOUR BROTHER!! And you AUTOMATICALLY sleep with him?! Your brother's been dead not even one hour, and you give yourself to the guy who took his life?! No...just no.
46	** Okay...?
47	** You keep saying "automatically", as if Maria was some kind of robot whose programming to mourn her brother was overwritten by programming to have sex with Tony. Remember, when the scene opens she runs at Tony and tries to attack him. You can make an argument that their liaison at that point is nothing close to healthy or smart; but they're both deeply traumatized and they need to ''be'' with someone who understands.
48	** By automatically I meant she didn't stop to think, "HOLD ON, my brother is dead and HE killed him!" Also she ran to him, but then insted of attacking she throws herself into his arms! Like, HELLO, your brother JUST died, and HE did it! plus you can be with someone without having SEX with them. Sex isn't a game, it's a big deal, it's giving yourself to someone...and it's also understood Maria was a virgin. You lost your virginity to you BROTHER'S KILLER?! Something isn't right there...
49	*** That's what makes for such effective drama in this troper's opinion. It was likely not something they intended to do but the moment got away from them.
50	*** I'm not sure they had sex. It's clearly not implicitly stated. If it makes you feel more comfortable, you can just assume they lied in each other's arms all night?
51	** Four little words: "Love at first sight." In fiction, characters just don't oppose that, no matter what.
52	** Let's look at Maria's analog from ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet''. When the Nurse tells Juliet that Romeo has killed Tybalt, she goes on a rant of oxymorons, calling Romeo things like "Dove-feathered raven" and "wolvish-ravening lamb". When the Nurse chimes in with "Shame come to Romeo", Juliet suddenly turns and says "Blistered be thy tongue/For such a wish!" She hates what he has done, but she can't bring herself to hate the man himself.
53	** Because the situation is complicated. In the 2021 film, Maria doesn't have the best relationship with Bernardo, who's quite controlling. But even so, Maria is a young woman feeling all sorts of conflicting emotions. The fact that it happens so soon after her brother dies just sells how in the moment it was. If Tony had come to her even the next day, things would have gone very differently.
54	** Same film (can't remember if it's the same in the original) but Tony is only at the rumble there because María begs him to intervene, hoping to stop it. He doesn't want to, fearing he'll lapse back into his old ways, especially if it's an out of control fight where neither side wants to compromise. So Bernardo was killed by the man who María told to be there, meaning Tony isn't 100% at fault.
55	** I might add her first thought is NOT to just automatically go and make out with the guy and then fall into bed with him. Even in the 1961 film, as soon as she sees him, she ''physically attacks'' Tony, hitting him and screaming "KILLER! KILLER! KILLER! KILLER!" He lets her do it and then holds onto her while he tries to explain what happened at the rumble, which gives Maria a chance to calm down and listen. Sure, afterwards, it's not the smartest or emotionally healthiest thing to sleep with one another but they've gone through a traumatic experience and are looking for comfort from the closest person to them that understands.
56	* Are we sure that "Gee, Officer Krupke" explains that Jets are just bored assholes who hate work? Because a FreudianExcuse, ParentalAbandonment, was certainly implied with Riff, and then there was the line "We've got troubles of our own!", after a part where they were arguing about what was wrong with Riff. Sounds like the life of a JD to me.
57	** I think it's more accurate to say that the point the song is trying to make is "The issue of juvenile delinquency is really complicated and cannot be attributed to any single cause alone."
58	** It's showing how they see themselves. They don't care about all so-called societal causes because, in there eyes, they're just ways of getting them to conform.
59	** Ehh... It's more that they're poking fun at "the system" than trying to explain ''themselves''. Throughout the song, no one wants to be the one to actually deal with the issues, instead just passing them off for someone else to deal with. Most quite clearly come from the common kinds of homes for [=JDs=], especially back then (besides the issues with Riff, at least one of the gang has an alcoholic father and another's mother is implied to be a prostitute); they just exaggerate the issues in the song to highlight how none of those who are ''supposed'' to help and deal with them are completely unwilling to actually do so.
60	** While played for comedy, the lyrics do suggest a repetitive pattern in how the authorities try to deal with the Jets. First thrown in jail for a crime, then sent before a judge who sends them to a psychologist, who then slaps a diagnosis on them, sends them to a social worker who just tells them to get a job, and then they don't change and end up back in jail once again for another crime. The psychologist doesn't rehabilitate them or seem interested in examining ''how'' and ''why'', or what to do to change the cycle - and the social worker doesn't try to get them away from the abusive family or life of poverty. For one, the only kind of work they can get hired for is the "schmuck" stuff they see as basically slavery (and they believe being in the gang is freedom) and no one educates them on social mobility or how they could work their way up to a nicer lifestyle.
61	* Wouldn't Maria's father wonder what she was doing at the fire escape for several minutes, especially if he overheard her and Tony singing?
62	** Wouldn't EVERYBODY? After she repeatedly tells him to "shh", they then proceed to sing a love duet with no heed for anyone overhearing. Movie magic at it's best.
63	** Well we've seen Tony has the ability to warp time and space in the dance scene so maybe he slows down time around him and Maria... Doesn't make much sense, but it justifies the trippy dance scene and this.
64	*** This is TalkingIsAFreeAction. This trope happens quite frequently in musical theatre and opera, allowing story time to be suspended for a musical number.
65	** There's a thing called "diagesis vs non-diagesis" which basically means "things that are literally taking place within the story vs things that aren't". Tony and Maria's duet falls under "non-diagesis" (i.e. they are not literally singing a 3-minute spontaneous love duet on the fire escape).
66	** In the 2021 version, it's just Bernardo and Anita in the apartment. And the two are in their room, preparing to fool around, so they won't be paying too much attention to what Maria is doing.
67	** And who's to say they didn't hear her and assume she was singing with one of the neighbors? What reason would they have to first think her singing partner is the boy she met briefly at the dance earlier?
68	* Why does Anybodys hang out with the gang? Does she have some gender confusion issues or are we supposed to take it as harmless tomboy fun. I think the play/movie could have functioned just as well without her. It seems like some deliberate statement was made by making her a girl?
69	** She just wants to be one of them. And the show would function without her, except that it would lose some character 'texture', I think.
70	** She wants to be one of them, but isn't exactly. In the show (and maybe film?) she doesn't run away after the Rumble and pulls Tony away from Bernardo and Riff's bodies. The other Jets have fled.
71	** She pulls him away from the bodies in the film.
72	* It always strikes me as amusing that the swearing is censored: "ever-loving", "bugging", etc., but the violence and threatened rape isn't. Oh 1950s, you were a strange fish.
73	** Rape was implied and most of the heavier violence was also implied
74	** And they can kill each other, but you'd better not show them drinking alcohol!
75	** Still pretty similar today... well. Not ''exactly'' the same.
76	** Well the odd thing about the Hays Code is that rape was more acceptable to portray or imply than consensual sex. The standards of the day meant that a respectable woman couldn't be seen consenting to sex. Take the song "Baby It's Cold Outside", which some modern commenters miss the context of and think it's just a man pressuring a woman into staying the night - but the context of when it was written is very important in understanding the lyrics. TL;DR the woman wants to stay the night, but she's not allowed to agree instantly and remain respectable, so she has to put up all sorts of token protests and use the storm outside as an excuse for why she didn't go home. So in a weird way, rape was more acceptable to hint at in the Golden Age because, since it's non-consensual by definition, the woman not wanting it meant she was still respectable. And back then, while it was seen as bad, it was more so because she was considered DefiledForever (and the Ancient Greeks defined it as bad because it happened without the permission of her father/husband/male superior).
77	* How old are these people supposed to be anyway? Most of these actors look like they're 30.
78	** Two Words: DawsonCasting
79	* Why did Chino shoot Tony as he was about to hug Maria and some of the Jets started to appear in the playground? I felt like he was more of a follower and coward then Bernardo and he only had a slight chance of doing it if Tony were alone and not when there were witnesses. It also appears that there might have been a chance he might have missed and hurt Maria.
80	** He was past the point of caring. Tony had murdered his best friend and stolen the girl everyone was expecting him to marry, therefore, as far as Chino was concerned, he had to pay. One of the more subtle running themes of the show is that when people are pushed far enough, they will just snap in the most violent way possible - look at how Tony doesn't think twice before stabbing Bernardo, for example, and this is a guy who's all but preaching full-on pacifism for most of the story. Chino has been pushed to the point of being out for blood. It's as simple as that.
81	** And who's to say he would care if he hit Maria by accident? Perhaps he considered her a traitor for falling in love with Tony. It wouldn't exactly be unrealistic for the woman to be blamed for that sort of thing.
82	* Isn't Maria pregnant with [[SomeoneToRememberHimBy Tony's baby]] at the end of the story?
83	** She is in one of the fanfics listed in the relevant page on here, but it's neither mentioned nor alluded to in the film IIRC.
84	* Why were so many of the characters unprepared for murder or fighting to take place when they bought knives? Did they never actually have a knife fight before?
85	** Maybe they thought it would just be for show, i.e. they'd just flash their knives and the others would back down.
86	** They've clearly been in violent fights involving weapons before but it had probably been limited to just getting cut up a little. The knives are initially implied as merely a backup of the "if they try anything, at least we'll be ready" variety but once they come out, no one's really surprised or overly concerned except Tony. And if you look at how Bernardo and Riff are actually using their knives when they fight, they're not aiming to stab (for the most part) but to slice. Presumably in that situation, the aim is just to incapacitate your opponent until it's clear you've won but not to really cause any truly serious bodily damage (or at least nothing that means you'll have a body on your hands there and then). In the film (and in plenty of productions) it is played as a genuine mistake when Riff gets stabbed as Bernardo is simply holding the knife out as normal and Riff either runs, stumbles or is accidently pushed onto the blade (depending on the production). In short, they were certainly expecting some kind of bloody violence to occur because presumably that's just how their respective gang fights have always gone before, but not for it to escalate to people actually dying.
87	** In all likelihood, neither the Jets nor the Sharks ''have'' seen a knife fight before. Get some prop knives and try fighting with a friend. It's nigh impossible to land a hit without getting hit yourself. But since violence is all about escalation, they were gonna keep upping the ante until they had to try them.
88	** The 2021 film makes it clear that neither side actually ''wants'' to fight with knives, but both of them are under the belief that the other group does and are planning on bringing them to the rumble [[SelfFulfillingProphecy so they bring knives themselves just in case their suspicions prove correct]].
89	* Why is Baby John in the gang at all? He seems unprepared for all of this.
90	** IJustWantToBeBadass.
91	** Besides the above, it might also be a case of being in a gang merely being something to do. It's established that plenty of the Jets have awful home lives; there's no reason why Baby John's should be any better and thus being in a gang would give him a sense of community. And if he is in a gang, he might as well be in the toughest gang around. Plus given his closeness with A-Rab, it might have been a case of being convinced to join the gang specifically by him.
92	** He's a kid who wants to belong, and the Jets seem like cool badasses from the outside.

Context Headscratchers / WestSideStory