Movie Song of the Week: “America”
Just to show that not all my tastes in movie musicals are strictly -- ahem -- black and white, there's this tune. It's one of the most famous songs from the 1961 movie West Side Story, which incidentally was the first movie musical I ever liked enough to buy its soundtrack album.
Although this song has often been described as a mindless celebration of assimilation, it has always seemed to me to be a lot more complex than that, especially the way it's presented in this movie. I have yet to hear another song that so adeptly sums up the complicated love-hate relationship so many Latinos like myself have with America. True, I myself have never experienced any of the prejudice that Bernardo and his friends complain about in this movie, but I know older relatives who have.
And yet... I love America. If for no other reason than the fact that it gave my late father the opportunity to achieve a success he never could have achieved in his native Mexico...
Just to show that not all my tastes in movie musicals are strictly -- ahem -- black and white, there's this tune. It's one of the most famous songs from the 1961 movie West Side Story, which incidentally was the first movie musical I ever liked enough to buy its soundtrack album.
Although this song has often been described as a mindless celebration of assimilation, it has always seemed to me to be a lot more complex than that, especially the way it's presented in this movie. I have yet to hear another song that so adeptly sums up the complicated love-hate relationship so many Latinos like myself have with America. True, I myself have never experienced any of the prejudice that Bernardo and his friends complain about in this movie, but I know older relatives who have.
And yet... I love America. If for no other reason than the fact that it gave my late father the opportunity to achieve a success he never could have achieved in his native Mexico...
Labels: Amor Sin Barreras, Canciones de Cine de la Semana, Canciones de Cine de los Años 1960, Estados Unidos de América, George Chakiris, Latinas y Latinos, Puertorriqueñas y Puertorriqueños, Rita Moreno
posted by Tonio Kruger at 11:50 AM
3 Comments:
Mindless assimilation? really? I hadn't heard it interpreted that way. Your assessment is just the way I always heard it--love/hate. But in the main, "America" always rang quite bitter to my ears, especially since they reordered the songs from the show to move up Office Krupke as sort of a riposte. The Jets sound a lot more spoiled when they are venting. The Sharks, on the other hand, have real grievances.
Free to be anything you choose--
Free to work tables and shine shoes!
I guess I never thought Rita Moreno really meant all the patriotic stuff she is spewing, she is just trying to get a rise out of Bernardo.
The choreography here is some of the best in the movie too, although the Jets get a superb number too with "Cool."
Well, Neorican author Ed Morales describes this number in his book "Living in Spanglish" as basically being "silly Puerto Ricans dancing all day" and Puerto Rican writer Alberto Sandoval Sanchez once wrote in an essay (available online) in which he argues that in the song "America" there is a "political campaign in favor of assimilation."
The movie and the play have recently proved to be quite controversial in the Puerto Rican controversy. There are even an attempt by Puerto Rican students in New England to halt a Clinton-era high school production of the musical on the grounds that it was "racist."
I obviously do not agree with this. Yes, there are certain things in the song and the movie that might have changed had this movie been written by a Puerto Rican writer but it nevertheless is a plea for tolerance that encourages us to side with the Puerto Ricans far more than the white non-Hispanic Jets.
Of course, I'm biased for the reasons I mentioned in my post. But then I didn't fall in love with this movie overnight and I'm not likely to fall out of love with it anytime soon. (After all, it's been a favorite of mine for almost three decades now.)
I do agree with a lot of your comments on this number.
Thank you for commenting.
That's meant to read "Puerto Rican community," not "Puerto Rican controversy."
Mea culpa.
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