I wonder if the east side is better?

I watched some of West Side Story on one of my movie channels yesterday. I love West Side Story, but I find that I really have to use my imagination to believe the Jets and Sharks are “street gangs” when they start snapping their fingers and breaking into snazzy dance numbers…

I once saw a Bollywood-type short film with the same sort of theme… an Indian girl fell in love with a white guy, but the girl’s brother didn’t want her associating with someone who was not her “own kind,” so he locked her in a sari shop. (Note to anyone wanting to lock someone in a second-floor sari shop: don’t leave all that sari fabric lying around, because it’s much too easy to create a makeshift rope and climb down…) Once the girl was locked in the shop and busy fashioning her sari rope, her brother and a bunch of his friends hopped in a car and went looking for the white guy – who they eventually found riding a bike in the neighborhood. So they chased him, cornered him in an alley, threateningly jumped out of the car, and – and punched him in the jaw? Pummeled him with bricks to teach him a lesson? Pulled out a few guns and knives? Oh no, instead they did something much more sinister – they started singing in Hindi and dancing Jets- and Sharks-style. I don’t know what they were singing about, exactly, but I imagine it was something along the lines of “stay away from my sister (snap snap)/ don’t go near her again (kick kick pirouette)/ we locked her in the sari shop (jazz hands)/ we dance like angry men (step kick step).” Yeah, I’m pretty sure that was it…

Seriously, I really do love West Side Story, but I usually only watch it up until the rumble – because it’s all downhill from there. I’ve never been much of a mushy/romantic movie kinda girl, but West Side Story is the one mushy/romantic movie that gets me every time. If I watch it until the end, when Tony is dying and Maria is holding him in her arms, singing “there’s a place for us,” I get a little choked up. Sometimes there’s even a tear or two. I very rarely cry over movies – even sad movies – but West Side Story? Bring out the tissues. There’s just something about it – something that leaves me feeling like a great big spotlight is shining on the pointlessness of the conflicts within the story. And it’s not the first “star-crossed lovers” tale, of course. It was based on the first and most famous of them all – Romeo and Juliet. The superficial idea that “A” people should stick with “A” people – and never, ever wander off into “B” people territory – is a view that has been around throughout history, evidently.

And that makes me wonder – will we ever start seeing people for WHO they are, as opposed to WHAT they are? When West Side Story ends, and the two rival gangs join together to carry Tony’s body away, the truth is finally painfully obvious: it didn’t matter one bit that Tony was American and Maria was Puerto Rican. Just like it didn’t matter that Romeo was a Montague and Juliet was a Capulet. Or how it didn’t matter that a white guy fell in love with an Indian girl and was later subjected to a rather amusing dance number. It’s all so pointless and superficial… I suppose if there was some kind of “don’t feel THAT way” button people could push, life would be much more simple. But life doesn’t come with “on” and “off” buttons… so past, present, and future, the “wrong” people will continue to fall in love with the “wrong” people. It’s like an eternally-existing, indefinitely-continuing saga. It seems overwhelming sometimes… thinking about the insane triviality of differences, and their ridiculous exponential expansion by people who don’t understand their futility.

It’s a good thing I know, when life gets crazy, that I can always break into a Jets- and Sharks-style dance number. (Although I must be careful to watch out for the hidden cameras that Rick swears are scattered throughout the house… to record my unseen dance moves…) Now if only I knew some Hindi songs to sing…