West Side Story Genre

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West Side Story as a Teen Film The highly-acclaimed film West Side Story (Wise & Robbins dir.1961; henceforth WSS) is perhaps most strongly associated with the musical genre—not unreasonably. Based on its theatrical predecessor with music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a book by Arthur Laurents, WSS won ten Academy Awards including Best Picture, and ranks second on the American Film Institute’s list of Greatest Movie Musicals. However, the film is also a strong example of the teen genre, as it subscribes to the form of ‘symbolic action’ (Frow, 2005: 2), the cinematic elements that are common to numerous teen films. WSS is a teen film because of its focus on adolescents and their relationships, with each other and with …show more content…

While Riff outpours his personal issues, he is pushed from Jet to Jet, each impersonating a figure with some role in youth management, symbolising the way troubled teens are treated by institutions. When mock-arrested by Tiger’s portrayal of a policeman, Riff implores ‘Deep down inside us there is good!’ (W&R dir.1961 min.1:04:31). The boys enact a journey in which Riff is taken to court, only to be ruled ‘psychologically disturbed’ (W&R dir.1961 min.1:05:25) and sent to a psychiatrist, only to be instructed to find ‘a useful career’ (W&R dir.1961 min.1:06:23) and sent to a social worker who at last decides Riff ‘needs a year in the pen’ (W&R dir.1961 min.1:07:26), declaring ‘deep down inside him he’s no good!’ This final lyric, which is then heartily taken up by the gang—‘We’re no good, we’re no earthly good[…] the best of us is no damn good’ (W&R dir.1961 min.1:07:35)—expresses to the audience that the boys misbehave because that is how they are expected to act by society. After being told so often that they’re bad, they cannot behave otherwise. ‘They believe everything they read in the papers about us cruddy JDs,’ says Riff, ‘so that’s what we give ‘em—somethin’ to believe in’ (W&R dir.1961

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