#Like in the dance at the gym in WSS 1961

[fullmoondelinquent]

My silly sullu sillyl sily bird, Hopscotch :]

[bradshawsbaby]

Non-TG question: what is your favorite WSS recording and song?

When fandoms collide 😂

My favorite recordings are the two film recordings (1961 and 2021), and two of my favorite songs are Tonight (Quintet) and A Boy Like That/I Have A Love!

But my favorite scene/sequence is for sure Dance at the Gym!

[heidies]

Reasons 2021 West Side Story is better than the 1961 West Side Story

60 years later after the 1961 film, West Side Story. Steven Spielburg made this amazing musical adaptation that is easily better than the 1961 version. In honor of it coming to Disney+, I will go on a talk about how awesome this film is.

There will be spoilers from here on out

Lighting and Sets: I know it was more limited in the 1960s, but this film feels more alive and like there is more effort given to it. The lighting is beautiful and helps give emotion to the scenes through out the scenes. The sets are were more limited in the 60s, but in this film, it don't seem confined like the old one did.

Singing, Dancing, and Acting: It feels like there is more emotion put into their performances. Rachel Zegler, Ansel Elgort, David Alvarez, Mike Faist, Ariana DeBose, and Paloma Garcia-Lee all did an amazing job at portraying their characters through song and dance. Their singing seemed more professional and more powerful than before.

Songs: I very much prefer this version's song arrangement and performance. I love how Tony sing Cool, it suits him and the situation better to have it where it is and who sings it.

Dancing: I cannot express how much I loved the dancing. America and the dance at the gym were magnificent. Especially, and more specifically, America. I love the new choreography for America and how it moved to the streets of New York. Not only these two scenes, with Cool, I love how the dancing shows how tense the scene is supposed to be. As in this version, it is Tony trying to convince Riff to stop the rumble and fighting over the gun.

Anybodys: Okay, I feel like he deserved his own section because of how big the change was between the 1961 version and the reimagining of West Side. In the 1961 version, Anybodys was a tom boy who was misogynistic. She was a horrible person, especially because she did nothing about Anita's assault. If anything, she helped the Jets. Now, he is a beautiful character, inside and out. And I love how Spielberg made Anybodys transmale, which helped represent the trans/lgbt+ community. Also Anybodys has some also retorts to the Jets' bullshit. He is also way more fleshed out and has some personality.

The Topics: The topics of racism and xenophobia in my opinion were handled much better in this film. It showed how serious it actually. I felt like the topics in the 1961 film were watered down if not handled well. Another big thing about the topics was Anita's Assault. But I'm saving it for its own section. I also noticed how the Jets were transphobic to Anybodys, because in this film he is a trans male. It shows how much of assholes they are and what the trans community had to go through and still have to go through so much.

The Characters: WHEN I TELL YOU THE CHARACTERS WERE SHIT IN THE 1961, THEY WERE. Besides probably Anita, even then her character wasn't even that fleshed out. I get it's a musical, and at that more of an action musical, but they could have at least fleshed the characters out more. In this 2021 WSS, the characters have so much more personality and are better in general than the B-way and 1961 film versions. Even the main characters didn't feel complete like they do in this movie. Kushner did an amazing job with completing their personalities, even with some of the side characters, like Graziella, Chino, Baby John, and Anybodys. Also giving some backstory to the characters, like Tony and Riff's history, as well as Maria and Bernardo's relationship and backstory. Tony's character was potrayed so well, I hate Ansel Elgort because of what he did, but his character was done so well. As well as Bernardo, he was actually given a history to how he can fight. I did a whole other post about my rankings of the characters, so yeah.

Plot Holes: There. Were. Alot. Of. Plot. Holes in the original. They may have been minor, but still gave a lot of questions. For instance: Why isn't Chino that involved in the Jets? Why is Tony so hesitant to go and stop the rumble besides of Maria? Why is Riff so broken? And other questions. It fills it in for us, telling us that Tony had almost killed a man in the last fight he'd been in. Bravo Kushner and Spielberg for being able to fill the plot holes in.

Anita's Assault: This was such a tense, stressful, emotional, and vital scene in West Side Story. It always brings the waterworks and anger at the Jets for being so fucked up. In this, it feels so much more real, and so much more emotional. Just fear strikes into you, it also makes you want to pull a Tony and kill em- I hate it when there's S/A scenes in movies, but this actually has reasoning behind it. Without this, Anita would not have told the lie that Maria was shot and killed by Chino. I believe the Jets S/A'ed Anita because.

1. They're racist pieces of trash, so they already probably dehumanize people of color

2. The Jets definitely sexualized Anita because the part right before her assault, they made obviously sexual comments about her body and dancing. So even more dehumanizing her. Which leads to them seeing her like an object.

3. They felt weak and lost without Riff, he was like the glue that held them. Since he was able to bring them out of the dark and keep them stable even when times are tough. The Jets felt in power when Riff was leader, so they wanted something to control. They hated Bernardo and wanted to hurt the Sharks. Anita was Bernardo's girlfriend, and they knew that. So that happened.

So to conclude this section, the Jets are racist, rapist pieces of shit who I'd gladly hit with Riff's bat. No one deserves to be sexually harassed, assaulted, and or raped. A thing I loved is that Valentina actually called them what they are, and that is rapists. Also that despite Graziella's hate towards the Sharks and kind of Anita, she still tried to help Anita.

In conclusion, this is an awesome movie worth watching. The actors and actresses put their heart and soul into this movie. I hope this movie earns a lot of awards. Please don't let your hate for Ansel Elgort not make you watch the movie, it is an awesome movie worth it.

[riffheartsgraziella]

I'm not understanding why everyone is putting the blame on Graziella for the whole love triangle storyline. I mean didn't Riff essentially violate the bro code by going after his best friend's girl, regardless if they had broken up prior to Tony going to jail? Why isn't Riff being held accountable as the other half of the relationship?

Mike Faist said in an interview that both he and Paloma wanted to present Riff and Grazi as having a toxic relationship. Graziella may have wanted to be with whoever is the leader of the Jets, but Tony was a little harder to let go. However I don't think it transitioned to well to the screen. You instead saw two passionate young adults who were both each others sun and storm and they made that dynamic work so well!

It's OK to love two men, but not to be in love with two men. Grazi could have tried to go after Tony after the gym dance, but she didn't. You never saw her wearing anything that was associated with her time with Tony. Grazi may have still loved Tony because he reminded her of their good times together, but I think her heart really was Riffs in the end.

Hmm, interesting! I hadn’t really seen anyone putting the blame on Graziella, per se. There was no cheating involved, so it doesn’t seem like there’s anything to blame anyone for. When I first saw the new WSS, I was more annoyed about the creation of a love triangle in general because it just didn’t seem necessary to me. Riff and Graziella always belonged together and it frustrated me that new fans who hadn’t seen the 1961 movie might assume that Graziella just chose Riff as a second choice.

I don’t believe Tony and Graziella were a good fit for each other, which is why in my writing based on the 2021 film, I’ve pretty much established that Riff and Grazi always had feelings for each other, even when she was with Tony. I know there was talk of the whole “Grazi would date whoever was in charge of the Jets,” but Paloma actually recently tweeted that she stopped thinking that was true after she started really digging into the character.

Everyone is of course entitled to their own opinions, but mine will always be that Riff and Graziella were made for each other.

[aliveandfullofjoy]

i feel like the 1961 wss film is at its best when it’s in movement. the prologue, the dance at the gym, america, cool — they’re all so thrilling and beautifully filmed. it’s the tony/maria stuff that’s so stagnant and like… kind of boring??

still a pretty great movie though!