SOMEDAY, SOMEHOW, SOMEWHERE
The reception of West Side Story (1962) and Jungle Fever (1991) in the Netherlands and in the United States
Rosemarie Buikema
Institute of Media and Re/presentation
Utrecht University
West Side Story and Jungle Fever are two much-watched and much-discussed movies which centre round an interethnic love story. Both love stories are obvious rewrites of the familiar Romeo and Juliet plot: a love between two members of groups which are incompatible both socially and culturally. In my paper, I would like to start by paying some attention to how the interethnic relations are represented in both movies (both on the narrative and visual levels). Jungle Fever should prove to display intertextual links with West Side Story, both on the narrative and the visual level. Next, I will compare the reception of the movies, as an indication of how matters stood with regard to the discourse about ethnicity and multi-culturalism in the Netherlands and in the United States in the nineties and in the sixties of the 20th century. The material used is taken from Dutch and American daily newspapers and cultural magazines.
West Side Story is set in the sixties, and consequently its reception epitomises thinking about ethnic differences as it was customary in the sixties: either it was incapable of being articulated and simply was not discussed as such, or the theme was understood in an a-historical, metaphoric way as a private, albeit not necessarily successful, sign of a love that was impossible. Thus, in the sixties reception it is not uncommon to come across the rueful remark that West Side Story maltreats the great, universal theme of Romeo and Juliet by burdening it with too many circumstances connected with a particular time and place. Only in the nineties West Side Story was analysed as a movie which represents ethnic differences as a threat to national identity in terms of territory, speech and race. The songs turn out to be far from innocent, and once again establish the opposition between culture and nature, civilisation and barbarism, well-considered military violence and primitive pugnacity. Although the conflict in the movie is entirely territorial in its nature, the love relationship is set in a place and time which cannot be defined precisely: just somewhere. And when in the final scene Maria is sitting down, cradling a dead Tony in her arms, all she can do is wish to be united with him forever in a utopian time and place. The ethnic and gender-specific implications of this and other shots only became recognisable in the nineties, and consequently in Jungle Fever they are commented upon, transformed and made more complex. In the paper I’ll work out how these aspects are treated in Dutch and American critique.
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Rosemarie Buikema
Assistant Professor
Utrecht University
Institute of Media and Re/presentation
Kromme Nieuwe Gracht 29
3512 HD Utrecht
The Netherlands
tel.+31 30 2536125/6084
fax.+31 30 2536167
http://www.let.uu.nl/womens_studies
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EN
DAN VOLGEN NU WEDEROM DE GEHATE OPMERKINGEN:
1. De
filmtitels heb ik steeds voluit geschreven, mij troostend met de gedachte dat
je ze desgewenst eenvoudig weer kunt inkorten met Zoek-Vervang.
2. Ik
heb maar steeds ‘movie’ gebruikt; het wat Britsere ‘film’ had ook gekund.
3. Van
‘etnisch verschil’ steeds meervoud (differences) gemaakt, omdat ik ‘the ethnic
difference‘ nogal raar Engels vond.
4. ‘...of
one...other’: omdat het minder logisch lijkt om ‘receptie’ (enkelvoud) met
‘elkaar’ te vergelijken.
5. Overal
de verleden tijd gebruikt, behalve bij beschrijving van teksten die nu
voorliggen.
6. ‘maltreats’
of iets neutraler ‘mistreats’.
7. ‘somewhere’ half gecursiveerd omdat de betekenis anders verloren gaat: alles gebeurt namelijk ergens. Vandaar ook dat ‘just’. Dit zou nog kunnen worden benadrukt met de vertaling ‘anywhere’ (onverschillig waar, ‘t kon overal zijn). Dan is cursivering niet nodig.