Like shooting white kids in a barrio.

Sometimes I have a hard time suspending reality for movies. The following is one of those times. I'm going to link the scene here. Watch it to familiarize, and then follow along.

As always was trolling around Youtube a few weeks ago, just jumping here and there throughout the web when all the sudden I came across the Mambo/gym scene from West Side Story. I was immediately reminded of the awkwardness of this confrontation. Sure the dance is teeming with racial tension as the two gangs are forced into the same room. Thus we get awkward part number one. We're supposed to believe that EVERY kid in this neighborhood is part of one gang or the other? Maybe a group of friends who just hang out without starting racial violence? We see in the prologue that the Jets terrorize alot of other white people in the area who are just hanging out in their own neighborhood. Where are all these other kids at the dance? Perhaps it's possible that they only invited known gang members. Poor Mrs. Steppenwolf sitting at the door waiting for the news to find out whether her son was a gang member or friendless? Maybe if he would just go to the yeshiva more often to visit his cousin Reuben he would find some boys, nice Jewish boys, to talk to and dance with.

However, we start off the dance and everyone seems happy, perhaps a little segregated but happy. A blond girl in a blue dress treats us to some seizure moves, there's a hidden joke about the Lesbian character being "out of step" with the boys she so desperately wants to be a part of but all seems well. We skip some awkwardness and get to where the Master of Ceremonies starts a round robin in an awkward move to make the two gangs dance with each other's girlfriends. Because if there's one thing that really brings two groups of testosterone driven male teens to the table of friendship, it's the idea that a person you hate is making moves on your girlfriend. As is the only possible outcome the robin stops when the kids are in interracial groups. Seizure blond from before is fucking SCANDALIZED at the idea that she would have to dance with Bernardo, which...come on. Riff and Anita were going to have to dance with each other but they seemed okay. Blond girl, you're boyfriend is a no-name foot solider in the world of the Jets. You should be fucking honored to have such an important role as dance partner/potential gang mediator. You're like a Goodwill Ambassador. If anyone should be annoyed, it's Bernando for having to settle for the a middle of the pack Jet as his dance partner.

Instead, Bernardo and Anita fix the situation with baller moves and the two groups separate slowly to opposite sides of the dance floor until the Puerto Rican's whip around and scream MAMBO! at the Jets. I am almost positive the Jets and their dates had no clue what they were saying, but assumed they were being insulted and therefore shouted the insult back to the Sharks before realizing they were just challenged to a Spanish influenced dance off.


They clearly where going to lose before the dance off even started. The dance really breaks into three stages. Company, Gang, and what I like the call the "Independent Program". During the company portion, the white kids are doing alright. the Shark's haven't really left them in a lurch or anything just yet. Everyone's in the same groove and having fun. Tony comes in around 2:34 to the gym and passes an obviously wasted blond female chaperon. When Tony barely touched her side her she snaps around like she just got punched instead of lightly brushed, and then quickly changes her mean glance into one of awkward teacher on student seduction, which Tony is having none of. His entrance distracts Riff, who stops dancing to meet him. This spells the end for the Jets and the beginning of the Gang portion of the dance.

With Riff out of the picture, the Sharks retreat to their corner for a moment before forming an orderly Hispanic Armada. The Jets are so busy trying not to fuck up the dance moves and remember all the steps they learned from those two summers everyone in the neighborhood's Mom signed up for Mrs Dodge's Etiquette School. The Armada advances and, realizing that like always, the White Man is ignoring them, shout a triumphant Mambo at 2:56 which causes all the Jets to immediately cease dancing. The uppity blond from the Round Robin almost falls over in confusion that someone spoke spanish. The Shark's synchronized moves confuse and scare the Jets, who run off for to their own corner to await there for their Gang time. The Sharks are reserved, especially for sharks, and instead of destroying them in the Gang portion they hold back and do well placed but small, less impressive dance steps. This gives the Jets the idea that hey, let's do the OPPOSITE of that.

They shout nonsense as they can't think of something as clever and witty as "Mambo" and start tearing down the floor taking the longest strides possible to clear the way for what we expect will be some motherfucking AWESOME dancing. They don’t dance as much as they make weird birdlike jerking motions near each other. It reminded me of the scene of the bird of paradise's mating dance in from Planet Earth.

This is thankfully interrupted by the "independent program" where the two leaders and their dates dance with each other. Anita and Bernardo, as expected, fucking kill it like that baby from 2 months earlier when Anita "fell" down the stairs. Riff and redhead with dyed to match dress do some interesting things, mainly Riff tumbling all over the place. However, there's no real "Mambo" to their dance except perhaps when they both say "ole". This solidifies the loss of for the Jets, who obviously would have to admit defeat and leave ashamed had the entire dance not been interrupted so Tony and Maria can do an awkward "Dream Ballet" which is little more than shaking your butt once and snapping.

My favorite part of the independent program though is at 4:30 where we see that our boozy teacher friend decided to join the Sharks and is rocking out behind Maria clapping her fucking heart out. Tonight was a good night for the teacher, who I've decided is named Bernice. Bernice will end up bringing one of the Sharks home with her, and the next day after she offers to make breakfast. He'll ask for Huevos Rancheros and she'll ask "What's that?" With those two words their budding relationship will be finished. He'll go back home to ready to brag to his friends how he totally nailed a white woman only to realize that he missed out on the most important night of his friend's lives and years later, when they are all still traumatized by the fact the murders, He'll sit in bars with them, begging to be let in on why no one talks about that one night back in the summer Bernardo died and everyone lost their innocence in different ways.