West Side Story. Pocohantas. The King and I. Aida. Friendship’s Field. And, I’m a little timid to admit, Save the Last Dance. (don't judge :) Since I was a child, these were my favorites. I memorized the music from West Side Story, The King and I, and Aida. I wrote faithfully in my Pocohantas journal with the matching pen, just around the river bend. Sometimes I would pretend to be Ira, the spunky star of Friendship’s Field, a Feature Films for Families classic in the Weaver household. And, as some of you can confirm, I would always vote to watch Save the Last Dance at any and all slumber parties.
After watching a wonderful production of West Side Story last night, I am thinking about how little has changed; I am still in love with this beautiful story of two people who are forbidden to be together, yet choose to believe in a love that’s stronger than their fears. A couple of years have separated me from my earliest obsessions with these movies and shows--and four years studying sociology--with which I revisit my childhood favorites. What are the common themes that link these stories? Why do they continue to fascinate and inspire me?
These stories each portray and develop meaningful interracial relationships in the face of much disapproval. Sometimes the characters face incredible discrimination or judgement from their families and society at large for defying social expectations, making the friendships/romances forbidden and dangerous. The love that is stronger than the fear that surrounds them proves, however, that hate and prejudice and racial division and any kind of division do NOT have the final word. Although these stories are fictional, I think they can point us to a greater story that we, as real people, find beautiful and compelling in the human experience: the story of reconciliation. That two people from very different worlds can love each other despite the risk and the fear and the cultural differences, the power of love can be realized: entire people groups can be humanized, unfair assumptions and stereotypes can be shattered, walls can come down. Love wins.
What can I say, I am a sucker for reconciliation, and especially stories of it that include interracial relationships. While I can’t say that this is the reason I bellowed “Somewhere” to Doug’s piano playing or subjected my family to years of FFFF or wanted to paint with all the colors of the wind, I’d like to think that I was drawn to the story of reconciliation then, too.
And no, I will not be writing about how my love for Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman and Anne of Green Gables indicates my early feminist foundations...but I could. :)
