Listening to the Gender Identity in Audio Visual Media: Latin American Women throughout West Side Story (1961)
Dr. Virginia Sánchez Rodríguez

Abstract
Art is inseparable from history because plastic and musical expressions are a part of societies. This circumstance has to do with the power of the arts to expand ideas and to create identities. Around this fact, this article tries to analyze the image of Latin American women through film music, with a special attention to the American film West Side Story (1961, Jerome Robbins, Robert Wise). In this movie music plays an important role to recreate different Latin American identities through characters as Maria (Natalie Wood) or Anita (Rita Moreno). The musical numbers in the film and the different musical styles associated to these two characters –with the dialogues and the image– can be understood as an audio-visual element to represent different women stereotypes.

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