This adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda's (LMM) Broad Street debut, In the Heights, is no exaggeration to say it's the most anticipated movie of the year. I don't know much about musicals. I hadn't come to New York when Broad Street premiered, and of course I hadn't seen the original. But I lived in the Highlands for a few years and saw the movie yesterday and loved it - the opening eight minutes captured the vitality of this community beautifully - and the cultural background of the show especially resonates with me, so let's write about it ! It is related to the creation of musicals that began when LMM was a student, and the film has a lot of content that is closely related to the times, and it is estimated that many of them are adaptations, so only the content of the film is discussed here. 1. Washington Heights (Washington Heights) "Highland" refers to the neighborhood of Washington Heights on the northwest side of Manhattan. After the completion of the New York subway more than 100 years ago, it was connected by the 1/A/C line and the middle and lower city (now these lines are still overlapping in many areas, but the people who take the letter line and the number line are very different. , so Usnavi will emphasize take the A train), the earliest gathering area of Irish and Eastern European immigrants. In the play, when Kevin and Nina talked about the history of their taxi dispatch company, they also mentioned that the shop was first bought from the Irish. "The whole street was full of Irish at that time." In the 1960s and 1970s, Latinos, especially Dominicans, began to flock to Washington Heights and surrounding areas. Now more than 70% of the residents here are Latinos. The main characters in the show are from several parts of the Caribbean Sea. Usnavi is from Dominican, Nina and Kevin are Puerto Ricans, and the grandma of the street, Claudia, is Cuban. However, they also speak Spanish and are very similar in culture. They all carry the love of music, dance and sunshine in the island culture. Therefore, no matter where the residents of this community come from, they all have a very deep sense of the inclusiveness and cohesion of the community itself. . Nina comes home after culture shock in college and says "Let me just listen to my block". But because of the terrain on the northwest side of Manhattan, the Highlands are actually not just this one. To the north of Washington Heights is Inwood, where LMM was born and raised; to the south, adjacent to Hamilton Heights. That's right, it's Hamilton who made LMM famous. The founding father of the United States, who practiced the spirit of hip hop all his life, lived here for the last two years of his life. There was no subway at that time. People who could live in such an enclave had to rely on (horse) carriages for transportation. Hamilton Heights is very unique. It traditionally belongs to the well-known African-American community of Harlem. The residents are almost half African and Latino, so it is also called Hispanic Harlem or West Harlem. Culturally, it is similar to Washington Heights. Closer. I lived at the junction of Hamilton and Washington at the height of the two highlands, and there were blocks every weekend in the summer. At a party, the neighbors blocked the road, turned on the fire hydrants to cool down, played loud Latin music on the street, sang and danced, and there must be beer and Puerto Rican ice cream - the piragua sold by LMM pushing a cart in the play . It's a summer to miss! (There are also Hamilton's little easter eggs in the movie: Kevin's phone call to Stanford to pay for Nina's tuition, waiting for the music is you'll be back - is it a hint that Nina will eventually return to Stanford! Washington himself also made a cameo appearance!)
At the beginning of the stereotype film about the New York community, the tourist who asked Usnavi for directions said that he had never been to the north of 96th Street. This is a portrayal of many tourists and New York residents. The Upper West Side, south of 96th Street, is one of Manhattan's most livable and one of the most expensive areas to rent. But north of 96th Street, it quickly enters Harlem and other immigrant areas. Except for the streets of Morningside Heights, where Columbia University is located, the public’s impression of these areas is only the high crime rate and insecurity. It is estimated that every Chinese who studies at Columbia University has been warned by the brothers and sisters when they first arrived, and they must not go north. The historical highlands, including West Harlem, did experience the 1980s and 1990s when the crime rate was terrifying -- the main reason being the crack epidemic that originated in the Reagan era -- but these areas have undergone a lot of changes in the last two decades, absolutely. There is no such thing as unsafe to live in or visit. What's more, Washington Heights and immediately adjacent West Harlem are neighborhoods rich and diverse in cultural history. In addition to the aforementioned Hamilton House, there are many cultural and historical landmarks here: The Cloisters at the Metropolitan Museum, which houses medieval collections, the former home of civil rights leader Malcolm X, the Morris-Jumel Mansion that served as the headquarters of the American Revolutionary War (also a Manhattan the oldest existing house) and so on. Urban planning and natural landscapes are also very unique. The George Washington Bridge that appears repeatedly in the movie and the Highbridge Park where the swimming pool aria is shot are very beautiful. Coupled with the unique culture and cuisine brought by a large number of Latin immigrants, such communities are the source of the vitality of this diverse and integrated city of New York. But the long-standing stereotype has made tourists, even many New Yorkers who have lived for many years, dare not take a step north of 96th Street, which is actually a pity. It was such a joy to see this film, capturing the most vibrant and revitalizing side of these treasure blocks with the lens! Of course, the real highlands are not as clean and tidy as in the movie, and proper beautification is still necessary haha. In addition, it is said that the original never been north of 96 is Usnavi's line. Considering that the actors and the audience can interact in the drama version, this is a lot like LMM's joke to the audience. In New York, mainstream musical audiences are probably second only to classical concert audiences in terms of being old, white, and rich. In previous years, the average annual household income of Broad Street audience members exceeded $260,000 (almost 4 times that of New York). It is estimated that very few viewers who watched the show at the scene had been to the north of 96th Street.
3. Gentrification The film begins with a story about a block that's disappearing, directly pointing to the impact gentrification has had on traditional immigrant communities like the Highlands. When LMM first created the musical, this phenomenon had not yet appeared, so this should be an adaptation with the background of the times. The topic of gentrification, if I really want to go into detail, could have written several doctoral dissertations. It refers to the process by which traditionally low-income urban neighborhoods are gradually being invaded by middle-class, professionals. This process may be accompanied by changes in the structure of community residents (more highly educated and high-income people influx), changes in the real estate market (higher house prices and rents), and influx of new business types (stores targeting the middle class replace traditional stores) ), changes in public service facilities (more green parks, changes in school quality). It seems that gentrification will change the face of traditional neighborhoods, many neighborhoods known for high crime rates have become safer and more livable after gentrification, but it has also hit the low-income people who traditionally lived in these places very hard . Because of rising housing prices, many people can no longer afford the communities they have lived in for generations, and have to relocate to the more fringe areas of the city, away from their own survival network. Buying half of Kevin's dry cleaners, the target customers should be the middle class who have recently moved into the highlands. Benny's aria laughed at its high price, and it cost $8 to wash a shirt; grandma Claudia wanted to dry clean the precious embroidery left by her mother, and her eyes dimmed because of the high price. This is not to say that the owner of the dry cleaners is doing black-hearted business. He is obviously knowledgeable (praising the exquisite craftsmanship of embroidery), and he also waives the expedited fee for grandma, but the positioning of his shop is really not to serve those old neighborhoods. And the grocery store that Usnavi's father handed down is also constantly being impacted by the changes experienced by the community. This is especially obvious when I lived there, all the old shops in the block sell rice & Beans, the 99 branch has the most people, but in recent years, a lot of ins-style Internet celebrity coffee shops have been opened, and supermarkets that advertise healthy vegetarian food. The people who consume in these stores are very different. The middle class and the old neighborhood live on the same street, but their trajectories do not overlap. In fact, they live in two separate and parallel worlds. Another example is the relocation of Daniela, the proprietor of a hair and nail salon. Rising rents have forced her to move the shop further north, across the Harlem River, to the Bronx. However, the impact of such gentrification on the traditional residents of the community is not only as simple as physical relocation, but may also be accompanied by the disintegration of the entire lifestyle and relationship network. The lives of middle-class professionals are based on individuals or families, while immigrant communities such as the Heights are significantly more permeable to people-to-people relationships, where the film says that Grandma "adopted the entire community" and Sonny was captured by the entire street. Raised (visually his dad is an alcoholic). The disintegration of such a community is likely to be devastating to traditional residents, who lose not only their physical home, but also the support network they depend on.
4. The plight of the first-generation college students The movie's setting for the character Nina is a typical first-generation college students. In recent years, as elite universities have begun to focus on the diversification of student groups, the admissions policy has made a lot of preference for first-generation college students. However, since no one else in the family has experienced college life, the environment and interpersonal relationships of elite universities are particularly difficult for them to integrate. When college students arrive at elite universities, they will encounter many difficulties outside of their studies. University is, after all, a strong social environment. For many first-generation college students from poor urban communities, the original world may be a map of the city subway, as Nina sang, but their classmates go to Switzerland to ski in winter and go to South France in summer. vacation. Being impacted by such a new environment, just like our rural children who want to be admitted to urban schools behind the backs of the whole village, it is easy to have a broken view. This issue has been widely studied and reported in the academic circles and the mass media in recent years. I discussed this issue with students in my class last year. I was very impressed by what a student said at the time. He had a background similar to Nina's, so he stayed in an ordinary public school near his home after being admitted to an Ivy League school, "I'm not going to leave an The entire community behind just for some Ivy colleges." Nina's encounters after she went to Stanford, where she was treated as a waiter by alumni and searched by her roommate's parents as thieves, is probably an adaptation of the movie. The stories are really like sensational headlines plucked from the newspapers, a little cliché. But what to say, the cliché is a cliché because it happens too many times, it's not new, but it's so true. I saw an interview with LMM, he said that when he created the original play, the theater people thought that losing the Stanford scholarship would make the audience feel less nervous, and suggested that he change the story of Nina to become pregnant after going to college, or her boyfriend's house. Violent her, as if a young Latino woman deserves such a plot. Now the story of the movie will at least really resonate with those who are experiencing an identity crisis in their new environment.
5. Undocumented Immigrants and DACA Adding Sonny's backstory to an undocumented immigrant is the best adaptation of the movie, and it fits perfectly with the character design. After all, Sonny contributed the most socially conscious aria in the lottery winning 96,000 arias , other characters sing about personal dreams and longings, while Sonny imagines investing in education and transforming the community. It is hard to imagine that these words were written by LMM more than ten years ago. What a keen sense of social smell, it is a prophecy. :
With ninety-six thousand, I'd finally fix housin' Give the barrio computers with wireless web browsin' Your kids are livin' without a good edjumication Change the station, teach 'em about gentrification The rent is esscalatin' The rich are penetratin' We pay our corporations when we should be demonstratin' What about immigration? Politicians be hatin' Racism in this nation's gone from latent to blatant
The plot to explain Sonny's undocumented background is subtle. Sonny's father asked Usnavi, have you ever thought about asking why you can only pay his part-time wages in cash? One sentence made Usnavi understand in seconds. This is the situation of undocumented immigrants. You may get along with them day and night, and you can't notice the difference between them and Americans, but they can't get a driver's license or a credit card. lock up. DACA was introduced in the Obama era to delay the deportation of undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children. But this is a compromise policy of Obama and the right, because DACA does not give these immigrants, educated and raised in the United States, a legal pathway to becoming U.S. citizens. The original proposal to include green card access was called DREAM (so these undocumented immigrant children are also called DREAMer), and it was discussed several times in Congress but never passed. The movie had Sonny and Nina going to the DACA demonstration as well. Undocumented immigration is the most talked about political issue among Hispanics/Latinos. Sonny himself is a DREAMer. This passage embodies his aria "I'll cash my ticket and picket, invest in protest/Never lose my focus" "til the city takes notice", his story line suddenly became three-dimensional; and Nina, as the hope of the community, her story line originally focused on the struggle of outstanding individuals after breaking away from the native community, here she is allowed to participate in the DACA rally, Awareness of the bigger problems facing the community also gave her a good exit back to Stanford, where personal destiny and the future of the community were intertwined, and she found a greater cause worth fighting for.
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