re: The icon of the switchblade ban was “Westside Story”, of the “Assault Weapons” ban “Miami Vice”.
One of the very few times, I must disagree with Mr. Weingarten. I would have said “Blackboard Jungle” instead of “Westside Story”. As a movie, “Blackboard Jungle” preceded “Westside Story” by several years. With no singing and dancing.
But this is really just quibbling.
West Side Story, if anything, romanticized the gangs, turning them into ballerinos (yes, that is the term for a male ballet dancer :> ).
P.S. WSS was Leonard Bernstein's magnum opus, and like "Citizen Kane" with Orson Welles, it haunted him the rest of his life, because he kept trying to duplicate the success, and never could.
I would have said “Blackboard Jungle” instead of “Westside Story”.
**********************
Agree. It was around 1955 and I saw it on my 13th birthday. I already had an ivory handled spring-loaded switchblade with gold-colored metal adornments that I bought at a downtown pawn shop a year before. ...I’ve still not seen Westside Story.