#anabasis

I'm so into The Warriors recently. In its entirety. The book, movie, musical. It's interesting how Sol Yurick wrote his novel in response to West Side Story's moral and glamorous depiction of gang life to show that they're all gritty and terrible, the movie toned it down, changing a decent amount while keeping the original message, but the musical comes in, completely turning it around. The musical depicts the central gang, The Warriors, as good and moral. A family that protects each other. The cops and other gangs are the main antagonists. The Riffs are depicted in a positive light as well, and The Hurricanes(The Punks in the film) are good. They let The Warriors slide. In the film, The Punks fight them in a subway station bathroom. In the film, The Warriors are still bad people, the audience just happens to be following them on their journey.

The way that LMM incorporates different genres into Warriors to reflect the different gangs is an amazing homage to the hyperstylization of the original film, which took a much more cartoonish/pulpy approach to the gang culture of New York than the original book did.