essay on do the right thing

“Do the Right Thing” by Spike Lee: Film Analysis Essay

Introduction.

The movie “Do the Right Thing” by Spike Lee can be acclaimed as one of the most successful dramas released in 1989. This is no wonder as the film features outstanding play by actors, an interesting and thought-provoking layout, and good quality of its accomplishment. Overall, the film appears to be a great piece of film-making art representing the themes of racism, nationalism, discrimination, and all the complexity behind the necessity to live and cope with each other by the representatives of the most different nationalities and races.

An overview of the film

First of all, speaking about the film “Do the Right Thing” by Spike Lee, its general theme is to be addressed. The film is dedicated to the issues of racism, nationalism, and discrimination along with the complexity of relations between nations. The modern reality of American society where the representatives of the most different races and nationalities have to deal with each other daily is shown in the movie. This reality is cruel and full of pain and unhappiness. It is also full of conflicts and extreme violence. Bartley describer this terrible violence in the following way:

Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in the destruction of all. The law of an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind. It is immoral because it seeks to annihilate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than to convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys the community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends by defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers (2006, p. 10).

Along with racial intolerance and violence caused by it, one of the central themes in the movie is uncontrolled police brutality. The scenes depicting this topic appeared to be mind-blowing when they were first shown in 1989. However, even nowadays, they become a reason for heated debates in the press and a source of fiery critics by the mainstream media.

Next, the film’s plot develops around the racial conflict which constantly grows into cruel violence and hatred between the representatives of different nations and races shown in it. From day to day, the situation is getting ever more heated as the main protagonist belonging to African-Americans and working for an Italian family comes to initiate a conflict with its members on the reason of a measure of misunderstanding along with racial intolerance. Then, the conflict is getting more complicated as a result of interference into it of more and more people including police acting cruelly and brutally which considerably worsened it. Eventually, it becomes outrageously serious and causes a lot of cruelty and violence.

Further, speaking about the character development in the movie, it should be stated that it is accomplished brilliantly in the movie. This might be illustrated by several characters. For instance, the main protagonist’s character appears to be remarkable even at the beginning of the movie. However, with the development of the story plot, it becomes more memorable and more distinguished. Mookie, the main protagonist, faces a moral dilemma as his conflict with his employers develops. This cruel conflict wounds his soul and heart multiple times, but this does not rob him of his moral values. As a result, he faces the moral dilemma of whether he is to do the right things under complicated circumstances or not. As this moral dilemma develops, the strength of this character is shown. Remarkable is the fact that after more than twenty years after the release of this movie Mookie’s character continues to be one of the brightest characters ever created by American filmmakers (Bartley 2006).

In addition, the film features excellent style which makes Spike Lee one of the best African-American directors in the world. After its first release in 1989, “Do the Right Thing” sparked a furor on the reason for its innovative style. One of the main reasons is the combination of excellent actor play, great script, and ingenious work by the cinematographers and editors.

The evaluation of the film’s performance and acting

Finally, addressing the film’s performance, it should be stated again that it is remarkable. The actorship by John Turturro, Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Giancarlo Esposito, and Spike Lee himself is to be especially emphasized. All of these talented actors highly impressed the audience along with film critics by their skillful play touching minds and hearts to the extremity. Regarding the editing techniques used in the production, it should be also noted that they were incredible. Similar statements can be made concerning the staging techniques and lighting used in the production of the movie. According to Scott (2006, par.7),

The editing techniques used in the production

As a film, Do the Right Thing is a study of how cinematography can effectively add credence to plot and character development. The film’s sensual details, such as the hot, sticky, suffocating heat of a summer day, are visually stunning. Since weather plays a significant role in the film from start to finish – -it is the oppressive summer heat that stokes racial conflicts to the surface, driving the film to its tragic and violent climax – the cinematographer’s use of light and color increases its visual power.

The staging techniques and lighting used in the production

The set design, costumes, and makeup.

Several new techniques were applied by the filmmakers in the above-mentioned areas. For example, the light specialists put a lot of work into adding red and orange colors to the film’s picture which had a greater impact on the audience as it represented the depth of racial intolerance and conflict in a special way. Such technique became an exclusive feature of this film. Similar effects were made by the set design, costumes, and makeup which were accomplished in such a way that helped the audience pay more attention to the main themes addressed in the movie.

Concluding on all the above-discussed information, it should be stated that this brilliant drama by Spike Lee can be marked as a strong address to several critical issues which are especially timely during the last few decades. This film impels thinking about such questions as what is to be done to preserve healthy relationships between the representatives of different national groups and races, how police brutality can be controlled, and how to cope with such a significant problem of nowadays as discrimination on the reason of ethnical intolerance. “Do the Right Thing” impresses greatly and can be evaluated as very engaging; it is mainly explained by the team of professionals busy in it; especially, the director’s cut and incredible play by its cast including inimitable Ossie Davis and Danny Aiello.

Bartley, W. (2006). Mookie as “wavering Hero”: Do the Right Thing and the American Historical Romance. Literature/Film Quarterly, 34 (1), 9+.

Scott, C. (2006). Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing: An Explosive Film That Continues to Spark Questions About Racism in America. Web.

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Bibliography

IvyPanda . ""Do the Right Thing" by Spike Lee: Film Analysis." October 30, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/do-the-right-thing-film-by-spike-lee-essay/.

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Not everybody thought the film was so even-handed. I sat behind a woman at the press conference who was convinced the film would cause race riots. Some critics agreed. On the Criterion DVD of the film, Lee reads from his reviews, noting that Joe Klein, in New York magazine, laments the burning of Sal's Pizzeria but fails to even note that it follows the death of a young black man at the hands of the police.

Many audiences are shocked that the destruction of Sal's begins with a trash can thrown through the window by Mookie (Lee), the employee Sal refers to as “like a son to me.” Mookie is a character we're meant to like. Lee says he has been asked many times over the years if Mookie did the right thing. Then he observes: “Not one person of color has ever asked me that question.” But the movie in any event is not just about how the cops kill a black man and a mob burns down a pizzeria. That would be too simple, and this is not a simplistic film. It covers a day in the life of a Brooklyn street, so that we get to know the neighbors, and see by what small steps the tragedy is approached.

The victim, Radio Raheem ( Bill Nunn ), is not blameless; he plays his boom box at deafening volume and the noise not only drives Sal ( Danny Aiello ) crazy, but also the three old black guys who sit and talk at the corner. He wears steel knuckles that spell out “ Love ” and “Hate,” and although we know Radio is harmless, and we've seen that “Love” wins when he stages an imaginary bout for Mookie, to the cops the knuckles look bad. Not that the cops look closely, because they are white, and when they pull Radio off of Sal in the middle of a fight, it doesn't occur to them that Radio might have been provoked (Sal has just pounded his boom box to pieces with a baseball bat).

There are really no heroes or villains in the film. There is even a responsible cop, who screams “that's enough!” as another cop chokes Radio with his nightstick. And perhaps the other cop is terrified because he is surrounded by a mob and the pizzeria is on fire. On and on, around and around, black and white, fear and suspicion breed and grow. Because we know all of the people and have spent all day on the street, we feel as much grief as anger. Radio Raheem is dead. And Sal, who has watched the neighborhood's kids grow up for 25 years and fed them with his pizza, stands in the ruins of his store.

A pizzeria does not equal a human life, but its loss is great to Sal, because it represents a rejection of the meaning of his own life, and Spike Lee knows that feels bad for Sal, and gives him a touching final scene with Mookie in which the unspoken subtext might be: Why can't we eat pizza, and raise our families, and run our businesses, and work at our jobs, and not let racism colonize our minds with suspicion?

The riot starts because Buggin' Out ( Giancarlo Esposito ) is offended that Sal has only photos of Italians in the wall of his pizzeria: Sinatra, DiMaggio, Pacino. He wonders why there isn't a black face up there. Sal tells him to open his own store and put up anyone he wants. One answer to Sal is that he's kept in business by the black people who buy his pizza. An answer to that is that we see no black-owned businesses on the street, and if it were not for Sal and the Koreans who run the corner grocery, the residents would have no place to buy food. And the answer to that is that economic discrimination against blacks has been institutionalized for years in America. And around and around.

The thing is, there are no answers. There may be heroes and villains, but on this ordinary street in Brooklyn they don't conveniently turn up wearing labels. You can anticipate, step by step, during a long, hot summer day, that trash can approaching Sal's window, propelled by misunderstandings, suspicions, insecurities, stereotyping and simple bad luck. Racism is so deeply ingrained in our society that the disease itself creates mischief, while most blacks and whites alike are only onlookers.

Seeing the film again today, I was reminded of what a stylistic achievement it is. Spike Lee was 32 when he made it, assured, confident, in the full joy of his power. He takes this story, which sounds like grim social realism, and tells it with music, humor, color and exuberant invention. A lot of it is just plain fun. He breaks completely away from realism in many places in the closeups of blacks, whites and Koreans chanting a montage of racial descriptions, and in the patter of the local disc jockey ( Samuel L. Jackson ), who surveys the street from his window and seems like the neighborhood's soundtrack. At other times, Lee makes points with deadpan understatement; there are two slow-motion sequences involving the way that people look at each other. One shows two cops and the three old black guys exchanging level gazes of mutual contempt. Another takes place when Sal speaks tenderly to Jade ( Joie Lee ), and the camera pans slowly across the narrowed eyes of both Mookie and Pino ( John Turturro ), one of Sal's sons. Neither one likes that tone in Sal's voice.

It is clear Sal has feelings for Jade, which he will probably always express simply by making her a special slice of pizza. He tells her what big brown eyes she has. Sal is sincere when he says he likes his customers, and he holds his head in his hands when Pino calls them “niggers” and berates a simpleminded street person. But in his rage Sal is also capable of using “nigger,” and for that matter the blacks are not innocent of racism either, and come within an inch of burning out the Koreans just on general principles.

Lee paints the people with love for detail. Notice the sweet scene between Mookie and Tina ( Rosie Perez ), the mother of his child. How he takes ice cubes and runs them over her brow, eyes, ankles, thighs, and then the closeup of their lips as they talk softly to one another. And see the affection with which he shows Da Mayor ( Ossie Davis ), an old man who tries to cool everyone's tempers. Da Mayor's scenes with Mother Sister ( Ruby Dee ) show love at the other end of the time line.

None of these people is perfect. But Lee makes it possible for us to understand their feelings; his empathy is crucial to the film, because if you can't try to understand how the other person feels, you're a captive inside the box of yourself. Thoughtless people have accused Lee over the years of being an angry filmmaker. He has much to be angry about, but I don't find it in his work. The wonder of “Do the Right Thing” is that he is so fair. Those who found this film an incitement to violence are saying much about themselves, and nothing useful about the movie. Its predominant emotion is sadness. Lee ends with two quotations, one from Martin Luther King Jr., advocating non-violence, and the other from Malcolm X, advocating violence “if necessary.” A third, from Rodney King, ran through my mind.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Do the Right Thing (1989)

120 minutes

Danny Aiello as Sal

Ossie Davis as Da Mayor

Ruby Dee as Mother Sister

Richard Edson as Vito

Giancarlo Esposito as Buggin Out

Spike Lee as Mookie

Bill Nunn as Radio Raheem

John Turturro as Pino

Paul Benjamin as ML

Frankie Faison as Coconut Sid

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Photography by.

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Do the Right Thing Analysis

by Walker Valdez April 2016

Introduction

The film Do the Right Thing, written, directed and produced by Spike Lee, focuses on a single day of the lives of racially diverse people who live and work in a lower class neighborhood in Brooklyn New York. However, this ordinary day takes place on one of the hottest days of the summer. The film centers on how social class, race and the moral decisions that the characters make have a direct effect on the way people interact with each other. It starts with the film’s characters waking up to start their day and climaxes with a neighborhood riot after police officers excessively restrain and kill a young black man named Radio Raheem for fighting an older Italian American restaurant owner named Sal in his pizzeria, and then outside on the street. The film, although released in 1989, with its social commentary on the effect that race has on police brutality is just as relevant today as when it was released 26 years ago.

Though the movie ultimately shows how dangerous it is to react to others based on race, ironically, Lee portrays characters stereotypically in the movie through their language and aesthetics. Spike Lee indulges in stereotypes by using iconography to represent the different racial groups in the film (Etherington-Wright 236). He does this in numerous ways such as having Italian American characters wear crosses and tank top shirts. He also does this in his portrayal of Radio Raheem wearing an African medallion necklace while carrying a large boom box playing loud rap music. Even tertiary characters such as a group of Puerto Rican friends are shown listening to salsa while speaking Spanish and drinking beer on the stoop of their apartment building. Lee also points out that his characters recognize that their different ethnicities can lead to a power struggle by having them openly insult each other through ethnic slurs in both a comic and serious fashion. Lee also shows this when his black activist character Buggin’ Out tells Mookie, who is a black man employed by a white man, to “Stay Black” insinuating that Mookie should never strive to be a Tom or a sell-out (Etherington-Wright 238).

Throughout the film, the characters not only point out the differences in their race, but also display the ideas found in Marxism through their social interactions. According to Understanding Film Theory , “Marxism was conceived as a revolutionary theory that attempted to explain and expose the relations of power in capitalist societies” (Etherington-Wright 83). It also says that Marxism’s founder, Karl Marx, was “concerned with the apparent division between the ruling and the working class” (83). In the film, Buggin’ Out verbally attacks a property owning white man for running over his new Air Jordans and then asks him “What are you doing in my neighborhood?” In this brief scene Lee is able to show how a character in a poor neighborhood feels the psychological need to compete with others economically. This is an example of the Culture Industry and Buggin’ Out displays this because he buys the latest shoes and does not want to feel that he was literally and symbolically being run over by a man who was much wealthier than he was (86).

The film is set in a predominantly black neighborhood and the only two families seen that own businesses are either Italian American or Korean American. Therefore, some of the black characters like them because they are business owners and others dislike them for the same reason. However, at the end of the film the only business owner whose business is vandalized and burned to the ground is a white man’s. Lee shows that, although there is conflict between Korean Americans and African Americans, the history between whites and blacks is much more conflicted. Furthermore, even though many of the black characters love Sal’s pizzeria, they do become aware of what Sal really thinks of them when he feels threatened out by Buggin’ Out and denies him the chance to put a picture of a black man on the pizzeria wall. The movie also clearly shows how by denying the picture, Sal keeps control over the black patrons in his restaurant. The two films clips that will be discussed will be analyzed by using both a racial and Marxist perspective. The first clip shows black and Hispanic characters in conflict over material possessions, but ultimately respecting each other, and the second clip shows Mookie coming to the realization that as much as he tries to moderate peaceful relations between white and black characters at some point he feels he has to fight for what he thinks is unfair, even if it means losing his job over it.

Do the Right Thing Analysis of Scenes

The first selected scene begins with a record being played that brings in the sound of conga drums while the camera fades to the next scene where we find a group of Puerto Rican men who fit a perceived ethnic Puerto Rican image while the salsa music of Ruben Blades is heard loud. Spike Lee opening the scene with heavy use of iconography enforces stereotypes by choice of the men’s clothes, language, and facial appearance. The man in the center speaks in Spanish, referring to his beautiful land Puerto Rico, while his friend disagrees with its beauty by calling it a nightmare. The scene is successful in portraying that this corner of the majority black neighborhood is very different from the rest. While the two friends begin to argue the camera pans away to reveal that the loud salsa music actually comes from an old boom box which begins to blend with loud rap music cluing the viewer that Radio Raheem must be near. The camera pans to the right and starts from the ground, moving up stopping at the large newer stereo being held by two large African American hands wearing gold knuckle jewelry, showing Lee’s use of fetishization by focusing on half of the body and not the face. As the camera pauses, the viewer can read the words Super and PRO stereo and Raheem’s music is heard much more clearly, showing signs of economic excess. The jewelry and the stereo’s excessive noise and size represent economic power and status. The camera pans up to Raheem’s serious face and the African medallion hanging on his neck once again shows iconography. While the camera focus on Raheem, the sound of the Puerto Ricans yelling that their salsa music is being drowned out is heard. The camera rotates to the right again and passes green bushes that represent a tropical climate as the salsa music starts to be heard again.

The man in the center recognizes that Radio Raheem is issuing a challenge of power by standing next to them blaring loud rap music that many black youth identify with. This challenge of power has both racial and economic symbolism because it is essentially seeing not only whose stereo plays louder music, but also whose culture is the more dominating one. When the Puerto Rican man walks over to his boom box, which has a Puerto Rican flag sticker on it, it is clear that his stereo is not as new and when he turns up the volume louder the viewer realizes it’s not as loud either. Raheem then turns up multiple knobs and drowns out the salsa yet again, letting the Puerto Rican man know that in this power struggle he has just lost. He responds by turning down his music again and saying “You Got it Bro” to which Raheem responds by smiling and pumping his fist in the air. This two minute scene, although entertaining, in reality represents the whole movie in the way the different races want to feel acknowledged, powerful and respected by the other races in the film. In this scene Raheem proves he is more powerful and it is a precursor for the many confrontations that he faces throughout the film.

The second selected scene begins minutes after Radio Raheem has been killed by the police because of their response to a street fight between Radio Raheem and Sal. This scene represents how disbelief turns to outrage, as the characters shout the names of other victims of police violence. At this point the viewer begins to realize that this may not have been a freak accident and in fact that has been happening repeatedly in this neighborhood. The residents of this lower class neighborhood are now all aware that it is the norm for them to be victimized by police. The older man saying “They didn’t have to kill the boy,” points out that Radio, though large and intimidating, was still a fairly young man.

When the camera pans to Mookie’s shocked face, it reveals that Mookie has decided that there is something wrong with standing next to these three white men while the rest of his neighbors and friends watch. The way they stand is very important because Sal is standing in the center and his two sons are standing behind him. Mookie is also next to him, but his body is slightly away from them showing that he is reconsidering his position towards them. He looks to Sal, then back at the neighborhood and begins to walk away from Sal and his sons. The act is very significant because Mookie felt a loyalty to Sal through employment, but now a line in the sand is drawn. After Mookie leaves, Sal’s facial expression becomes tenser because he realizes that at least he had someone in the neighborhood literally on his side who ethnically looked like the rest of the residents who at the moment are not happy with him or his sons.

Seeing that tensions may escalate, the character Mayor tries to pacify the crowd, but they do not take him seriously due to his alcoholism and the fact that he is dressed poorly. At this point the crowd is upset, but have not decided to commit any acts of violence yet. The camera panning from a largely black crowd to three white men staring at them shows that Sal and his sons may have more economic status, but they do not have the numbers. Pino’s face shows that he may have been expecting this to happen all along. This scene is very fascinating because at this point Sal and his sons are not just a symbol of wealth, but are now a symbol of any injustice committed against the people of the neighborhood by someone who is white or economically more powerful than they are. It is ironic because Raheem was actually choking Sal before the police came, but the residents do not acknowledge that. As Mookie runs with a trashcan towards the pizzeria, he is not only smashing Sal’s store, but is showing his outrage and anger for being made to feel powerless by the police. Sal’s voice in slow motion can be heard yelling “No!” but by then it is too late. As the residents loot the store it shows that they are tired of being made to feel powerless by the police and by all those who are economically better off. While some destroy the store, others go for the money showing that they are desperate to regain the power that they felt that they never had. While the neighborhood residents destroys the pizzeria, Sal is taken to the other side of the street where he is forced to watch in disbelief as not only his store is being destroyed, but also his economic superiority over them becomes destroyed as well, thus proving to be a remarkable scene.

Director Spike Lee chose to create a film that is able to both entertain and emotionally resonate with an audience by pointing out that when racial and social disparities are not properly addressed by those in power, they can ultimately lead to acts of extreme violence by those who feel powerless. The film is realistic in its approach that a melting pot of different cultures and races doesn’t mean that everyone will live happily ever after. Lee knew that in order to make a film about social issues he needed to embrace the stereotypes in order to criticize them. At one point in the film the police officers are driving through the neighborhood and say “What a waste” while they are driving by. The residents outside at the moment were not committing any acts of violence, but in a brief instant it shows that the officers whose job it is to protect the community do not respect the residents they serve, and also hints at what is to come later in the movie.

The film expertly lets the conflict build slowly instead focusing on the ridiculousness of stereotypes such as the Asian store owner with a thick accent, or the overly agitated and hyper active young man who can be seen as very pro black. The film shows the viewer that these issues concerning race exist, but the characters do not directly confront them until the very end of the film. It is important to emphasize that these issues are not solely with race, but also who is in control. It is the combination of the two that takes things to a boiling point. Comic scenes like a boom box show down ultimately prove to be more about power and less about who’s got better music, and a riot does not usually form without years of feeling that the system created for a group’s protection does not benefit their best interests. Do The Right Thing is more than just a film on police brutality or racial identity, it is about the beauty and ugliness that exist, not only in a low income community, but in our selves.

Works Cited

Do The Right Thing . Dir. Spike Lee. Perf. Spike Lee, Danny Aiello. Universal, 1989. DVD.

Etherington-Wright, Christine, and Ruth Doughty. Understanding Film Theory . Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Print.

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The Definitives

Critical essays, histories, and appreciations of great films

Do the Right Thing

Essay by brian eggert july 28, 2019.

“Wake up!” announces Samuel L. Jackson’s Mister Señor Love Daddy, a disc jockey in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, the setting of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing . The first line, which is also the last line of his previous feature from 1988, School Daze,  is meant to  incite contemplation and discussion rather than supply an unequivocal lesson. In Do the Right Thing , the DJ’s morning address follows the stagelike title sequence in which Rosie Perez dances to a Public Enemy song that encourages listeners to “fight the power.” Within its first moments, Do the Right Thing establishes Lee’s dialectical intention to pose unanswered questions by exposing the artifice of cinema and engaging the critical viewer. The film does not explain what exactly its audience should wake up from, what power we should be fighting, or what constitutes doing the right thing. But Lee’s aesthetically rich work of art uses a distancing effect to incite critical viewership. His technique draws attention to his stylistic choices: the theatrical quality of the drama and staging, the unforgettable moments that nonetheless interrupt the narrative, the choices of actors and their performative styles, and scenes that amount to an allegory in the manner of a Greek tragedy. Together these elements arouse contemplation about the intractable dilemmas of race and ethnicity in American culture. And given Lee’s refusal to provide easy solutions to enduring problems or pacify our emotions with some measure of closure, Do the Right Thing endures as an essential work of cultural introspection.   

Set on the hottest day of the summer, Do the Right Thing frames the rise of racial tensions between an African American community and an Italian American business. Sal’s Famous Pizzeria, long-established in the Bed-Stuy neighborhood, is owned and operated by the venerable entrepreneur Sal (Danny Aiello). His sons, the unapologetically racist and angry Pino (John Turturro), and Pino’s bullied younger brother Vito (Richard Edson), also contribute to the parlor. Though, Pino no longer wants to work there as he despises the local African American community. Their sole employee, the slacking delivery boy Mookie (Lee), spends much of his time wandering the neighborhood or attempting to reconcile with Tine (Rosie Perez), the mother of his child. The day’s conflict begins when a young Black man named Buggin Out (Giancarlo Esposito) demands that Sal include some African American faces on his establishment’s “Wall of Fame,” which features exclusively Italian American actors and performers. Sal refuses, arguing that it’s his restaurant, and he will display whomever he chooses. Buggin Out wants Sal to acknowledge that he’s in a neighborhood populated almost entirely by people of color, and since without them Sal’s would not exist, he should show his respect. When Sal refuses, Buggin Out attempts to organize a neighborhood boycott.

Lee structures Do the Right Thing as a philosophical argument whose lessons are ambiguous and whose methods spur the viewer into a dialogue. His dialectical intentions begin with the Universal Pictures logo in the opening, over which a saxophone plays the first bars of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” sometimes called “The Black National Anthem” given its author, NAACP leader James Weldon Johnson. In the next moment, Perez delivers her pulsating dance of coded gestures and shadowboxing to Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power,” a rap song that urgently challenges the so-called progress made to end racism in the United States during the Civil Rights Movement, and then demands action. The two songs are representative of the many strains of back-and-forth viewpoints present throughout the film. The viewer can understand Buggin Out’s opinion that Sal should recognize his place in the Black community by including people of color on his Wall of Fame, just as the viewer can accept Sal’s right as a business owner to decide how to decorate the interior of his restaurant. The way Radio Raheem, Buggin Out, and Smiley provoked Sal may not have been wise, but then Sal’s use of racial epithets and a baseball bat to smash Radio Raheem’s boombox escalated matters to violence. Almost every confrontation in the film can be read from multiple perspectives. And after the sobering conclusion, Lee offers two quotations, one from Martin Luther King and another from Malcolm X, each outlining their oppositional views on the use of violence to solve matters of racial intolerance. He sees the benefits and dangers of both violence and peaceful protest, and rather than declare his faithfulness to one or the other, he does something far more dangerous by calling on the audience to answer his dialectical prompt. 

Lee’s quintessentially American brand of filmmaking springs from his cultural and ethnic background, and from there, he focuses on an equally specific range of themes, stylistic choices, and social values in his work. Lee was born in Atlanta in 1957, but his family moved to Brooklyn when he was still an infant. His mother taught African American art and literature while his father worked as a jazz musician. As a boy, he explored his neighborhood with a Super 8 camera and quickly realized what he would do with his life. He completed his first short film, Last Hustle in Brooklyn , at 20, as an undergraduate at Morehouse College. He later graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in 1982, and his thesis film, Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads , earned the Student Academy Award. In an interview with Delroy Lindo, the star of Lee’s Crooklyn (1994) and Clockers (1995), the director said that he wanted to film “the richness of Africa American culture that I can see, just standing on the corner, or looking out my window every day.” But Lee has always been concerned with more than representations of contemporary New York life in his resident neighborhood. Ed Guerrero called him an “issues-oriented” filmmaker, noting that he often frames his films around a sociopolitical concern or historical event. Lee does not work in a single genre or style. The defining quality of his cinema is his willingness to engage with the social dynamics of race and culture, most often through the lens of African American identity, history, and representation.   

Do the Right Thing was released at a time when hostilities involving race and difference flared, rippling out from New York City across the entire country. A series of racially charged killings of African American men—Willie Turks in 1982, Michael Stewart in 1983, and Yusuf Hawkins in 1989—were carried out by mobs of white people in New York, heightening racial tensions. Lee references the highly publicized Tawana Brawley rape case, where the 15-year old girl accused four white men of raping her over several days and leaving her body marked with racial epithets in November 1987. Although the allegations were contested in court, one scene in the film features “Tawana told the truth” written in graffiti on a wall. The shooting of Eleanor Bumpers by white NYPD officers during an eviction process in 1984 also fueled the tension. And just before the film’s release, the sexual assault of Trisha Meili in April 1989 led to the Central Park Five scandal, where African American and Hispanic teenagers were coerced into confessions of rape and assault, only to be exonerated much later after the true perpetrator confessed in 2001. For much of this, Lee blamed the policies of Ed Koch, and the director included the words “Dump Koch” in the background of another scene. The voting public did just that when they elected David Dinkins over Koch in 1990. These interwoven issues of race, crime, and accusation saturated the cultural discourse that inspired Lee’s film, making Do the Right Thing seem of the moment .

The film premiered at the Canned Film Festival in May 1989 and remains his most widely esteemed and debated work. It received an impressive number of awards and nominations after its release, including a nomination for the Palme d’Or and an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. Lee and his cast also won several awards. These include the Los Angeles Film Critics Association’s prizes to Lee for his direction, Lee’s father Bill for composing the score, Aiello for best supporting actor, and the top prize for best picture. Several other critical associations and film institutions gave it honors, whereas the mainstream Academy Awards issued their statues to Driving Miss Daisy , a film whose discussion of race relations limits itself to a white audience. Whereas the Oscar for Best Picture went to Driving Miss Daisy , a film that has been largely forgotten in the decades since its release, Lee’s film continues to be at the forefront of the cinematic discussion about representation, race, and unanswerable questions about America and its history. It also took only ten years for the Library of Congress to add Do the Right Thing to the National Film Registry as a work that demands cultural preservation. Driving Miss Daisy has yet to make the list. 

Actually, it’s a small miracle that a Hollywood studio distributed Do the Right Thing. Most studios, especially in the 1980s, maintained an aversion to films that rested on ambiguity, polemical ideologies, or challenged widespread views about American identity. Hollywood, too, rarely made films about issues of race and difference, and their conflicted place in the fabric of American history and social power structures. Lee’s film goes against the usual Hollywood production’s push toward entertainment-first and commercial certainty, challenging the relatively moderate limits of the usual political liberalism of Hollywood. Though historically Hollywood productions have used ambiguity and left-leaning ideologies, rarely does a studio film make an unwavering statement, so as not to isolate a segment of the market and, thus, limit the commercial appeal. Then again, the film industry of the 1980s viewed African American audiences as a niche market, and so Black filmmakers and stories were marginalized because such material rarely had crossover appeal. Lee had his own obstacles to overcome. His first two films were profitable but earned him a reputation, which he described as “a wild-eyed black militant, a baby Malcolm X” that flashed a warning sign to Hollywood executives. 

When Lee was shopping the script to various studios, Paramount Pictures was the first to show interest; however, they demanded that Lee make alterations to the material to suit their audience. “Paramount wanted Mookie and Sal to hug at the end of the movie,” Lee told The Hollywood Reporter . Lee expanded in his journal, “They are convinced that black people will come out of the theaters wanting to burn shit down.” When Lee refused to tame the film’s central conflict, the studio canceled negotiations. After talks with Paramount ended, Touchstone Pictures also turned down the production. Lee felt he had to combat how he was perceived in Hollywood at the time, that any Black man who was not accommodating to white interests was deemed “difficult” and would not align with studio considerations. Still, Universal Pictures ultimately agreed to finance Do the Right Thing . Head of production Tom Pollack maintained it was not because they wanted to release social issue films, which was the perception after they distributed Martin Scorsese’s controversial The Last Temptation of Christ in 1988. Rather, Pollack noted their interest in Lee’s film was primarily a matter of recognizing its potential to make money from a relatively inexpensive $6.5 million budget ( School Daze cost the same and earned over $14 million). After Pollack agreed to finance the picture, Lee shot for 40 days and, by the end of its theatrical run, Do the Right Thing earned $27 million at the domestic box office. Universal would distribute several “Spike Lee Joints” throughout the 1990s.  

Structurally and visually, Do the Right Thing alternates among the Bed-Stuy characters, building through a dialectic the tensions and uncertainties that charge Lee’s situations and themes. The rhythm of the film’s arrangement has a theatrical quality, as though the entire neighborhood was the stage and, from scene to scene, Lee dims the lights on one area and illuminates them on another. It’s a film comprised of intervals and interruptions, asides and isolated moments. Lee does not follow a single character for long periods of the film. His drama alternates from individual scenes with Mookie to Sal to Buggin Out to children on the street cooling down in an open fire hydrant. The transitions seldom occur through abrupt cutting, but rather as Dickerson’s fluid camera movements track one scene and then, as another character enters from elsewhere in the neighborhood, the camera reconfigures its attention. Within a given scene, however, Lee often alternates between quarreling characters in a mirroring technique of editing that emphasizes the conflict. The harder the cut, the more intense the argument. When Buggin Out first enters Sal’s early in the film, Lee frames his debate with Sal about the cost of extra cheese, a relatively mild topic of contention, with both characters in the same shot. A moment later as their argument about Sal’s “Wall of Fame” heats up, the cutting becomes a sharper back-and-forth with a cut between each response, representing their opposition since the conflict is more serious. Lee uses these visual rhythms to underscore the connections and breaking points between people of Bed-Stuy. 

Disjointed as this may feel at times, Lee ensures that every interval leads to something more in the overall drama of the film. For instance, several scenes involving the Korean store owner Sonny (Steve Park) and his wife Kim (Ginny Yang), and their interactions with more prominent characters, supply an unmistakable arc. In an early sequence involving the Greek chorus, ML bickers about the presence of the Korean grocer in the Black neighborhood: “I betcha they haven’t been a year off da motherfucking boat before they opened up their own place.” Sweet Dick Willie refuses to listen, saying “you got off the boat too,” before sauntering over to get a beer from the grocer. In another scene, Radio Raheem has a tense exchange with Sonny and Kim over batteries for his boombox and the language barrier that prevents him from getting the twenty “D” Energizers he needs. The initial impression of the Korean family in Bed-Stuy is one of animosity; however, the African American locals begin to identify with the Korean Americans, relating to them as similarly displaced people—the African Americans by slavery, the Koreans by emigration. When, in the climactic scene, the rioters enraged over Radio Raheem’s death direct their rage at the Korean grocery store, ML turns from Sal’s to Sonny and shouts, “Your turn, fucker!” But Sonny declares in broken English, “I no White! I Black! You. Me. Same!” The rioters accept this and refrain from continuing their attack.   

The racial slur sequence is just one of many Brechtian flourishes, where Lee breaks from the narrative momentum to face the viewer. Another moment features Radio Raheem performing a “Love and Hate” monologue to Mookie during their brief encounter in the street. Raheem wears large gold rings, almost brass knuckles, with the words “LOVE” and “HATE” spelled out on the right and left hand, respectively. He proceeds to tell a mythical story, represented as Raheem shadow boxes toward the camera, each punch marking how either Love or Hate has the advantage in their ongoing battle, until finally the Hate is “KO’ed by Love.” Lee borrowed the moment from Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter (1955), featuring Robert Mitchum as a murderous preacher with the words “LOVE” and “HATE” tattooed on his hands. Mitchum’s Rev. Harry Powell tells “the story of good and evil” in a writhing, expressive display in which his fingers are interlocked, and the sequence exemplified that film’s storybook conflict between the evil preacher and the innocent children he sought to kill. In Do the Right Thing , the monologue places Raheem at the center of the film’s conflict between love and hate, echoed by the philosophies of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X quoted at the film’s conclusion. Caught between these two opposing views, Raheem becomes a victim of the conflict at the climactic scene, marshaling the neighborhood and the viewer into introspection. As a character who teaches a lesson in the middle of the film, his death becomes the catalyst for another type of lesson in the finale whose interpretation is far less apparent than the one symbolized in his monologue. 

Although Lee never breaks the fourth wall, he offers, in a manner that addresses the spectator, scenes that call attention to their uniqueness and placement within the overall film as emblematic of Do the Right Thing ’s persistent themes. When the frame rushes toward each participant in the racial slur sequence, these characters unleash their discriminating remarks on each other. But Lee has framed them as though they are vented directly to the viewer. Similarly, Dickerson’s handheld camera faces Raheem during the “Love and Hate” monologue, and though the shot could be interpreted as being from Mookie’s perspective, Lee seems to want the audience to consider Raheem’s words outside of the film’s surface context. Along with the presence of Mister Señor Love Daddy, the Greek chorus on the corner, and even the violent climax of the film, Lee frees himself from the constraints of cinematic realism and engages in a form of theatricality, wherein the characters and, perhaps most importantly the violence , occurs on a performative and edifying platform. The violence of the finale functions as a highpoint to the emotional trajectory of the film, but it also represents the meeting of several conflicting views that are neither resolved within the story nor by lessons of the film. These theatrical moments in the film’s discourse become a strategy through which Lee demands a dialectical and not purely emotional outcome. 

Lee’s interest in the theatrical legacy of actors extends from Davis and Dee to the Oscar-nominated turn by Danny Aiello, who developed and deepened his character into more than the racist figure Lee originally wrote. Davis and Dee’s performances in the film exist in another, older theatrical style, as their scenes play out in a stagey mini-drama with allusions to the past. In tender performances that could have been authored by playwright Lorraine Hansberry, the two characters have lived through the last half-century of racial tensions and personal failures, and the scars weigh on them. Though the details of their characters’ lives remain scant, the presence of these actors as these characters tells us everything we need to know about them. The performances themselves are theatrical and marked by emotional projection; their voices and expressions reach to the back row, while their presence offers a metatextual link to the tradition of progressive African American voices in cinema and theater. In a different sort of performance, Aiello and Turturro carry out their roles with a naturalism defined by the characters’ shared background, which the actors improvised on the set. In a scene of pronounced psychological realism, Sal and Pino discuss the pizzeria’s legacy, Sal’s devotion to the neighborhood, and Pino’s unwavering racism, and the scene transforms Sal into someone worthy of the audience’s empathy.   

Lee grants humanity to each of his characters, while also demonstrating how quickly racism and anger strip away that humanity. In the climactic moment, Mookie, often a voice of reason, shouts “Hate!” before he tosses a garbage can into Sal’s window. During the riot, the seemingly goodhearted Smiley lights the match that sets Sal’s ablaze, while the sweet Mother Sister shouts “Burn it down!” outside. It is the film’s enduring dialectic between nonviolence and violence, love and hate, that keeps the viewer engaged in an essential and productive discussion. The end titles put much of Do the Right Thing into a constructive, open-ended context by questioning what constitutes the appropriate action for people of color to combat racism given the divergent lessons of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. Two quotes appear on the screen. First, King denounces violence as a method to bring about racial justice because it stops a healing dialogue and achieves only “a descending spiral ending in destruction for all.” Second, Malcolm X calls the use of violence in “self-defense” a form of “intelligence.” Before the end credits roll, a photograph of the two leaders laughing and shaking hands appears on the screen, the same photo Smiley hawks throughout the film. Lee ends his masterpiece by juxtaposing two personal philosophies that remain at the center of an ongoing debate. 

Bibliography:

Bogle, Donald. Hollywood Black: The Stars, the Films, the Filmmakers . Running Press, 2019.   

Conrad, Mark T., editor. The Philosophy of Spike Lee . The University Press of Kentucky, 2011. 

Enelow, Shonni. “Feel the Love.” Film Comment . July-August 2019, pp. https://www.filmcomment.com/article/feel-the-love. Accessed 20 July 2019.

Guerrero, Ed. Do the Right Thing . BFI Modern Classics. Palgrave Macmillan, 2001. 

King, Susan. “‘Universal Was Not Afraid’: Spike Lee Reflects on the Fearmongering That First Met ‘Do the Right Thing’.” The Hollywood Reporter . 2019 June 28. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/do-right-thing-spike-lee-reflects-fearmongering-first-met-1989-film-1220715. Accessed 21 July 2019.

Lee, Spike, and Lisa Jones. Do the Right Thing: A Spike Lee Joint . Simon and Schuster, 1989.   

Reid, Mark A., editor. Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing . Cambridge University Press, 1997. 

Schuessler, Jennifer. “Portrait of a Marriage, Onstage and at the Barricades.” The New York Times. 12 November 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/12/arts/ossie-davis-ruby-dee-archives-schomburg.html. Accessed 20 July 2019.

Sterritt, David. Spike Lee’s America . Polity Press, 2013.

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The Relevance of The Film "Do The Right Thing" Nowadays

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Doing the right thing.

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Sometimes doing the right thing isn't the thing you expect.

Doing the right thing generally means making decisions that are not based on your own personal needs, that don't expand your popularity, or enforce your personal beliefs. It means doing what is best for the greater or common good.

Some examples are:

• Maintaining your character when no one is watching.
• Focusing on alignment at the expense of short-term profits and conflict avoidance.
• Being honest with a client about a product defect that may cause them not to buy from you.

Another example is being willing to terminate those who are great at what they do but are unwilling to stay true to the core culture values and vision of the company. That was what happened to us with someone who I will refer to as “Larry.” Larry was a senior management team member at Carolina Ingredients who was a great example of a silent tumor in the workplace. Larry worked hard and usually produced above-average results. You could even say he was in the right seat on the bus. The problem was his attitude. The core culture values he displayed in the senior management team meetings were not the same values he displayed toward his direct reports. As in many cases, the CEO is last to learn of a leader running rogue. Such was the case with Larry. I didn’t know just how negative of an environment he was creating among his team until much later than I should have. We learned he was undermining the senior management’s processes to build his own agenda within his team, creating a divide among the departments as a result. Rather than explain to his team the reasoning behind certain decisions we made in SMT meetings, Larry often opted to stoke the fire and encourage their confusion and dissatisfaction. In other words, when Larry had an opportunity to do the right thing, he preferred to take another road.

It took me some time to realize that we elevated Larry’s status and position inside the company based on him being a good performer rather than him being right for the role. He was the right person on the bus for an earlier position, but he wasn’t the right person to sit in the operations manager’s seat. He was over his head, and the pressure and demands of a role he was not qualified for were heavier than they should have been.

When people reach a point where they can’t lead or do the job to the level that’s required, they often use a deflection process. This is where they create scenarios that deflect focus from them and place it elsewhere. So rather than see the individual and his shortcomings, you’re looking at another problem because he has created noise around it.  That’s why it took me so long to see the reality of Larry’s shortcomings. As a leader, you have to be intentional about listening to others and keeping your pulse on the organization by engaging regularly with everyone throughout the organization.

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Sometimes, as a leader, you are too willing to overlook a person’s personality so long as they’re a good performer. Because Larry was a good producer in the company, I didn’t look at him as objectively as I should have. However, everyone is watching and listening to what the leader does. When I received more complaints about Larry and discovered incriminating emails he had written, I knew if I did not terminate him, it was going to increase negative morale throughout the company. It was not our culture to let someone create a toxic environment, and it was of paramount importance that I prove my dedication to our core culture values.

Doing the right thing is often the hard thing to do, which is why it can be an uncommon outcome. In Larry’s case, we weren’t aligned and while it was a difficult and painful decision to go our separate ways, it was the right thing to do.

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