do the right thing summary essay

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Do The Right Thing: Summary, Analysis

Summary: .

Set on a city block during the hottest day of the summer in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant (‘Bed-Stuy’), Do The Right Thing follows the character of ‘Mookie’ (Spike Lee), a pizza delivery boy, and a day in the life of the neighborhood residents as the climate gives way to escalating encounters and disputes around culture, ethnicity and community.

Do The Right Thing was Spike Lee’s third feature film following School Daze (1988) and She’s Gotta Have It (1986). The film came a decade removed from the Blaxploitation film cycle and two years before the ‘black film explosion’ of 1991.1 A prolific film auteur, Lee continues to challenge the idea of black film and American cinema.

The opening credits of Do The Right Thing open to the strains of a soprano saxophone rendition of James Weldon Johnson’s ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’. The song ends screen black and the title sequence begins with Public Enemy’s ‘Fight The Power’ and a cut to a stage. Evoking the conceit of the film musical’s opening number, the montage of the sequence features the hip-hop dance of Rosie Perez in multiple costumes against a changing backdrop of Brooklyn photographs backlit by an array of colour schemes. This opening montage is cut to match the movements of Perez’s dance, a dance of militancy and popping contractions with a face that never smiles. She is more than merely a woman to be leered at or reductively posed as an object of pleasure. Her dance signals a cultural politics of hip-hop and what Guthrie Ramsey notes as the mark of ‘a present that has urgency, particularity, politics, and pleasure’. 2 With these two compositions and their distinct spatiotemporal origins, the present of Do The Right Thing demonstrates a century of urgency.

‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’ began as a poem by James Weldon Johnson that debuted in 1900. Johnson and Johnson’s brother, J. Rosamond, would set the poem to music and this composition would eventually be dubbed the ‘The Negro National Anthem’ and adopted as the official song of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The NAACP promoted the use of the song as an anthem for the black struggle for access to freedoms and inalienable rights denied by the discriminatory and terrorist practices of white supremacy and the Racial Contract. Moreover, the use of the song during the Civil Rights Movement and its eventual retitling (‘The Black National Anthem’) continued the purposing of the song as black anthem of protest. As Shana Redmond points out,

“Black anthems become incubators not only for a race/sound fusion but also the merger of art and practice. The conditions that give rise to these anthems within diaspora include colonialism, Jim Crow segregation, and myriad legal and extralegal enactments of persistent inequality; therefore liberation and its pursuit are necessarily narrated and exercised in tandem with philosophies and acts of resistance.” 3

Public Enemy offers an anthem less reconciled to the Christian doctrine of social protest and nonviolence but nonetheless remains a song compelled by conditions that animate defiant verse.

While the first song offers the perseverance of faith and belief in inalienable rights, the latter demonstrates a cultural nationalist tact, a more politicised sense of culture and the black lifeworld. Cultural nationalism shifted the meaning of race from the biological to a deliberate posing of race as cultural praxis and a matter of engagement with the anti-hegemonic struggle against white supremacy as embodying features of black personhood. Moreover, the distance between the poles is made plainer with the modal of hip-hop modernism and not that of the sacred verse of gospel. As a sorrow song of what Mark Anthony Neal calls ‘postindustrial soul’, ‘Fight The Power’ offers a sobering and artful discontent from streets far removed from Birmingham, but a relation nonetheless.4

The depth of Do The Right Thing demonstrates the staging of a political art richly informed by multiple historiographies of black visual and expressive culture. The film is propelled by an intersection of history, music, cinema and blackness. This generative nexus of historical scripts encompasses such issues as gentrification, the black public sphere, police brutality, the popular, cultural and ethnic conflict, and the everyday urban. In other words, anti-realist in its stance, the film positions itself in the matrix of black representation as an interpretative echo and refabulation of race and art. The film employs a 24-hour conceit of the hottest day of the summer in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant (‘Bed-Stuy’). This plotting of a ‘day in the life’ amplifies the masterful way the film functions as a discrete representational system. The seamless accounting of the day on the block through continuity editing is facilitated by such things as Mister Señor Love Daddy’s radio broadcast, colour, physical movements, emblematic framing, an intricate orchestration of ensemble casting in the depth of field, and sound bridges. With the deliberateness of the film structure, one learns to watch the film and recognise the spatiality of the setting. Eventually, one recognises that at one end of the block is Mookie and Jade’s building, Mother Sister’s brownstone, the Korean-run grocery, and across the street against the red wall are the corner crew (Sweet Dick Willie, ML, and Coconut Sid). At the other end of the block, starting across from the grocery is Sal’s Famous Pizzeria, the stoop where the Puerto Ricans sit, the station home for 108FM ‘We Love Radio’, and the brownstone owned by the Celtics’ fan. The film details a dynamic community of personalities and histories, a space textured by infinite encounters.

The cohesiveness of this spatial conceit does not comply with the platitudes of Our Town, USA. The film proves that the most rewarding consequence of America as ‘The Melting Pot’ is that the analogy has never worked. We the people are not the same: we have different cultures, belief systems, and freedom dreams. These differences Do The Right Thing (1989) 209 represent at times collateral interests but never truly identical ones. In this way, the interethnic conflicts that circulate up and down the block are but a red herring. Do The Right Thing vitally avoids the classical tact of the social problem film to present the problem of differences as systemic or a result of the idea of America itself. In the social problem film, these staged eruptions of racial conflict are resolved and contained with a tacit framing of our spectatorship in terms of cinematically enacted cures.

As Michael Rogin writes, ‘Hollywood, inheriting and universalizing blackface in the blackface musical, celebrated itself as the institutional locus of American identity. In the social problem film it allied itself with the therapeutic society. Generic overlap suggests institutional overlap; Hollywood was not just Hortense Powdermaker’s dream factory, but also the American interpreter of dreams, employing roleplaying as national mass therapy.’ 5 Social problem films with race as their object choice usually enact a limited and circumspect sense of social problem-solving. In particular, the way these films are saddled with the extra-diegetic responsibilities of reconciliation between the races promotes a dangerously ridiculous sense of film as social policy. After all, what James Baldwin called the ‘price of the ticket’ should mean more than matinee admission. Do The Right Thing poignantly demands that one’s spectatorship entail a recognition of our respective subject positions and/or complicities in a productively non-patronising way.

The central conflict of Do The Right Thing cycles around the issue of How come there ain’t no brothas on the wall? Outraged by the absence of black representation on the pizzeria wall, Buggin’ Out (Giancarlo Esposito) organises a boycott against Sal’s Pizzeria in response to the ‘Wall of Fame’, a collage of photographs devoted to Italian Americans. The call for economic sanctions echoes the use of these strategies throughout the twentieth century by churches, unions and civic leaders as a way of combatting the economic disenfranchisement of anti-black racism. This call for representation is emblematic of a diacritical sense of value. First, there is the value suggested by economic empowerment of a raced consumer-citizen. Second, there is the measure of culture as value. In this way, the central conflict that accrues over the course of the film becomes that of the political and cultural value of blackness.

However, the film’s vessel of civil disobedience and cultural nationalism is far from sound. Buggin’ Out does not articulate a clear plan of black economic development. His persona is that of empty rhetoric; more hothead than firebrand. Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn) lumbers and speaks like a heroic throwback from the mind of Jack Kirby. A laconic giant, his voice and being are embodied by ‘Fight the Power’, the only thing constantly blaring from his boombox. His ‘Love vs. Hate’ direct address constitutes the most that he ever speaks, a gesture to the absurd holyroller ways of Robert Mitchum’s itinerant honeymoon killer in Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1955). Yet, this ad infinitum struggle between good and evil, coupled with Raheem’s devotion to the gospel of Public Enemy, frame him as a very textured figure. He wanders throughout Bed-Stuy spreading the word, battling any and all windmills along the way. Every interaction is a contest and exclamation of his being. Finally, closing out the rebel band is Smiley (Roger Guenveur Smith). Mentally disabled and physically spastic, Smiley’s speech is as indecipherable as the irreconcilable coupling of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. in the photograph postcards he marks and peddles. Stumbling through the film, Smiley tags his cherished wares in a style imitative of Jean-Michel Basquiat.6

This crisis of representation emblematic of this rebel ensemble embodies the necessary tensions surrounding the political question of black representation and film as an art practice. Specifically, what is the purpose of the term ‘black film’? Does it represent an entirely foreign film practice? Is it merely a reflection of black people, not art but simply black existential dictation? Like all other expressions of the idea of black film, Do The Right Thing should not be thought as mimetically tied to the social category of race. The ‘black’ of black film represents something other than merely people. Instead it must be appreciated in terms of the art of film and enactments of black visual and expressive culture. In this way, film blackness functions as a critical term for the way race is rendered and mediated by the art of film.7

This alienation effect of the film escalates with the final sequence of Radio Raheem’s murder by 210 Do The Right Thing (1989) the police. The broken band of rebels storm the pizzeria and what begins as canted and absurd quickly accelerates. Sal begins a litany of ‘nigger’ and pulls out a baseball bat. He then proceeds to destroy Raheem’s boombox, silencing the roar of the Public Enemy anthem.8 Yes, the film resonates with prejudices and interethnic conflict but it also gestures towards the idea of communities constituted by ambivalences. Regardless, the confusion of this confrontation signals a shattering break. Things have gone too far and as Radio Raheem strangles Sal, pulling him over the counter, the fight spills into the street. The fight draws a crowd and the NYPD arrive. A police hold is administered with a nightstick against Raheem’s neck as he is raised and lynched until his kicks wind down. He is murdered. Radio Raheem is dead.

A void appears in the quick exit of the police with a corpse and Buggin’ Out in tow. There is the mournful calm of what has happened and how it has come to this. Mookie they killed him. They killed Radio Raheem. A divide appears, with Mookie, Sal, Pino and Vito on one side and the witnesses from the neighbourhood frozen still, growing angrier in the street. Everyone is a stranger; everyone is revealed. Murder. They did it again. Just like Michael Stewart. Murder. Eleanor Bumpers. Murder.9 The extradiegetic victims of murder at the hands of the police (not persons unknown) now have Raheem among their ranks. Mookie walks away before returning into this breach, throwing a garbage can through the pizzerio’s window. Fireman and police readied in riot gear arrive and the historical rupture is complete. Even in the absence of Birmingham’s finest with German Shepherds at hand, Sweet Dick Willie makes it plain: Yo where’s Bull Connor?10 Smiley begins a new Wall of Fame amid the wreckage by tacking one of his postcards on the smouldering wall: finally some brothers are on the wall. But, was this really what it was all about? Smiley with his ever-delirious visage appears to be the only one to claim some semblance of a victory.

The day after brings the new normal of an awkward, yet tender, meeting between Mookie and Sal. In the end, Mister Señor Love Daddy broadcasts the only available closure – a reminder to register to vote and a mournful shout-out to Radio Raheem.11 The film ends with scrolling citations from Martin Luther King Jr. and X before the film’s final image: the King and X photograph. The offering of these two contrasting political positions – the immorality of violence and the pragmatism of self-defence – is one of the major reasons that the film continues to haunt, inspire, and provoke. For only there on the screen does their proximity hint at some kind of dialectical resolve or compatibility. Do The Right Thing orchestrates the tensions and distinctions between social categories of racial being and the art of film. The film is a question masquerading in the form of a call to action. In other words, the film functions in a way too irresolute to be thought of as merely provocative protest. If the film is troubling, so be it. Killing the messenger has always been convenient, but it never truly disavows that a message has been sent. Always do the right thing. That’s it? That’s it. I got it. I’m gone.

Michael B. Gillespie

Notes

1. For more on the history of the Blaxploitation cycle and the significance of 1991, see Ed Guerrero, Framing Blackness, Philadelphia, PA, Temple University Press, 1993.

2. Guthrie Ramsey, Race Music: Black Cultures from Be Bop to Hip-Hop, Berkeley, CA, University of California Press, 2003, p. 178.

3. Shana L. Redmond, ‘Citizens of Sound: Negotiations of Race and Diaspora in the Anthems of the UNIA and NAACP’, African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal, Vol. 4, No. 1, 2011, p. 22.

4. See Mark Anthony Neal, What The Music Said: Black Popular Music and Black Public Culture, London and New York, Routledge, 1999, pp. 125–57.

5. Michael Rogin, Blackface, White Noise: Jewish Immigrants in the Hollywood Melting Pot, Berkeley, CA, University of California Press, 1998, p. 221.

6. The photograph was taken on March 26, 1964, in the halls of the United States Capitol Building during Senate debates on the Civil Rights Bill. It documents the only meeting between the two men and lasted only a few minutes.

7. For more on ‘film blackness’, see Michael B. Gillespie, ‘Reckless Eyeballing: Coonskin, Film Blackness, and the Racial Grotesque’, in Mia Mask (ed.), Contemporary Black American Cinema: Race, Gender and Sexuality at the Movies, New York, Routledge, 2012. Also, see the press conference (May 1989) that followed the premiere screening of Do The Right Thing at the Cannes Film Festival. (Available on the Criterion Collection and 20th Anniversary Edition DVD releases of the film.) The insistence by much of the audience on reading Do The Right Thing in social reflectionist terms glaringly illustrates the need to distinguish between black people and black film.

8. The baseball bat references Howard Beach and the death of Michael Griffith. On the evening of 19 December 1986, a group of black men entered a pizzeria in the Queens neighbourhood of Howard Beach seeking help after their car broke down a few miles away. Upon leaving, the men were confronted by a group of Italian Americans from the neighbourhood armed with baseball bats. Attempting to escape from a continued beating by the mob, Griffith was struck and killed by a car on the highway.

9. Michael Stewart was a New York City graffiti artist killed while in the custody of New York Transit Police (1983). Eleanor Bumpers was a mentally ill, African American senior citizen killed by NYPD officers during the eviction from her home (1984).

10.Eugene ‘Bull’ Connor served as Public Safety Commissioner of Birmingham, Alabama (1957–1963). A rabid white supremacist, Connor was responsible for the brutal and violent responses (the use of police dogs and fire hoses against protestors) to the desegregation campaigns spearheaded by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

11.This call to vote was part of Lee’s endorsement of David Dinkins’ mayoral run. Dinkins would be elected New York City’s first African American mayor the following year.

Cast and Crew:

[Country: USA. Production Company: A Forty Acres and a Mule Filmworks Production. Director: Spike Lee. Producer: Spike Lee. Co-producer: Monty Ross. Line Producer: Jon Kilik. Screenwriter: Spike Lee. Cinematographer: Ernest Dickerson. Editor: Barry Alexander Brown. Music: Bill Lee, featuring Branford Marsalis. Cast: Danny Aiello (Sal), Ossie Davis (Da Mayor), Ruby Dee (Mother Sister), Richard Edson (Vito), Giancarlo Esposito (Buggin’ Out), Spike Lee (Mookie), Bill Nunn (Radio Raheem), John Turturro (Pino), Paul Benjamin (ML), Frankie Faison (Coconut Sid), Robin Harris (Sweet Dick Willie), Joie Lee (Jade), Miguel Sandoval (Officer Ponte), Rick Aiello (Officer Long), John Savage (Clifton), Samuel L. Jackson (Mister Señor Love Daddy), Rosie Perez (Tina), Roger Guenveur Smith (Smiley), Steve White (Ahmad), Martin Lawrence (Cee), Leonard Thomas (Punchy), Christa Rivers (Ella), Frank Vincent (Charlie).]

Do the Right Thing (1989) | The Definitive Explanation

Welcome to our Colossus Movie Guide for Do the Right Thing . This guide contains everything you need to understand the film. Dive into our detailed library of content, covering key aspects of the movie. We encourage your comments to help us create the best possible guide. Thank you!

What is Do the Right Thing about?

A woman dances outside an apartment building

Do the Right Thing is an emblematic narrative about racial tension, policing, and the consequences of pent-up frustration in a culturally diverse community. The film presents a microcosm of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, on the hottest day of the summer, where a boiling point of racial conflict reaches its inevitable climax. Central to this tale is the inherent paradox of “doing the right thing,” a theme that is complex and is constantly reframed, thereby triggering the audience to question its own moral compass.

The movie’s core conflict derives from the systemic divide and racial disparity witnessed within the urban neighborhood, projecting both subtle and overt displays of prejudice. From Sal’s pizzeria, a locus of contention due to its Wall of Fame lacking black celebrities, to the fatal chokehold incident, Do the Right Thing continually forces audiences to grapple with what is just and unjust. The film’s conclusion leaves an impression of cyclical violence, suggesting that the resolution of societal conflicts can’t be achieved through violent retaliation, but also pointing out that peaceful protests often go unheard. By not providing a clear answer to what the “right thing” is, the movie suggests that the path towards justice is labyrinthine and fraught with challenging ethical dilemmas.

Movie Guide table of contents

The ending of do the right thing explained, the themes and meaning of do the right thing.

Why is the movie called Do the Right Thing?

Important motifs in Do the Right Thing

Questions & answers about do the right thing.

Spike Lee – Mookie (also writer and director)
Danny Aiello – Sal
John Turturro – Pino
Richard Edson – Vito
Bill Nunn – Radio Raheem
Rosie Perez – Tina
Giancarlo Esposito – Buggin’ Out
Ossie Davis – Da Mayor
Ruby Dee – Mother Sister
Samuel L. Jackson – Mister Señor Love Daddy
Roger Guenveur Smith – Smiley
Rick Aiello – Officer Gary Long
Miguel Sandoval – Officer Mark Ponte
Joie Lee – Jade
Martin Lawrence – Cee
Leonard L. Thomas – Punchy
Christa Rivers – Ella
Robin Harris – Sweet Dick Willie
Paul Benjamin – ML
Frankie Faison – Coconut Sid

A recap of the ending

Buggin’ Out, Radio Raheem, and Smiley storm into Sal’s Pizzeria, protesting Sal’s Wall of Fame. Sal orders Raheem to turn off his blaring boombox, but Radio Raheem refuses. Fueled by the tension, Buggin’ Out becomes derogatory towards Sal and his sons, vowing to close the establishment until Black people are represented on the Wall.

Sal retaliates in a fit of anger, racially insulting Buggin’ Out and smashing Raheem’s boombox, sparking a brawl that quickly engulfs the pizzeria and spills onto the streets, attracting a crowd. As Raheem puts Sal in a chokehold, Officers Long and Ponte arrive to quell the chaos. Raheem and Buggin’ Out are apprehended, and in an alarming twist, Long chokes Raheem with his nightstick despite pleas from Ponte and the crowd. Raheem’s life is tragically taken and the officers, cognizant of their error, hastily drive off with his body.

The crowd, shattered and incensed over Radio Raheem’s death, hold Sal and his sons accountable. Da Mayor tries to reason with the crowd about Sal’s innocence but to no avail. Overcome by fury and sorrow, Mookie hurls a trash can through Sal’s Pizzeria window, catalyzing the mob to raid and wreck the establishment. Smiley sets it ablaze as Da Mayor rescues Sal and his sons from the impending mob, now fixated on Sonny’s store.

Sonny, in a state of dread, successfully dissuades the mob. With the arrival of the police, firemen, and riot patrols, the crowd is dispersed, and the fire is extinguished amidst continued discord and arrests. A bewildered Mookie and Jade observe the scene from a safe distance while Smiley, reentering the charred premises, places one of his photos on the remnants of Sal’s Wall.

In the aftermath, Mookie confronts Sal about his due pay, following an argument with Tina. The two men bicker, reach an uneasy truce, and Sal finally pays Mookie his wages. Local DJ Mister Señor Love Daddy memorializes Radio Raheem with a dedicated song.

As the film nears its end, contrasting quotes on violence by Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X appear, followed by an image of the two leaders in a handshake.

Here is the quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.:

Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate 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 community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends by destroying itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.

And the quote from Malcolm X:

I think there are plenty of good people in America, but there are also plenty of bad people in America and the bad ones are the ones who seem to have all the power and be in these positions to block things that you and I need. Because this is the situation, you and I have to preserve the right to do what is necessary to bring an end to that situation, and it doesn’t mean that I advocate violence, but at the same time I am not against using violence in self-defense. I don’t even call it violence when it’s self-defense, I call it intelligence.

The film is then dedicated to the families of six victims of police brutality or racial violence: Eleanor Bumpurs, Michael Griffith, Arthur Miller Jr., Edmund Perry, Yvonne Smallwood, and Michael Stewart.

The escalation of racial tensions

The climactic confrontation in Do the Right Thing is a reflection of escalating racial tensions that have been brewing throughout the entire film. The tension between the different racial groups in the neighborhood is palpable from the onset, underscored by motifs of incredible heat and Sal’s Wall of Fame.

The heat represents the smoldering racial tensions within the community. The sweltering summer weather creates an atmosphere of restlessness and agitation that mirrors the community’s emotional state. It’s a visual and sensory metaphor for how racial tension and frustration can simmer below the surface, intensifying until they reach a boiling point.

Sal’s Wall of Fame acts as another significant symbol, representing the denial of racial recognition. The wall, adorned with only Italian-American celebrities, starkly contrasts with the predominantly Black neighborhood the pizzeria resides in. This omission doesn’t go unnoticed, especially by Buggin’ Out, and becomes a significant point of contention that adds to the building tension.

When Sal destroys Raheem’s boombox after a heated confrontation over the Wall of Fame, it is not merely an act of aggression but a metaphorical dismissal of the Black community’s culture and identity, thus igniting the existing tension into a full-blown conflict. The fight spills onto the streets, attracting a crowd and the police’s attention, which culminates in Raheem’s tragic death by chokehold.

Radio Raheem’s death thus underscores the deadly consequences of systemic racism and racial tension. Even though Sal didn’t instigate the fight, he becomes the community’s target due to Raheem’s unjust death, showing how racial tension can distort perceptions and escalate conflicts. This escalation reflects the destructive cycle of racial prejudice, illustrating how deep-seated biases can lead to unjustifiable violence.

The riot and its symbolism

Riots are often a manifestation of pent-up frustrations of marginalized communities. In Do the Right Thing , the destruction of Sal’s Pizzeria is the physical representation of this suppressed anger breaking free. The community feels disenfranchised, and this explosive display of defiance becomes a means to voice their longstanding grievances.

The riot, in this sense, becomes a form of catharsis, an emotional release for the community. For them, it’s a reaction against systemic inequities that they have been forced to endure. It is a destructive, yet significant, means of rebellion against a system that consistently overlooks their needs and concerns. While the destruction may seem senseless to an outside observer, for the people involved, it is an act of reclaiming power and agency, however transient it might be.

This act of rebellion is further underscored by Radio Raheem’s earlier “Love and Hate” speech. Here is that speech in full:

Let me tell you the story of Right Hand, Left Hand. It’s a tale of good and evil. Hate: it was with this hand that Cain iced his brother. Love: these five fingers, they go straight to the soul of man. The right hand: the hand of love. The story of life is this: static. One hand is always fighting the other hand, and the left hand is kicking much ass. I mean, it looks like the right hand, Love, is finished. But hold on, stop the presses, the right hand is coming back. Yeah, he got the left hand on the ropes, now, that’s right. Ooh, it’s a devastating right and Hate is hurt, he’s down. Left-Hand Hate KOed by Love.

That speech takes on an ironic tone as the riot unfolds. The community, driven by love for their own and a sense of justice, turns to what can be perceived as an act of hate: the destruction of Sal’s pizzeria.

This irony embodies the complex reality of racial struggles, where love for one’s community can lead to actions perceived as hateful. The riot, while destructive, embodies this struggle, highlighting the community’s desperate need for acknowledgment and change. It shows that when pushed to the brink, when love seems to be losing the fight, actions born out of frustration and a thirst for justice can be misunderstood as acts of hate.

Mookie’s act of throwing the trash can is a powerful image and a potent symbol for the ongoing struggle between love and hate that Radio Raheem talks about. Mookie loves his community and sees it suffer. He’s also aware that Sal’s pizzeria, at that moment, is a symbol of the community’s oppression—an embodiment of the racial tensions and the lack of recognition that sparked the fight and led to Raheem’s death. Mookie chooses an act of apparent hate, not because he hates Sal personally, but out of love for his community and a need for justice. You could also argue that he throws the trash can out of love in order to protect Sal and his sons.

The struggle for recognition and respect

In the aftermath of the riot, Mookie’s return to Sal to demand his weekly pay carries significant symbolic weight. Mookie’s insistence on being paid, despite the previous night’s catastrophic events, underscores a fundamental theme of the film: the struggle for recognition and respect.

Mookie’s demand for his salary, against the backdrop of the smoldering remnants of Sal’s pizzeria, isn’t just about money. It represents his assertion of self-worth and dignity in a system that consistently undermines it. Mookie, a pizza delivery man, has spent his days serving the community, and his demand for pay is symbolic of his fight for acknowledgment of his labor’s value, even amidst chaos. And Sal’s eventual decision to pay Mookie, albeit begrudgingly, signifies a moment of recognition.

This scene, however, doesn’t suggest a complete resolution of the racial tension. Instead, it reveals a moment of temporary truce within the ongoing struggle, a small step towards mutual recognition. It emphasizes that the journey towards racial harmony and recognition is fraught with conflict, but not devoid of the potential for understanding and change. This small act of transaction underscores the film’s commentary on the complex dynamics of race, labor, and respect in a racially diverse community.

Ending with contrasting philosophies

At the end of Do the Right Thing , Spike Lee presents quotes from two iconic figures in the civil rights movement: Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. These quotes reflect their respective philosophies towards social change: King’s nonviolent resistance and Malcolm X’s belief in self-defense in the face of oppression.

King once said, “The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.” This speaks to his conviction that violent reprisals, while initially gratifying, are ultimately detrimental to the larger goal of societal harmony.

In contrast, Malcolm X once stated, “I am for violence if non-violence means we continue postponing a solution to the American black man’s problem—just to avoid violence.” This is emblematic of his belief in the legitimacy of violence as a tool for self-defense, asserting that black people have the right to protect themselves when institutions fail to do so.

Spike Lee’s decision to include these seemingly contrasting statements is a reflection of the complex nature of racial struggle, particularly as it’s depicted in the movie. The narrative doesn’t promote one approach over the other. Instead, it showcases the multifaceted and often conflicting responses to racial oppression.

By juxtaposing these quotes, Lee suggests that the film’s narrative is not a prescriptive solution to racial tensions, but an exploration of the myriad ways individuals might respond to the same. It’s a recognition that the struggle for racial equality is not monolithic and that different approaches can coexist, even if they seem contradictory.

In the end, Do the Right Thing doesn’t definitively answer what the “right thing” is. Instead, it encourages viewers to contemplate the complexities of racial tension and the multitude of responses it evokes. This makes the film not just a depiction of racial tension, but also a platform for dialo

A "Wall of Fame" features several celebrities

Racial tension

Racial tension is a pervasive theme in Do the Right Thing , manifesting through various characters, their interactions, and conflicts. The film provides a microcosmic view of the broader racial dynamics in America by focusing on a single day in a Brooklyn neighborhood. It presents racial tension not as an external force, but as an inherent part of everyday life in an ethnically diverse society.

The struggle for racial recognition

Racial recognition, or the lack thereof, serves as a significant driving force behind the tension and conflict in Do the Right Thing . The struggle for recognition and respect of one’s racial identity and culture is a shared experience among many characters, creating an undercurrent of resentment and frustration that fuels the escalating tension throughout the film.

The struggle for racial recognition is deeply entwined with the motif of Sal’s Wall of Fame. The Wall, solely featuring Italian-American celebrities, stands in Sal’s Pizzeria, a business operating in a predominantly black neighborhood and serving mostly black customers. The Wall becomes a symbolic site of contention because it omits representation of the black community, even though the pizzeria is a shared community space. This omission is a stark reminder of the broader societal bias that often overlooks the contributions of marginalized groups.

Buggin’ Out, recognizing this lack of representation, challenges Sal to include African American icons on the Wall. Sal’s refusal and his argument that it’s his pizzeria and he can display whomever he wishes shows an entrenched racial bias and disregard for the cultural contributions of his black customers. This conflict underlines the struggle for racial recognition, illustrating how the lack of representation can lead to feelings of erasure and fuel discontent.

The motif of baseball serves a similar purpose, highlighting the struggle for racial recognition within shared cultural experiences. The heated argument between Buggin’ Out and Pino over the best baseball player becomes a proxy battle for racial pride and recognition. Each character argues for a player of their own race, emphasizing the divide that persists even within universal cultural symbols like baseball. This conversation illuminates the fact that even in areas of shared national identity, racial disparities and the struggle for recognition persist.

In Do the Right Thing , these motifs accentuate the constant struggle for racial recognition faced by the characters. This struggle is not a mere subplot but forms the foundation of the narrative, driving the actions and reactions of the characters. The growing frustration and tension due to this lack of recognition eventually erupt in the film’s climax, manifesting in the form of the riot. The riot, therefore, is not just an act of wanton violence, but a bold assertion for racial recognition, marking a culmination of the characters’ long-standing struggle.

The use of racial slurs

Language plays a pivotal role in Do the Right Thing , serving as a mirror to reflect the simmering racial tension in the neighborhood and offering a critique of the casual prejudice that permeates everyday society.

Throughout the film, characters express their racial prejudices and underlying tensions through their choice of words and phrases, revealing how deeply ingrained these biases are in their everyday interactions. For instance, the loaded conversation between Pino and Mookie about famous African-Americans reveals Pino’s subconscious racial bias. Although he admires several black celebrities, he harbors prejudice against the black community in his immediate vicinity. His words, heavy with contradiction, illustrate how stereotypes and prejudice can coexist with admiration, underscoring the complex nature of racial bias.

A particularly potent example of language reflecting racial tension is the scene often referred to as the “racial slur montage.” Here, characters unleash a flurry of racial slurs against various racial groups, unveiling the raw, unfiltered racial prejudices that exist beneath the surface of their daily interactions. This verbal violence serves as a metaphor for societal tension, laying bare the stereotypes each racial group harbors about the others. By doing so, the film depicts the multifaceted nature of prejudice, where individuals can be both victims and perpetrators of bigotry.

The casual and conversational manner in which these slurs and biased comments are tossed around further demonstrates how racial prejudice has seeped into the fabric of everyday life, often normalized and unchallenged. This habitual use of racially loaded language illustrates how racial tension can simmer beneath the surface of a community, ready to boil over at any provocation.

The need to riot

The riot at the end of the movie is triggered by the unjust death of Radio Raheem, a black man, at the hands of the police. This brutal event resonates with real-world instances where violence against black individuals has sparked widespread public outrage and unrest, such as the murder of George Floyd. The representation of Radio Raheem’s death and the subsequent riot underscores the film’s critique of systemic racism and police brutality, issues that remain pertinent decades after the movie’s release.

The film portrays the riot as an eruption of pent-up racial tension, accumulated resentment, and shared frustration. It is a chaotic, violent, and emotional response to the violence inflicted upon Radio Raheem and, by extension, the black community. The act of Mookie throwing the trash can through the window of Sal’s Pizzeria can be interpreted as an act of deflection, diverting the mob’s wrath from Sal to his property, or as an act of rebellion, symbolically challenging the system that continually marginalizes his community.

In this context, Do the Right Thing is neither justifying nor condemning the riot but presenting it as a complex reaction to a deeply embedded societal problem. The film, instead of simplifying the event into a matter of right or wrong, forces audiences to grapple with the circumstances that lead to such incidents. It challenges viewers to question the structures and biases that perpetuate racial violence and injustice, eventually leading to such outbursts.

Ethics and morality

The theme of ethics and morality runs deep in Do the Right Thing , challenging audiences to grapple with what constitutes “the right thing” in a racially charged context. The film presents various characters wrestling with their moral convictions amidst escalating racial tensions, forcing audiences to reflect on the relativity of moral judgments.

What is the “right thing”?

The advice from Da Mayor to Mookie to “do the right thing” is a significant narrative element that sets the stage for the exploration of ethics and morality in Do the Right Thing . This seemingly simple advice, delivered early in the film, introduces the audience to the complex moral universe they are about to navigate.

By positioning Da Mayor, an older character with life experience, as the deliverer of this advice, the film establishes a sense of generational wisdom. Da Mayor is portrayed as a somewhat flawed but wise figure who has witnessed and understood the complex nature of morality in their racially charged environment. His advice underscores the inherent moral quandaries the characters face and positions him as a moral compass, albeit a nebulous one, as he doesn’t spell out what the “right thing” is.

The phrase “do the right thing” is deceptively simple but inherently complex due to its subjective nature. It presents morality as a fluid concept, shaped by personal perspectives, societal norms, and cultural backgrounds. This leaves room for interpretation, setting the stage for the moral dilemmas that unfold throughout the movie. It allows for multiple interpretations of what the “right thing” is, reflecting the diversity of viewpoints in the neighborhood and the wider world.

The climax of the film, where Mookie throws a trash can through the window of Sal’s Pizzeria, culminates in this theme of moral ambiguity. Mookie’s action can be viewed from different ethical perspectives: as a betrayal of his employer, as a justified act of defiance against a system that devalues black lives, or as a strategic move to redirect the mob’s anger away from Sal and onto his property.

The film does not provide a definitive answer on whether Mookie’s actions constitute “the right thing,” which aligns with the film’s broader approach to ethics and morality. It suggests that morality isn’t fixed or universally agreed upon, but rather a product of individual circumstances, societal influences, and personal interpretations. This approach encourages the audience to engage with these complexities, asking them to consider the factors that shape their understanding of “the right thing.”

Love vs. Hate

Radio Raheem’s “Love and Hate” speech in Do the Right Thing is a pivotal moment that delves into the thematic exploration of ethics and morality. Holding up his brass knuckle-adorned hands, one reading ‘LOVE’ and the other ‘HATE,’ Raheem delivers a dramatic monologue about the eternal struggle between these two forces.

Here’s the entire speech:

This speech is a nod to the dichotomy of good and evil, love and hate that has been a central theme in literature and philosophy for centuries. It introduces the concept of ethical and moral dualism, the conflict between positive and negative moral forces, into the narrative. Radio Raheem’s hands become metaphors for these opposing forces, demonstrating how closely they can coexist and how one’s actions can tip the balance in either direction.

In terms of ethics and morality, this speech underscores the complexity of the characters’ choices and actions throughout the film. The struggle between love and hate is reflected in the characters’ interpersonal dynamics, their actions, and their reactions to the escalating racial tension. It symbolizes the ethical quandaries they face, the choices they make, and the consequences they bear.

For instance, Mookie’s decision to throw a trash can through Sal’s Pizzeria’s window can be viewed through the lens of this dichotomy. Was it an act of hate against Sal, or an act of love to divert the crowd’s anger away from Sal to his property, potentially saving his life? This act, like many others in the film, doesn’t fit neatly into categories of “right” or “wrong,” reflecting the intricate interplay between love and hate, good and evil, ethical and unethical.

Radio Raheem’s speech encapsulates this moral complexity, reminding viewers that actions are often motivated by a mix of love and hate, righteousness and anger, morality and immorality. It reflects the film’s overall stance on ethics and morality, demonstrating that these concepts aren’t clear-cut but rather a product of constant struggle and negotiation between conflicting forces.

Community and identity

Do the Right Thing presents community and identity as intertwined themes, exploring how individual identities contribute to community dynamics and vice versa. The motif of the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, with its diversity, is a melting pot of identities, all coexisting in a delicate balance of harmony and discord.

The tension between community and identity

Do the Right Thing delves into the tension between maintaining individual identity and fostering community harmony, shedding light on the complexity and delicate balance of multicultural societies. Throughout the film, characters grapple with expressing their unique cultural identities while cohabitating a shared community space, revealing the inherent challenges and conflicts that can arise from such a dynamic.

Sal’s Pizzeria serves as a central location for this tension. Sal, an Italian-American, runs this establishment in a predominantly black neighborhood, leading to clashes of cultural expression. The Wall of Fame, adorned with only Italian-American icons, is a clear symbol of Sal’s insistence on maintaining his individual identity. Yet, his pizzeria operates as a communal hub for a black neighborhood, raising questions about representation and the inclusivity of community spaces.

Buggin’ Out’s demand to include black icons on the Wall of Fame exemplifies the tension between individual identity and community harmony. Buggin’ Out seeks acknowledgment of the neighborhood’s cultural identity, believing that the community’s patronage should be reflected in the space they frequent. This is seen as a threat by Sal, who feels his personal identity within his business is being undermined.

The coexistence of community and identity

However, the film does not present this tension as a simplistic binary conflict. Characters such as Da Mayor and Mother Sister demonstrate a more harmonious coexistence of individual identity within the community fabric. Da Mayor, though often at odds with younger community members, ultimately embodies wisdom and peacekeeping. Mother Sister, while maintaining a somewhat aloof and watchful role, shows concern and care for her neighborhood.

The climax of the film underscores the devastating potential of these tensions when left unresolved. The riot that engulfs Sal’s Pizzeria can be viewed as an explosive expression of suppressed individual identities that felt unheard and unrecognized within the shared community space.

At the same time, the film emphasizes the strength of the community. Despite the conflicts, there is a sense of shared experience and mutual support among the residents. The community’s collective outrage at Radio Raheem’s death and the subsequent riot signify a shared sense of injustice and a collective struggle for change. This shared experience, born out of adversity, underlines the power of community and the importance of collective identity in challenging societal structures.

Why is the movie called Do the Right Thing ?

Buggin' Out looks angry as a group of people stand around him

The title Do the Right Thing might appear straightforward, suggesting a simple moral directive to make ethically correct decisions. However, as the film unfolds, it becomes clear that determining what constitutes the “right thing” is steeped in layers of complexity, ambiguity, and subjectivity.

Da Mayor’s directive to Mookie to “do the right thing” early in the film sets the stage for the narrative’s exploration of morality, ethics, and societal pressures. His advice, though seemingly simple, resonates throughout the movie as we observe characters navigating their personal moral landscapes amid escalating tensions. Initially, the quote seems to foreshadow a traditional morality tale where characters will face clear choices between right and wrong, a concept most audiences are familiar with.

The deeper meaning of the title lies in the fact that what may be deemed as “right” is often a matter of perspective. Depending on one’s values, experiences, beliefs, and even their place in a social or racial hierarchy, the definition of the “right thing” can drastically differ. For instance, the character Mookie throws a trash can through the window of Sal’s pizzeria, which, on the surface, is a violent act of vandalism. However, in the context of the story, it can be viewed as an expression of pent-up anger, frustration, and a desperate cry for justice following the death of Radio Raheem. Is Mookie doing the right thing? From his viewpoint, this act was perhaps a necessary measure to draw attention to racial violence. However, to others, his actions might seem destructive and unproductive, potentially escalating the conflict.

By the end of the movie, Da Mayor’s quote takes on a more profound significance. The climactic conflict at Sal’s pizzeria, culminating in Mookie’s act of throwing the trash can through the window and the subsequent riot, forces the audience to grapple with what the “right thing” truly means in such circumstances. Is it peace at the cost of justice, or is it a disruptive act to draw attention to a grave injustice? The ambiguity inherent in Da Mayor’s advice thus becomes a point of reflection for the audience, prompting them to reconsider their understanding of morality and justice.

In the broader context, the title serves as a commentary on systemic racial and social inequalities that still persist in society. It underscores the fact that individuals from marginalized communities often have to navigate a complex moral landscape where the “right thing” may differ vastly from the mainstream narrative. In the face of systemic oppression, their fight for equality might be deemed as an act of defiance, disobedience, or even criminal activity by those in power.

The title’s deeper meaning lies in its challenge to the audience. As viewers, we’re urged to question our notions of what is “right” and “wrong.” We’re prompted to examine our biases, our preconceived notions, and the societal narratives we’ve accepted. This demand for introspection and self-reflection continues to resonate long after the film ends, causing us to grapple with these issues in our own lives.

A man sits in his apartment counting money

In Do the Right Thing , heat is a constant presence that accentuates the rising racial tensions. The temperature, which continues to escalate throughout the day, not only aggravates the discomfort and irritability of the characters but also symbolizes their growing frustration and anger. The heat-induced exhaustion and agitation of the characters mirror the societal fatigue that stems from enduring racial inequalities. The film’s climactic riot occurs at the peak of the day’s heat, symbolizing that when tensions, like temperatures, rise too high, a boiling point is inevitable, resulting in an explosive reaction.

Sal’s wall of fame

Sal’s Wall of Fame serves as a constant visual reminder of the racial divide and lack of representation. By exclusively displaying Italian-American celebrities, Sal subtly dismisses the cultural contributions of his predominantly black clientele. This oversight escalates into an issue of contention, leading to the pivotal conflict in the movie. The Wall of Fame is a representation of the cultural erasure and systemic bias faced by the black community. Its destruction during the riot is a symbolic act of rebellion against this exclusion, highlighting the community’s demand for recognition and respect.

Love and hate

The “Love” and “Hate” rings worn by Radio Raheem serve as a metaphor for the societal and personal struggles the characters face. They depict the internal struggle between love, represented by understanding and acceptance, and hate, characterized by prejudice and anger. The symbolic battle between these forces reflects the volatile dynamics within the community. The narrative arc of these rings also mirrors the film’s progression: while Radio Raheem’s monologue about love conquering hate initially offers hope, his death at the hands of the police, a tragic symbol of hate, paints a grim reality.

Music is used in Do the Right Thing to give voice to the community’s struggle. Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” resounds throughout the film, symbolizing the black community’s resistance against systemic oppression. It’s more than just a background score—it becomes a rallying cry that reflects the anger and defiance of the community. This repetition serves as a constant auditory reminder of the unresolved societal issues at hand. The conflict around the volume of Radio Raheem’s radio is also indicative of the clash between individual expression and conformity.

The trash can

The act of Mookie throwing the trash can through the window of Sal’s pizzeria is one of the film’s most iconic scenes. The trash can is symbolic of the pent-up frustrations, racial tensions, and simmering anger within the community. Mookie’s action is not merely an act of vandalism—it is a bold assertion of protest against racial injustice. This act of rebellion, caused by the metaphorical “heat” of the conflict, challenges the status quo and demands immediate attention to the unjust death of Radio Raheem, making the trash can a powerful motif of resistance and call for justice.

Radio Raheem’s radio

Radio Raheem’s boombox serves as an extension of his identity, broadcasting his presence and his defiance against the norms of society. The persistent blare of “Fight the Power” underscores the theme of resistance against racial injustice. When Sal destroys the radio, it signifies a violation of Radio Raheem’s personal space and an outright dismissal of his cultural expression. This act escalates the existing tensions, leading to the climactic confrontation. Therefore, the radio functions not only as a symbol of individual autonomy but also as a catalyst for the events that unfold.

In Do the Right Thing , pizza serves as a symbol of cultural interaction and, paradoxically, cultural division. Sal’s pizza joint, a primarily Italian establishment in the heart of a black neighborhood, becomes a meeting point of cultures. However, Sal’s decision to only honor Italian-American celebrities in a place frequented by mostly black patrons underscores the racial disparities. The pizzas, sold to black customers but representative of Sal’s Italian heritage, also symbolize the economic transaction that doesn’t necessarily translate into cultural respect or understanding, reflecting the real-world dynamic often found in racially diverse urban settings.

The neighborhood

The Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Do the Right Thing is not just a setting—it’s a character in its own right. The neighborhood, with its vibrant mix of racial and ethnic groups, embodies a microcosm of broader societal relationships. The dynamics between the residents, their shared spaces, and escalating tensions serve as a reflection of real-world racial conflicts and complexities. The tight-knit urban setting amplifies the personal and social issues faced by the characters, making the neighborhood a crucial motif in the narrative.

Baseball, as a motif in the film, serves as a conduit to discuss racial tension and cultural pride. The sport, considered a quintessential part of American culture, becomes a battleground to challenge racial representation. The debate between Buggin’ Out and Pino over who the best baseball player is, with each arguing for a player of their own race, exemplifies the struggle for recognition and respect within the same national fabric. This motif underscores the racial divide that persists even within shared cultural experiences.

Police brutality

Police brutality is a recurring motif in Do the Right Thing , symbolizing the systemic violence and racial injustice prevalent in society. The unjustifiable killing of Radio Raheem serves as a stark reminder of this societal issue. The scene of the police car driving away after the act symbolizes the impunity often enjoyed by law enforcement in cases of police misconduct. This motif is a grim commentary on the ongoing struggle against racial discrimination and police brutality, resonating beyond the narrative of the film into real-life societal discussions.

Vito, Pino, and Mookie have a conversation in a pizza shop

Why won’t Sal put any Black people on the Wall of Fame?

In Do the Right Thing , Sal’s Wall of Fame becomes a focal point of the movie’s racial tension. It prominently features Italian-American celebrities, a fact that Buggin’ Out points out as problematic, given that the pizzeria is situated in a predominantly African-American neighborhood.

Sal’s refusal to put up pictures of black celebrities is a complex issue. It’s not merely an act of racism, but rather, a testament to his personal identity and history. Sal’s pizzeria, including the Wall of Fame, is a microcosm of his Italian heritage, a testament to the figures he admires and identifies with. In a neighborhood that is rapidly changing, it serves as a symbol of stability and tradition, something that he holds onto tightly.

However, this adherence to his tradition comes at the cost of acknowledging the changing demographic of his customer base. His customers are predominantly African-American, and his refusal to represent them on the Wall of Fame could be interpreted as a lack of respect for their culture and contributions.

Sal’s resistance to alter the Wall of Fame is a visual representation of the broader struggle for recognition and representation in the film. It becomes a symbol of racial tension and cultural clash, representing Sal’s unwillingness to fully acknowledge and respect the African-American community that sustains his business. It’s a potent symbol of the unspoken racial divide in the neighborhood, which ultimately escalates to the destructive climax of the film.

Why did Mookie throw the trash can?

Mookie’s act of throwing the trash can through Sal’s pizzeria window is a pivotal moment in Do the Right Thing and has been the subject of much debate. It’s a symbolic act that represents a culmination of the racial tension simmering throughout the film. Mookie’s act of destruction is not necessarily directed at Sal personally, but more towards the system that he sees as responsible for Radio Raheem’s death and the general racial inequality that the community faces.

Several interpretations can be drawn from this moment. Some argue that Mookie is redirecting the crowd’s anger towards property instead of people, possibly saving Sal and his sons from physical harm. Sal’s pizzeria becomes a stand-in for the systemic injustices they’ve been enduring. By targeting the property, Mookie sparks a riot that expresses the community’s rage and grief without directly harming the individuals they’ve associated with the cause.

Others interpret this as Mookie’s personal tipping point, where he can no longer remain neutral amidst the racial tensions. Despite his affiliation with Sal, he identifies more strongly with his community’s anger over Radio Raheem’s death, leading to his drastic action. It’s an act of rebellion against the racial injustices he and his community face, aligning himself firmly with them.

Regardless of the interpretation, this moment underscores the film’s central theme of racial tension and serves as a tangible manifestation of the community’s collective frustration and anger. Mookie’s act is a decisive response to an ambiguous command given earlier in the film: to “do the right thing.”

Now it’s your turn

Have more unanswered questions about Do the Right Thing ? Are there themes or motifs we missed? Is there more to explain about the ending? Please post your questions and thoughts in the comments section! We’ll do our best to address every one of them. If we like what you have to say, you could become part of our movie guide!

Travis is co-founder of Colossus. He writes about the impact of art on his life and the world around us.

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DO THE RIGHT THING: AN ANALYSIS

Sample by My Essay Writer

The film shows that it is very difficult for the back people to go about their daily lives with the police authority appearing to keep a discriminatory eye on them. But the dynamic is challenging because when the black people wanted to cool off in the water, the police came and turned it off. It seems as though the black people weren’t malevolent in the film, for the most part, but were just victims of circumstance. I think many people who don’t have air conditioning would support opening up a fire hydrant to cool off on a day that is tempting the 100 degrees Fahrenheit mark. It was just one or two people who decided to turn on the fire hydrant that were the real criminals, but that seemed to paint a dark picture for all of the black people in the neighbourhood, and that type of behaviour led the police to stereotype the black people and fueled much of the hate that they had towards them. This is an example of how the film does a tremendous job at showing how one or two bad apples can spoil the bunch.

Another example is when the police kill Radio Raheem. The black people retaliate by trashing Sal’s pizza restaurant, which a few felt didn’t belong in their neighbourhood because it didn’t have pictures of black people in it. This shows that the behaviour of the police, because they were white, reflected poorly on other white people, and Sal, even though he appeared to like black people most of the time, had to pay the price. Sal’s character showed the conflicting opinions about black people that white people possessed. Sal was in love with his black worker, Mookie’s, sister and he looked at Mookie as a son. However, when Radio Raheem wouldn’t turn his music down when he was in the restaurant, he started saying racial slurs. This shows how magnified the actions of each race was at the time, and when a member of one race did something wrong, it painted a bad picture for everyone belonging to the racial group.

While keeping on the topic of magnification, it is important to note what started the whole ordeal. When Buggin Out gets upset about the fact that there are no pictures of black people on the wall at the pizzeria, he becomes furious and tries to get a boycott going. However, not including a black person on the wall wasn’t meant to be an insult to the community. After all, Sal, as mentioned, loved black people, and all he wanted to do was put pictures on the wall of Italian Americans to reflect his heritage. This was what he had wanted his pizzeria to look like. Taking this small details and turning it into something it was not, is what eventually caused the riot and Radio Raheem’s death. Lee emphasizes this point by having the mentally challenged character put a picture of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King on the wall near the end of the film. The reaction Buggin Out had to there being no pictures of black people on the wall shows the sensitivity that he had and which was present throughout the film with nearly everyone involved. This is explained in “Unthinking Eurocentrism:” “The sensitivity around stereotypes and distortions largely arises, then, from the powerlessness of historically marginalized groups to control their own representations,” (184). But the question about whether Buggin Out was being sensitive is debatable. For example, as “Black Looks: Race and Representation,” points out, “From slavery on, white supremacists have recognized that control over images is central to the maintenance of any system of racial domination” (2).

The film also depicted the various power dynamics that were expressed between the white and black people. White people were usually in positions of power, such as was the position of Sal in the pizzeria, as Mookie was his employee. It was also evident in the police. However, when the white man driving the vehicle through the neighbourhood asked the black people to direct the water from the hydrant in another direction, he was rude to them, and they decided to instead direct the water at him and the vehicle in which he took so much pride. There was a consistent power struggle between the black and the white people, as Mookie continually questioned the authority that was on him. Furthermore, the black people were in control with the white man in the car wasn’t able to get by them without having his vehicle soaked. This shows the building tension that were simmering like the summer heat between the two races.

Also, when the biker accidently stepped on Buggin Out’s shoe and scuffed it, this shows how each culture was essentially walking all over each other, and there was little each could do to stay out of the others’ way. There was so much tension due to the fact that white people actually used black people as slaves at one point, and that there were so many other inequalities that were present with black people throughout the history of the United States. Much of the tension was also based on gentrification. For example, the black people were criticizing the white person for buying a home on their block, and they asked him why he would want to buy a home in a black neighbourhood. They also used the world gentrification when describing what they thought of the man who decided to move into what they considered to be their neighbourhood.

Sal and his son, Vito, weren’t Eurocentric, or feel that their race was somehow superior to the others. The same could be said of the South Korean couple who owned the corner store, although they could have been saying at the end of the film, “I am like you,” just so their store wouldn’t be burned down. Furthermore, Mookie seemed to be very accepting of white people, and wasn’t at all racist, even though he threw a garbage can through the pizza restaurant’s window, which essentially started the riot (However, he was aware the restaurant had insurance). But for the most part, each person depicted in the film felt that their race was superior. This is similar to what is said in “Unthinking Eurocentrism.” For example, the text talks about the typical perception of people who have an opinion on Eurocentrism. This attitude, whether it was by the police or by Sal’s son, or, for that matter, by Radio Raheem, who consistently played “Fight the Power.” Instead, an ethnocentric attitude would be more precise to describe the attitudes of many of the people in the film. However, “Unthinking Eurocentrism” shines an accurate light on the type of perceptions that were evident in the film. “Although Eurocentrism and racism are historically intertwined – for example, the erasure of Africa as historical subject reinforces racism against African-Americans – they are in no way equitable, for the simple reason that Eurocentrism is the ‘normal’ consensus view of history that most First Worlders and even many Third Worlders learn at school and from the media” (3).

Each group felt they had a right to the neighbourhood. The Italian-Americans had been in the neighbourhood for 25 years and they felt they were entitled to stay. The white biker owned a home in the neighbourhood and he thought it was “a free country.” The South Koreans saw a business opportunity and they wanted to serve somewhere, and for whatever reason they decided to open up shop in Brooklyn. Finally, the black people felt it was the only place they could afford to live, and anyone else who moved in were causing gentrification. Each of the relationships look to be appropriate for the time, and this might still be the way things are in that neighbourhood. The film achieved its mission of depicting the challenges, tensions and misunderstandings of each group in the film, and the depiction shows the progress that has been made in race relations throughout Canada.

References Hooks, Bell. Black Looks: Race and Representation . Boston: South End Press, 1992.

Shahat, Ella, and Robert Stab. Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media New York: Routledge, 1994.

Spike Lee, Do the Right Thing. Film, Spike Lee. (1989; Los Angeles: 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks/Universal Pictures, 1989). Film.

Tags DO THE RIGHT THING: AN ANALYSIS

By Hanna Robinson

Hanna has won numerous writing awards. She specializes in academic writing, copywriting, business plans and resumes. After graduating from the Comosun College's journalism program, she went on to work at community newspapers throughout Atlantic Canada, before embarking on her freelancing journey.

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Film Notes: MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
Film Notes: MY BRILLIANT CAREER
Film Notes: NOTHING BUT A MAN
Film Notes: ORLANDO
Film Notes: PALM SPRINGS
Film Notes: PAN'S LABYRINTH
Film Notes: PARIAH
Film Notes: PASSAGES
Film Notes: PASSAGES FROM JAMES JOYCE'S FINNEGANS WAKE
Film Notes: PERSEPOLIS
Film Notes: THE PIANO
Film Notes: PRESERVING THE MUSIC OF THE STREETS: TWO BY NICK DOOB
Film Notes: PRESERVING THE REVOLUTION: JAMES BALDWIN AND THE BLACK PANTHERS
Film Notes: PRINCESS MONONOKE
Film Notes: UN PROPHÈTE
Film Notes: THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO
Film Notes: RACHEL GETTING MARRIED
Film Notes: REAR WINDOW
Film Notes: REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE
Film Notes: RUN LOLA RUN
Film Notes: THE SCENT OF GREEN PAPAYA
Film Notes: SCHOOL OF ROCK
Film Notes: SHADOW OF A DOUBT
Film Notes: SMOKE SIGNALS
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Film Notes: SPRING, SUMMER, FALL, WINTER...AND SPRING
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Film Notes: SUNSET BLVD.
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DO THE RIGHT THING, 30th Anniversary Screening 7 p.m. Thursday, September 19, 2019 53 Wall Street Auditorium Co-presented with the Democracy in America film series; introduction by Matthew Jacobson and Michael Kerbel; post-screening discussion with Daphne Brooks, Aimee Cox, and Daniel HoSang Film Notes by Michael Kerbel PDF

Written, produced, and directed by Spike Lee (1989) 120 mins Cinematography by Ernest Dickerson Produced by Universal Pictures Starring Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Richard Edson, Giancarlo Esposito, Spike Lee, Bill Nunn, John Turturro, Paul Benjamin, Frankie Faison, Robin Harris, Joie Lee, Samuel L. Jackson, Rosie Perez, John Savage, Roger Guenveur Smith, Martin Lawrence, Steve Park, and Frank Vincent

Like many other Spike Lee “joints,” DO THE RIGHT THING–which opened in the U.S. on June 30, 1989–incisively depicts America’s continuing problems with race. The film examines the complex and uneasy racial dynamic of a predominantly black neighborhood that still feels the effects of the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. Lee views this from three perspectives: that of languid older residents who lived through that era, that of a disjointed and floundering younger generation, and that of a white Italian-American family whose pizzeria has served the neighborhood for 25 years, but who live elsewhere.

Lee dedicated the film to the families of six black people who died as a result of racism and/or police actions during the previous decade. Lee: “I wanted the film to take place in one day, the hottest day in the summer. And I wanted to reflect the racial climate of New York City. The day would get longer and hotter, and things would escalate until they exploded.” An immediate motivation was to “dump Koch,” the mayor whose 12-year administration had seen major racial conflicts, and whose opponent in the upcoming Democratic primary was a black man, David Dinkins. (Dinkins prevailed, and went on to become the city’s first black mayor.)

Despite the success of his first two features, SHE’S GOTTA HAVE IT (1986) and SCHOOL DAZE (1988), Lee struggled to obtain financing for this provocative project. Universal finally came on board, giving Lee artistic freedom but restricting him to a relatively low budget, $6.5 million. Lee secured one block in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant area for six weeks of preparation and eight weeks of filming, and transformed it into his dreamscape: his team closed crack houses (drugs are absent from the film), created new facades for decaying buildings, constructed Sal’s Famous Pizzeria and the Koreans’ grocery on vacant lots across the street from each other, put up murals and graffiti, and painted walls orange and red to evoke the sense of heat, an effect enhanced by Ernest Dickerson’s brilliant use of color filters.

Lee masterfully orchestrated an ensemble of over two dozen actors, from iconic veterans Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee (a real-life married couple) as Da Mayor and Mother Sister to newcomers Martin Lawrence and Rosie Perez (who starts things off with an electrifying boxing dance to the film’s hip-hop theme, Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power”). Lee has the pivotal role of Mookie, a neighborhood man who works for Sal, thus bridging both worlds. His being a pizza deliverer helps director Lee to move fluidly through the block. It is Mookie to whom Radio Raheem delivers his right hand/left hand, love/hate story, and to whom Da Mayor pronounces, “Always do the right thing.”

As befits a tragedy, the film observes classical unities of time and space, and even has a Greek chorus: the three corner philosophers. The third classical unity, one principal action, seems to be defied by Lee’s polyphonic series of random, day-in-the-life events. But the randomness is deceptive: incidents such as Sal’s ordering Radio Raheem to turn off his boombox, Buggin’ Out’s demanding that black celebrities be on the Wall of Fame, and Smiley’s hawking photos of Martin and Malcolm lead inexorably to an incendiary and heart-rending climax.

Some critics warned that DO THE RIGHT THING would incite rioting (it didn’t), but most were highly enthusiastic–Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert both named it the best film of 1989–and its worldwide gross was $37 million. Still, it received only two Oscar nominations (Danny Aiello, Supporting Actor; Spike Lee, Original Screenplay). Lee, who lost to DEAD POETS SOCIETY, was overlooked for Director and Picture nominations. Best Picture went to DRIVING MISS DAISY, somewhat the antithesis of DO THE RIGHT THING, and a film Lee intensely dislikes. When Barack Obama told Lee that he and Michelle saw DO THE RIGHT THING during the opening week, on their first date, Lee replied, “Good thing you didn’t choose DRIVING MISS DAISY.”

DID YOU KNOW: Sal's Famous, although a set, was a fully-functioning pizzeria. When filming occurred elsewhere, neighborhood residents ate there. It was torn down after production, and the site is now a small parking lot. In 2014, in honor of the film's 25th anniversary, the one-block production location (Stuyvesant Avenue between Quincy Street and Lexington Avenue) was named "Do the Right Thing Way."

Presented in the Treasures from the Yale Film Archive series with support from Paul L. Joskow '70 M.Phil., '72 Ph.D. Printed Film Notes are distributed to the audience before each Treasures screening.

The Criterion Collection

My Collection

Do the Right Thing

By Roger Ebert

Feb 19, 2001

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L eaving the theater after the tumultuous world premiere of Do the Right Thing at Cannes in May of 1989, I found myself too shaken to speak, and I avoided the clusters of people where arguments were already heating up. One American critic was so angry she chased me to the exit to inform me, “This film is a call to racial violence!” I thought not. I thought it was a call to empathy, which of all human qualities is the one this past century seemed most to need. Perhaps I was too idealistic, but it seemed to me that any open-minded member of the audience would walk out of the movie able to understand the motivations of every character in the film—not forgive them, perhaps, but understand them. A black viewer would be able to understand the feelings of Sal, the Italian-American whose pizzeria is burned by a mob, and a white viewer would be able to understand why a black man—who Sal considered his friend—would perform the action that triggers the mob. It is this evenhandedness that is at the center of Spike Lee’s work, and yet it is invisible to many of his viewers and critics. Because he is black and deals with anger, he has been categorized as an angry man. However, it is not anger, but rather a certain detached objectivity that I see in his best work. His subject is the way race affects the way lives are lived in America. More than any filmmaker before him, he has focused his stories on African-American characters, considering not how they relate to the white society, or it to them, but how they relate to each other. School Daze is no less about skin color because all of its characters are black. Jungle Fever is not only about a romance between black and white, but about all of the social, class and educational factors that race stands in for. Malcolm X is about a man who never abandons his outrage at racism, but comes to understand that skin color should not define who he can call his brother. In Do the Right Thin g, the subject is not simply a race riot, but the tragic dynamic of racism, racial tension, and miscommunication, seen in microcosm. The film is a virtuoso act of creation, a movie at once realistic and symbolic, lighthearted and tragic, funny and savage; one of the reasons we recoil at the end is that we thought, somehow, the people of this neighborhood, this street, whom we had come to know, would not be touched by the violence in the air all around them. We knew them all, Da Mayor and Radio Raheem, as well as Sal and his sons. And they knew each other. Surely nothing bad could come between them. And yet something bad does happen. Radio Raheem is murdered; Sal’s Pizzeria is destroyed. Spike Lee has been clever enough to make us sympathize with Sal, to like him and his pizzeria, so that it is not an easy target but a shocking one. And Lee twists the story once again, making the instrument of Sal’s downfall not a “negative” character but the one we like the most, and identify with: Mookie, the delivery man played by Lee himself. The woman who found the movie a call to violence was most disturbed, I suspect, because it was Mookie who threw the trash can—Mookie, who the movie led her to like and trust. How could he do such a thing to Sal? The answer to that question is right there on the screen, but was elusive for some viewers, who recoiled from the damage done to Sal’s property but hardly seemed to notice, or remember, that the events were set in motion by the death of a young black man at the hands of the police. Among the many devastating effects of Lee’s film, certainly the most subtle and effective is the way it leads some viewers (not racist, but thoughtless or inattentive or imbued with the unexamined values of our society) to realize that they have valued a pizzeria over a human life. I have written here more about Lee’s ideas than about his style. To an unusual degree, you could not have one without the other: style is the magician’s left hand, distracting and entertaining us while the right hand produces the rabbit from the hat. It’s not what Lee does that makes his film so devastating, but how he does it. Do the Right Thing is one of the best-directed, best- made films of our time, a film in which the technical credits, the acting, and Lee’s brazenly fresh visual style all work together to make a statement about race in America that is all the more powerful because it blindsides us. Do the Right Thing was the finest, the most controversial, most discussed and most important film of 1989. Of course, it was not nominated for an Academy Award as Best Picture (that award went to Driving Miss Daisy , which has a view of race in America that is rotated just 180 degrees from Lee’s). To an extent, I think some viewers have trouble seeing the film; it is blurred by their deep-seated ideas and emotions about race in America, which they project onto Lee, assuming he is angry or bitter. On the basis of this film it would be more accurate to call him sad, observant, realistic—or empathetic.

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The Movie “Do the Right Thing” Essay

To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
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This controversial film illustrates one day of events in a black neighborhood. It shows the African American population’s frustration with how they are being treated and how it elicits their reactions. The storyline also comments on other racial stereotypes, including Hispanics, Koreans, Italians, and Caucasians. The portrayal of stereotypes in this movie can be analyzed in light of Berg’s 11 theses of stereotypes. Berg identifies stereotypes through 11 theses: rigid logic, basis in fact, generalizations, worthwhile predictors, uncontextualized dialogue, dominant majority, ideological motives, in-group influence, repetition, normalized beliefs, and ignorance (Berg, 2002). Thus, statements such as rigid logic, basis in fact, generalizations, and worthwhile predictors can be applied to Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing .

The movie Do the Right Thing depicts many stereotypes and myths that work at far too general a level to be worthwhile predictors. Some of the stereotypes are that most of the black characters in the film don’t have jobs. In fact, the only black character who has a job is Mookie. Another myth is when black characters don’t listen to a white person driving a beautiful convertible. The man warns them several times not to wet his car, but they keep moving anyway.

Berg’s thesis that stereotypes may have a basis in fact can also be applied to this film. One of the stereotypes throughout the film is that black characters do not obey the command of the police. Especially in the scene where a fight breaks out in front of Sal’s pizzeria. Some of the characters jumped on the firefighters and started fighting with them. Part of the inner fervor is inherent in African Americans. However, the fiery temperament of African Americans is depicted in a caricatured way, which gives rise to stereotypes. Thus, the conflicts and fights depicted depict the stereotypes that African Americans are troublemakers, violent, out of control, and easily involved in criminal activities. The same stereotypes are distinguished by rigid logic. Moreover, stereotypes are simplified generalizations that assume out-group homogeneity. So, Spike Lee exaggerates the stereotypes of his characters to show the racial prejudice inherent in every ethnic group and race represented in the film. Italians are prejudiced against blacks and vice versa, Puerto Ricans are prejudiced against Koreans and vice versa.

In general, it is worth noting that one of the film’s strengths is the complexity of its characters and the portrayal of blackness on screen. Lee went beyond the stereotypes of African Americans in movies and created characters that are reflected in everyday life. In Do the Right Thing , blacks are not represented in the traditional binary of inferior and smiling, aggressive and dangerous, but rather can exist as fuller expressions of themselves.

In many films, for a black hero to being recognized by the viewer, they need to have some impressive story. In turn, Syed notes that white characters are interesting for the very fact of their existence. For example, the theme of whiteness is well represented in many episodes of Switched at Birth. The black characters, who are rightfully at the forefront of the storyline, are not prominent characters during the show. They appear briefly in some prices, but no more. They take on special significance when the show depicts the theme of racism. It is difficult to isolate their distinctive features before the racial storyline came to the fore. Thus, this example confirms that in order to receive recognition from whites, the hero must be a victim of racism.

According to Konzett, in Hollywood, one thing is certain: no other race has had such an opportunity to shine as the white. White actors have also played the roles of black characters for a long time. The portrayal of black women was particularly disappointing: looking at the roles for which black women were nominated for an Academy Award, one would conclude that they were the roles of suffering women. Among them are Halle Berry’s role in Monster’s Ball, Gabourey Sidibe in Precious , and Diana Ross’ and Angela Basset’s roles as Billie Holiday and Tina Turner ( Lady Sings the Blues and What’s Love Got to Do with It ).

The theme of whiteness is also explored in the film The Legend of Tarzan. The film follows white characters whose innate sense of justice leads to a tale of racial cooperation, the rise of non-whites, and the redemption of whites. In an environment where many whites now believe that they, and not people of color, are the true victims of the racial order, or claim some racial fatigue, listening to people of color complain about racial inequality, and those who may even have a hidden desire to see evidence of a post-racial era, films showing the messianic white character crossing the color line certainly resonate.

Particular attention should be paid to films aimed at children. Disney films have a special power over American society because they are easy to watch and easy to understand regardless of age. They are watched repeatedly, and by now, many generations have grown up with them, which makes their influence even stronger. Thus, the original composition of the Disney princesses was white girls, including Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel, Belle, and only Jasmine was not white. Later, the Native American character Pocahontas, Asian Mulan, and African American Tiana joined. In princess movies, very popular with little girls, a clear distinction is made between light and dark colors.

Interestingly, Mulan is one of the very few Asian characters in Disney film history. Thakore notes that the most famous depiction of Asians in Disney cartoons is the toothy, slanted-eyed Siamese cats who speak with an exaggerated Thai accent in Lady and the Tramp . In Aladdin , a viewer can see how language was used to distinguish between the good and the bad characters: Aladdin and Jasmine don’t have a trace of an Arabic accent, while the bad guys do. There is concern about how Disney portrayed Native Americans in Peter Pan (1953). They are partly mute, communicate with animal sounds and simple sentences, and have to explain why their skin is red as if everything that is different from white skin needs to be explained.

Works Cited

Konzett, Delia Caparoso. Hollywood at the Intersection of Race and Identity. Rutgers University Press, 2019.

Syed, Aafia. “Why is Whiteness the Default in Every Movie and TV Show?” The Tempest News, Web.

Thakore, Bhoomi K. “On the Origin of White Hollywood: The Racialized Space of the U.S. Film Industry.” American Behavioral Scientist, vol. 64, no. 14, Dec. 2020, pp. 2016–2027.

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IvyPanda. (2022, December 30). The Movie “Do the Right Thing”. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-movie-do-the-right-thing/

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IvyPanda . 2022. "The Movie “Do the Right Thing”." December 30, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-movie-do-the-right-thing/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Movie “Do the Right Thing”." December 30, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-movie-do-the-right-thing/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Movie “Do the Right Thing”." December 30, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-movie-do-the-right-thing/.

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 Enduring Urgency of Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” at Thirty

By Richard Brody

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Spike Lee’s third feature, “Do the Right Thing,” returns to movie theatres this weekend in honor of the thirtieth anniversary of its release. Lee dedicated the movie, in the end credits, to the families of Eleanor Bumpurs, Michael Griffith, Arthur Miller, Edmund Perry, Yvonne Smallwood, and Michael Stewart—six black people, five of whom were killed by police officers, as the character Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn) is, in the film’s climactic scene. (Griffith was killed by a white mob.). Three decades later, with police forces virtually militarized and with the judicial system largely granting officers impunity for killings committed on duty, the shock of the movie is that, even as many cultural and civic aspects that it represents have changed, its core drama—the killing of black Americans by police—continues unabated and largely unredressed.

“Do the Right Thing” isn’t a comprehensive representation of a cross-section of Bedford-Stuyvesant, the Brooklyn neighborhood where it is set, but a vision of private lives with a conspicuous public component—a sense of community and of history that’s a crucial aspect of identity. The movie’s individuals are boldly sketched with expressive exaggerations, not characters with deeply developed psychology but ones who bear the marks, the scars, and the emblems of history, and who also bear the pressure of the white gaze, the police gaze. No less than Lee’s script, his aesthetic offers a sharply original way of looking at the lives of black people—and of looking at life at large from a black person’s perspective. “Do the Right Thing” is grand, vital, and mournful; it is also, crucially, proud, a work not only of the agony of history—and of present-tense oppressions—but also of the historic cultural achievements of black Americans, and it takes its own place in the artistic history that it invokes.

The movie’s bright palette, its sense of contrasts of light and color, its distinctive and prominent addresses by characters looking in high-relief and fish-eye closeup at the viewer, its sense of bold declamation and assertive movement: all suggest a personal sense of style that builds on the cinematically disjunctive methods of the nineteen-sixties. They also evoke a cultural history—visual, dramatic, and tonal—informed by such artists as Romare Bearden and Jacob Lawrence, Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin and John Coltrane. Lee’s artistic collaborations are central to the movie’s rich sense of an artistic gathering, including the cinematography of Ernest Dickerson, the production design, by Wynn Thomas, and the costume design, by Ruth E. Carter . The score was composed by Lee’s father, Bill Lee, a bassist who has recorded with many major jazz musicians and appears on a wide range of albums, including Clifford Jordan’s classic “ Glass Bead Games .”

“Do the Right Thing” starts where Lee’s 1988 film “School Daze” ends—with a call to “Wake up”—but here it comes through by way of local media and in the context of art. It begins with one of the cinematic voices of the era—with Samuel L. Jackson, in the role of Mister Señor Love Daddy, the d.j. of a radio station operating from a storefront perch, where he’s on the air, watching the streets and orchestrating its moods with music, reporting back on what he sees and inflecting the moment with musings that connect the music to the community at large. In one spectacular monologue, Mister Señor Love Daddy recites his list of dozens of classical black musicians whose records he plays, beginning with Boogie Down Productions and ending with Mary Lou Williams.

The cultural clash at the center of “Do the Right Thing” is one that foreshadows major changes in the recent media landscape. The fast-talking young man called Buggin Out (Giancarlo Esposito) goes to Sal’s pizzeria for a slice, where Sal (Danny Aiello), the sympathetic but hotheaded owner, has photos of celebrities assembled into a “wall of fame.” Buggin Out notices that all of the photographs are of Italian-Americans (including Frank Sinatra, Liza Minnelli, and Joe DiMaggio) and asks why there aren’t any photos of black stars, given that the pizzeria is in a mainly black neighborhood. Sal’s answer—“Get your own place, you can do what you want to do”—doesn’t, of course, satisfy Buggin Out, who tries to organize a boycott of Sal’s. It doesn’t work, but Radio Raheem—who has already incurred Sal’s wrath by refusing to turn down his boom box, playing Public Enemy, in the pizzeria—ultimately decides to join him. (Raheem’s musical passion is also reverently devotional; his gesture is a crucial symbolic act of a black customer bringing his culture into a white-owned space.)

“School Daze” was more overtly tough-minded and more analytical in its portrait of divisions within the student body at a historically black university. In “Do the Right Thing,” Lee depicts a different sort of division, one that’s of deep political import but isn’t directly dramatized: the apparent ideological division between Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X, which echoes bitterly through the film’s final tragedy. It’s exemplified in Lee’s placement of a quote from each at the end of the film. Dr. King’s quote begins, “Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral”; Malcolm’s concludes, “I don’t even call it violence when it’s self-defense, I call it intelligence.” The division is both presented and symbolically resolved in the photo of the two leaders together that the character Smiley (Roger Guenveur Smith) decorates and sells—and which Lee puts on the screen after the two quotes.

Lee, as Mookie, the deliveryman for Sal’s, plays a role that symbolized his own position in Hollywood at the time, as an employee of a white-run business and a mediator between it and the black community. When Buggin Out first challenges Sal about the photos on the wall, Mookie walks him out of the pizzeria and admonishes him for putting his job in jeopardy. But after the murder of Raheem, Mookie—at first standing alongside Sal and his sons (John Turturro and Richard Edson) in confronting the crowd in the wake of the killing—walks off, grabs a metal trash can, returns, and throws it through Sal’s window. That action sets Mookie’s neighbors to ransacking the pizzeria—culminating in Smiley lighting the match that torches it, as the elderly woman called Mother Sister (Ruby Dee), wise and bitter and rueful, calls out, “Burn it down.” (She’s one of only three prominently featured women in the movie; there’s another virtual movie lurking behind this one, which pays more attention to the public role of women in the community.)

With “Do the Right Thing,” Lee was letting Hollywood know that it, too, was on the wrong side of history—and was doing not just wrong but harm. Nonetheless, what’s astonishing about the response of Raheem’s friends and neighbors to his murder isn’t the trashing of Sal’s; it’s their restraint—the handful of police officers manage to leave, dragging away Raheem’s body and arresting Buggin Out, with little incident. The rage directed at Sal, for his obtuseness and for his words and acts of hatred, is in its own way symbolic—the blood is on the hands of the police officers, who’d likely go unpunished. It’s their gaze at peaceable black people that foreshadows the trouble to come; it’s their derogatory remarks about the neighborhood, in private conversation with Sal, that suggest the hatred and contempt motivating their official behavior.

In “Do the Right Thing,” Lee—in challenging the cultural segregation of Sal’s wall—challenges the very nature of a public space as private property. Here, too, Lee evokes the burden and the responsibility of history. The very theme of private property in public space was a crucial one in the civil-rights movement, when white segregationists attempted to maintain a ban on black people in their restaurants and stores by asserting that the facility was their private property. The notion was overturned in the definition of “public accommodations” in the Civil Rights Act of 1964; but those laws had nothing to do with another sort of public space, the media as a crucial part of civic life; though the concept is now widely recognized, the practice is still woefully inadequate.

“Do the Right Thing” was released the same year as “Driving Miss Daisy,” which won the Oscar for Best Picture; Lee’s film wasn’t nominated. Today, the industry mainstream, or whatever’s left of it, is at least superficially more diverse, and sometimes substantially so, as with “Creed” and “ Black Panther .” But some things haven’t changed: Lee’s “ BlacKkKlansman ,” which was a Best Picture nominee this year, lost out to “ Green Book ,” another regressive tale of interracial friendship.

History virtually pierces the screen in one image from “Do the Right Thing” that’s unbearable to watch—a closeup of Raheem’s feet, kicking and dangling off the ground, while he’s being choked by the police. It’s an image that evokes a hanging and suggests a lynching; to watch it now is to see it in the context not just of a long and horrific history of acts of racist violence against black Americans but also of the police brutality that, thirty years after the film’s release, continues. “Do the Right Thing” is, regrettably, not a work of history but a film set, in many ways, in the present tense.

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Essays on Do The Right Thing

What makes a good do the right thing essay topics.

When it comes to writing an essay on the iconic film "Do The Right Thing" by Spike Lee, choosing the right topic is crucial. A good essay topic should be thought-provoking, engaging, and allow for in-depth analysis. It should also provide a unique perspective on the film and its themes. In this article, we will explore What Makes a Good Do The Right Thing essay topic and provide some recommendations on how to brainstorm and choose the perfect topic for your essay.

When brainstorming for essay topics on "Do The Right Thing," it's important to consider the themes and messages portrayed in the film. Some key themes to consider include racial tension, social injustice, community dynamics, and the impact of individual actions. Think about what aspects of the film resonated with you the most and consider how you can explore them in your essay.

In addition to the film's themes, it's also important to consider the characters, plot, and visual elements of "Do The Right Thing." Analyzing the character development, narrative structure, and cinematography can provide ample material for an engaging essay topic. Consider how the film uses these elements to convey its messages and explore how they contribute to the overall impact of the film.

A good essay topic should also be specific and focused. Instead of choosing a broad topic, try to narrow down your focus to a specific aspect of the film that interests you. This will allow you to delve deeper into your analysis and provide a more nuanced understanding of the film.

Lastly, a good essay topic should be relevant and timely. Consider how the themes of "Do The Right Thing" relate to current events and social issues. Choosing a topic that has contemporary relevance will not only make your essay more engaging but also demonstrate the enduring significance of the film's messages.

Best Do The Right Thing Essay Topics

The role of music in conveying the film's themes
The portrayal of racial tension and social injustice in the film
The impact of individual actions on community dynamics
The use of color and visual elements to convey the film's messages
The significance of the film's setting in Brooklyn, New York
The character development and motivations of Mookie
The role of women in "Do The Right Thing"
The portrayal of police brutality and its relevance today
The use of humor as a tool for social commentary in the film
The relationship between Sal and the members of the community
The significance of the film's title in relation to its themes
The impact of gentrification on the community portrayed in the film
The use of language and dialogue to convey the characters' perspectives
The portrayal of generational differences and conflicts in the film
The significance of the film's ending and its message
The impact of the heatwave on the characters' behavior and interactions
The portrayal of cultural identity and heritage in the film
The role of radio and media in shaping the characters' perspectives
The significance of the film's soundtrack in conveying its messages
The portrayal of love and relationships in the context of social tension

Do The Right Thing essay topics Prompts

Imagine you are a member of the community portrayed in "Do The Right Thing." How would you respond to the events depicted in the film?
Create a dialogue between Sal and Mookie after the film's climax. How would they reconcile their differences and move forward?
Explore the significance of the film's setting in Brooklyn, New York, and its impact on the characters' experiences.
Imagine an alternate ending for "Do The Right Thing" that conveys a different message. How would it change the film's impact?
Choose a specific scene from the film and analyze its use of visual and auditory elements to convey its messages.

Choosing the right essay topic for "Do The Right Thing" is essential to crafting a compelling and insightful analysis of the film. By considering the film's themes, characters, and visual elements, as well as its contemporary relevance, you can choose a topic that will allow for a meaningful exploration of the film's significance. With these recommendations and prompts, you can confidently select a unique and engaging topic for your "Do The Right Thing" essay.

Do The Right Thing Film Analysis

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"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 ...
Do The Right Thing: Summary, Analysis
Summary: Set on a city block during the hottest day of the summer in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant ('Bed-Stuy'), Do The Right Thing follows the character of 'Mookie' (Spike Lee), a pizza delivery boy, and a day in the life of the neighborhood residents as the climate gives way to escalating encounters and disputes.
Do the Right Thing (1989)
Do the Right Thing is an emblematic narrative about racial tension, policing, and the consequences of pent-up frustration in a culturally diverse community. The film presents a microcosm of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, on the hottest day of the summer, where a boiling point of racial conflict reaches its inevitable climax.
Do the Right Thing Film Analysis: [Essay Example], 605 words
Do The Right Thing Film Analysis. Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing (1989) is about the day to day life in a Brooklyn neighborhood and the racial strains confined from within. It demonstrates the differences of the various characters of a modern neighborhood. Trust and brutality embody the ongoing troubles about racism in America.
Analysis of Spike Lee's "Do The Right Thing"
Directed by Spike Lee, "Do the Right Thing" is a powerful film that explores themes of racism, discrimination, and violence in urban settings. Through various film techniques, Lee addresses these issues in a thought-provoking and impactful way. This essay will analyze the film's cinematography, sound and music, character development and ...
Do The Right Thing Analysis
Do The Right Thing Analysis Essay. Exclusively available on IvyPanda®. Table of Contents. Crisis and conflict characterize the film "Do The Right Thing". However, explicit racial divisions and tones that the characters who belong to different races in the film bring out the motive in this crisis. We will write a custom essay on your topic.
DO THE RIGHT THING: AN ANALYSIS
Sample by My Essay Writer. S pike Lee's "Do the Right Thing," 1989, is an interesting look at several factors that played into the racial and ethnic relationship between white and black people in the 1980s. The story is centred around one hot day, when the dynamics between the two ethnicities boils over and spills into violence, and ...
The Embodiment of Civil Rights Struggle in Do The Right Thing: [Essay
Spike Lee's, Do the Right Thing, is a soul-touching movie that provides insight on the ongoing civil rights struggle against racial profiling, police brutality, systematic racism, and discrimination.
Do the right thing
Do the right thing is a film that was authored and directed by Spike Lee in 1989. The film has been one of the most ground-breaking comedies and it exposes the simmering racial prejudices that dominated America at that time (Reid 3). Get a custom Essay on Do the right thing. 809 writers online. Learn More.
Do The Right Thing Essay
Do The Right Thing Essay. Director and actor Spike Lee presents his "truth" about race relations in his movie Do the Right Thing. The film exhibits the spectacle of black discrimination and racial altercations. Through serious, angry, and loud sounds, Lee stays true to the ethnicity of his characters, all of which reflect their own individualism.
Film Notes: DO THE RIGHT THING
Film Notes: DO THE RIGHT THING. Like many other Spike Lee "joints," DO THE RIGHT THING-which opened in the U.S. on June 30, 1989-incisively depicts America's continuing problems with race. The film examines the complex and uneasy racial dynamic of a predominantly black neighborhood that still feels the effects of the assassinations of ...
Do the Right Thing: A 30th Anniversary Essay and Analysis of ...
"Do the Right Thing" looks aged, in the sense of the bright colors, bike shorts, and boomboxes that dominated the 80s. The story, however, has aged especially and depressingly well.
Do The Right Thing Spike Lee Essay
Do the Right Thing is a film that shows how damaging racial tensions are to society, which is an issue still prevalent in today's world. Do the Right Thing shows realistically what can happen when racial tensions intensify and blow up. This is shown in the movie by looking at the neighborhood at the end versus the beginning of the summer.
Analyzing The Film Shot Do The Right Thing
Conclusion. In conclusion, "Do the Right Thing" stands as a timeless and poignant exploration of race, community, and morality. Through its vibrant visual style, nuanced portrayal of social and cultural issues, compelling characters, narrative structure, and lasting impact, the film continues to resonate with audiences and provoke meaningful conversations about the state of society.
Do the Right Thing
Essays —. Feb 19, 2001. L eaving the theater after the tumultuous world premiere of Do the Right Thing at Cannes in May of 1989, I found myself too shaken to speak, and I avoided the clusters of people where arguments were already heating up. One American critic was so angry she chased me to the exit to inform me, "This film is a call to ...
The Movie "Do the Right Thing"
The Movie "Do the Right Thing" Essay. This controversial film illustrates one day of events in a black neighborhood. It shows the African American population's frustration with how they are being treated and how it elicits their reactions. The storyline also comments on other racial stereotypes, including Hispanics, Koreans, Italians, and ...
Do the Right Thing (1989)
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 ...
Do the Right Thing
Do the Right Thing is a 1989 American comedy-drama film produced, written and directed by Spike Lee.It stars Lee, Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Richard Edson, Giancarlo Esposito, Bill Nunn, John Turturro and Samuel L. Jackson and is the feature film debut of Martin Lawrence and Rosie Perez.The story explores a Brooklyn neighborhood's simmering racial tension between its African-American ...
"Do The Right Thing": Analysis of The Film's Scene
Introduction. Spike Lee's cinematic masterpiece, "Do the Right Thing," stands as a testament to the art of filmmaking, skillfully employing its elements to convey a poignant narrative aligned with the filmmaker's intentions, vision, and the societal influences of its time. Set against the backdrop of 1980s Brooklyn, New York, during the ...
Do The Right Thing Essay
Do The Right Thing Essay. 'Do the right thing' is one of the best films made by Writer, Director, producer, and star Spike Lee in 1989, which explored the issue of biasness and discrimination of the African-American area of New York city called Brooklyn. This movie was nominated for 2 Oscars Awards and other and it won 11 other awards in ...
PDF Do the Right Thing
The last scenes of "Do the Right Thing" call to my mind the distinction between two kinds of violence drawn by social philosopher Paul Goodman in his book "Drawing the Line.". In his view, "natural" violence may be dreadful and destructive, but it's rooted in human nature and erupts spontaneously out of deep-seated drives and ...
The Enduring Urgency of Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing" at Thirty
Richard Brody on the rerelease of Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing," for the film's thirtieth anniversary, and what hasn't changed about the film's resonance in the past three decades.
Essays on Do The Right Thing
What Makes a Good Do The Right Thing Essay Topics. When it comes to writing an essay on the iconic film "Do The Right Thing" by Spike Lee, choosing the right topic is crucial. A good essay topic should be thought-provoking, engaging, and allow for in-depth analysis. It should also provide a unique perspective on the film and its themes.

Do The Right Thing: Summary, Analysis

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Cast and Crew:

Further Reading:

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Do the Right Thing (1989) | The Definitive Explanation

What is Do the Right Thing about?

Movie Guide table of contents

Important motifs in Do the Right Thing

A recap of the ending

The escalation of racial tensions

The riot and its symbolism

The struggle for recognition and respect

Ending with contrasting philosophies

Racial tension

The struggle for racial recognition

The use of racial slurs

The need to riot

Ethics and morality

What is the “right thing”?

Love vs. Hate

Community and identity

The tension between community and identity

The coexistence of community and identity

Why is the movie called Do the Right Thing ?

Sal’s wall of fame

Love and hate

The trash can

Radio Raheem’s radio

The neighborhood

Police brutality

Why won’t Sal put any Black people on the Wall of Fame?

Why did Mookie throw the trash can?

Now it’s your turn

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DO THE RIGHT THING: AN ANALYSIS

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Do the Right Thing

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The Definitives

Do the Right Thing

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The Enduring Urgency of Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” at Thirty

Essays on Do The Right Thing

Best Do The Right Thing Essay Topics

Do The Right Thing essay topics Prompts

Do The Right Thing Film Analysis

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