“Do the Right Thing” is an American drama-comedy film, written, directed, and produced by Spike Lee (Lee, 1988). The film is about a single day of the lifestyle of a racially diverse population that works and lives in a lower class neighborhood in New York’s Brooklyn area. This story is set on one of the hottest summer days. The central theme of the film is how race, social class and the moral decisions made by the characters directly affect how people interact with each other. In the beginning of this film, we see the characters waking to begin their day (Lee, 1988).It enters into climax with an intense riot in the neighborhood and ends with police officers excessively restraining and killing a young black man called Radio Raheem. They accused the man for fighting an Italian-American businessperson called Salat Sal’s Pizzeria. Although the film was released in 1989, with its artistic and commentary on the impact of culture on police brutality, it remains highly relevant today as it was during the time of its release. In this paper, the discussion supports the argument that, despite the fact that the film “Do the Right Thing” is remembered as a raucous screwball comedy, it also clearly reflects the changing cultural value systems of the time it was made.
Discussion
In the film “Do the Right Thing,” it is increasingly difficult for the audience to differentiate between fiction and fact when the audience can consume both through the same television screen. Usually, the arts reflect the spirit of an era. However, it is often bizarre when life imitates art, particularly when what the audience sees on screen becomes reality. Once upon a time, Charlie Brooker imagined that the Prime Minister had gotten frisky with a pig on Black Mirror. Indeed, no one could have guessed that David Cameron could be accused of exactly that, four years later (Beebe, 1989). Such prognostication cannot be perceived as a matter of mere coincidence. It is often a case of iteration. This implies that history tends to repeat itself without addressing past mistakes. In “Do the Right Thing”; Lee illustrates the way life can imitate art, highlighting the battles that the Black Lives Matter movement had to overcome, even in today’s society.
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In this piece, race is the most central matter and there are numerous interpretations of how the characters deal with it in the film. Lee uses bilateral perspectives throughout the film to portray race. Actually, this film is a pure attempt by the author to explore binarism system of society and the culturally entrepreneurial situation of the African-American population living in this society (Beebe, 1989). Most of the characters in this film fall under this binary concept. Examples include Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and the divide, which is represented by Mookie himself. The most interesting thing is how Mookie walks between both the black world and the white world. Here, Sal’s Pizzeria is what is known as the white world and neighborhood is what is called the black world. The conflict in this story starts and ends with Sal because he chose to only to post pictures of white Italian-Americans on his wall of fame (Lee, 1988). This was Buggin’ Out start to protest, boycotting Sal’s Pizzeria. This boycott has something, which is quite condescending. There is no reason why Sal would be interested in putting a picture of Blacks on his wall of fame. Therefore, for Buggin’ Out to try to force this idea on Sal is exactly what creates the fear that what Sal is doing with the wall of fame is wrong. All this boils to the concept of binarism and that this film is made of race-related conflicts. This theme is further demonstrated during the magical realism moment where all the characters rant about each other, face to face (Lee, 1988).
Ironically, the rants created a connection moment where all the characters share distress (Reynolds, 2011). The author has captured this moment in a perfect manner because these emotions characterize almost every culture in America. The unknown develops into fear and later fear grows into hate. In the midst of these conflicts, Raheemis killed and this leads to eruption of the neighborhood cultures (Fabe, 2004). At this point, anger takes toll on Mookie and he starts to destroy Sal’s Pizzeria.
The film hits its climax when a police officer strangles Raheem to death (Reynolds, 2011). Lee uses this to remind the audience that for the Black folks, falling into the hands of the police is the most dangerous thing ever in life. In itself, Raheem’s death is harrowing because it is similar to Eric Garner’s death by Staten Island police authorities in 2014. Portraying police officers from the underside of racism and capitalism is indicative that for most Black citizens, the police force is never a safe haven, but rather a brutalizing force. Launched a few years prior to the Los Angeles police attack on Rodney King and a year after the arrival of NWA’s “Fuck the Police”, a protest record against police brutality, puts the American policing system on trial (Beebe, 1989). The people whose Lee dedicates its film to further drives this point home. They include Michael Griffin, Arthur Miller, Edmund Perry, Yvonne Smallwood and Michael Stewart, all who were Blacks from New York killed by police in recent years prior to the arrival of Lee’s film. One notable point is that of all the officers implicated in these killings, none was found guilty or indicted by a grand jury (Fabe, 2004).
As one of Lee’s cultural time capsules, “Do the Right Thing” reflects the artistic feel, style and cultural expressions of the late 80s and early 90s of Black America (Lee, 1988). This ranges from the hairstyles, shoes, clothes, four-finger rings and bombox. In fact, Lee purposefully placed Jordans in a manner that generates its cult-like following (Reynolds, 2011). In this manner, he captures the pulse of both post-Black Power Black America and post-Civil Rights America. The author notably expresses this via the film’s soundscape, which is composed of an intergenerational conversation between hip-hop and jazz. In this film, the musical soundscape is the author’s father, William Lee. In addition, the soundscape in itself is a also a character on its own. For sure, it is true of the theme song of this film, Fight the Power by Public Enemy. As Lee puts it, “Do the Right Thing” we would not have “Do the Right Thing” without a “fight the Power” (Fabe, 2004). It would only necessitate a song of such great magnitude to hold the weight of the heavy matters confronted in Lee’s film.
The film was and will remain influential even in the future. One of its major strengths is the representations of blackness and the complexity of its characters on the screen. The author broke the norm by moving past the stereotypes of African Americans in movies and created characters that are portrayed in everyday life. Lee has not presented Black people in the traditional binary of smiling, subservient dangerous and violent, but rather they are more rounded manifestations of themselves (Lee, 1989). For example, though Buggin’ Out is worried about the black representation and nationalistic politics, he seems to bug out when a white mistakenly scratches his brand new Jordan sneakers. This infliction appears to be frivolous, but it causes an outburst.
Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” was on part inspired by the Howard Beach incident of the 1986 (Fabe, 2004). This incident was about a Black man namely Michael Griffiths. The police killed him while he was escaping an angry White mob after leaving the New Park Pizzeria. Earlier, this mob had attempted to chase Griffiths and his friends out of the neighborhood for being Blacks. This was just one of the many stories, which Lee based on to compose his “Do the Right Thing.” Sadly, though the film was created years ago, in 1989, it is still relevant even today.
Probably, most people might be questioning why the film is still familiar today. The answer is simple. In 2018, amidst the never-ending list of unarmed, innocent African Americans being brutally murdered by police, Lee’s story is even more relevant. Research indicates that two years ago, young Black men were nine time more expected to be killed by police compared to other Americans (Reynolds, 2011). This year, things are still on par. In areas like South Africa where the politics of ownership and representation remain unresolved and the police recently killed 34 minors for allegedly boycotting for a better life, the trajectory of Lee’s story will undoubtedly send a chilling message. During the film’s launch, there were fears that it might trigger hate crimes and race riots. In fact, warnings were issued to Whites all over, telling them to avoid watching the film. On the contrary, the film caused the entire world to reflect and affirmed the Black experience worldwide.
Conclusion
In “Do the Right Thing”; Lee challenges the Hollywood’s cultural hegemony. He went against the odds, choosing to create a film that can both entertain and culturally resonate with the audience. He points out that when those in power fail to address social and racial disparities in a neighborhood, they can eventually cause acts of extreme violence by population segments that feel oppressed and powerless (Lee, 1988). In its approach, this film is realistic in the sense that a melting pot of diverse races and cultures does not imply that all people will lead happy lives. The author understood that for him to create a film about social matters, he must embrace the stereotypes to criticize them. In one of the scenes, the police are driving across the neighborhood saying “what a waste” (Lee, 1988). At that particular moment, the residents outside were not engaged in any acts of violence. This instantly demonstrates that the police officers who are responsible for protecting the community have no respect for the people they serve.
In the end, the film demonstrates that racial issues exist in the society, but the characters do not confront them directly until the last minutes. Understandably, these are not solely racial matters, but also matters of who are in control. The combination of these two factors is what makes things to reach a boiling point. Lee uses comical scenes such as a boom box show down to prove that it is ultimately all about power and less about who has the best of material things. Moreover, riots only emerge after years of feeling that the system, which is created to protect a group, has failed to benefit or serve their best interests. Lee’s“Do the Right Thing” is more than just a film about racial identity and police violence; rather, it centers on the ugliness and the beauty, which prevails not only in a poor neighborhood but also in human beings themselves.
References
Fabe, M. (2004). Closely watched films: An introduction to the art of narrative film technique . Berkeley: University of California Press.
Lee, S. (1988). Do the right thing . North Hollywood, CA: Hollywood Scripts.
Lee, S. (1989). Do the Right Thing. Swank Motion Pictures, digitalcampus-swankmp-net. db29.linccweb.org/valencia310687/#/play/53095. Accessed 18 Nov 2018.
Reynolds, M. (2011). How to analyze the films of Spike Lee . Edina, Minn: ABDO Pub.Co.
Beebe, J. (June 01, 1989). At the Movies<i>Do the Right Thing</i>. Written and Directed by Spike Lee. The San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal, 8, 4, 85-87.
