The Mineola-Portuguese Center. The Italian-American Center. The Irish-American Center. The Knights of Columbus.
While driving through the town I live in you may notice so many different centers for so many separate communities, and yet these communities all get along because they are one community.
Yes people are different, but everyone gets along. We all respect one another and our differences. That’s what a community does.
One word can describe my feelings while watching Do the Right Thing, Shock.
I’m so used to living in a community where although there are so many different types of people living in the same area, we all get along so well, that while I was watching this film I found it extremely hard to believe that such hatred could exist within a community.
Because of this I found it a lot easier to enjoy Mad Hot Ballroom.
In Mad Hot Ballroom, it was clear that many different communities were being documented, but all these communities got along, and worked side by side. The children all came from different backgrounds, and yet they all went to the same school and worked together to achieve a goal. The children in Mad Hot Ballroom all seemed to “know” their community so well. What do I mean by “know”? Well all of the children understood how their neighborhood functioned. The children seemed so mature for their age, and while watching the documentary I was actually surprised to hear them talking about issues in such a mature way.
While watching Do the Right Thing I was surprised by the way the people were speaking, but in a completely different way. I was so shocked by the way each group disliked every other group. I mean can’t we all just get along? One part that really stood out to me that shows this is when each group was talking about another group, and they had so many different ways of describing the other groups. Each person would describe a different group with so many negative names. You could really sense the hatred of blacks towards whites, and the hatred towards the other groups such as Asians and Hispanics as well. The stereotypes just seemed too extreme, and made it really hard for me to relate to the movie. Could it be that the New York City I know now could have once been this way?
The thing is, stereotypes still do exist today. I guess I just haven’t been exposed to them. Maybe they don’t exist as much as they used to, but they do still exist. The New York City that is portrayed in Do the Right Thing exposes all of this, while the New York City in Mad Hot Ballroom shows that it still exists, but isn’t as extreme as it used to be. Mad Hot Ballroom shows how we still have our differences, but we can put these differences aside and all get along as one greater community. That’s what I loved about this film. It was so great to see kids from so many different backgrounds working together for a common purpose.
Overall Mad Hot Ballroom was just more interesting to me. In this film New York City was portrayed through the view of children. I guess that’s why I was able to relate to this film more than in Do the Right Thing. No I am not a child! (even though sometimes I wish I could go back to being a child), but you could consider my knowledge of New York City as childish since I know very little about the city and the communities that exist within it, since I was brought up in a sheltered suburban community. Do the Right Thing really exposed these racial tensions to me, but Mad Hot Ballroom reassured me that although differences exist, these differences can be disregarded, and we can come together as one greater community.
