Even if it ain’t all it seems I got a pocket full of dreams
Baby, I’m from New York!
Concrete Jungle where dreams are made oh
There’s nothing you can’t do
Now you’re in New York!
These streets will make you feel brand new
Big lights will inspire you
I am proud to be able to live in such a wonderful state as New York. There is no other that beats its cultural diversity and rich history. I am so glad that we got to watch “Taxi Driver” and “Do the Right Thing”, where we got to witness two different stages of New York. It’s as if we took a time machine and traveled back in time.
I remember hearing stories about how bad Manhattan was in the past and how Times Square used to be filled with hookers, street gangs and anything else your mind could imagine, but I could never picture it. The Manhattan we know of now is the place to be when you have nothing to do and want to go hang out with friends or do some shopping. It is also probably the #1 tourist attraction. “Taxi Driver” helped me invision what New York really looked like back then and it was very interesting. I got a glimpse into the dark side of the Big Apple. Sex, drugs, gangs, hookers, violence and corruption pretty much sums it all up in this movie. Fortunately I can’t fully relate to this New York because it was so long ago that times have drastically changed…for the most part.
And thus we hop into our little time machine (woosh) and travel to another time of New York in “Do the Right Thing.” Although this neighborhood in Brooklyn wasn’t much better, I liked it and identified with it more than “Taxi Driver.” This movie truly captured a variety of different cultures and somehow was fair to them all. What I mean by that is that although he made a lot of racist and discriminatory comments, he made them to all of the different ethnicities leaving no one safe and essentially putting us all on equal grounds. Although we all want to say that we live in a world where racism and hate doesn’t exist it pains me to break that bubble and say that it does still exist. Maybe not as much as before but I do not think we will ever be able to get rid of it completely because there will always be that one person, the scrooge or the grinch, that feels differently.
What makes Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” even more relatable is that we still have some neighborhoods that are segregated by ethnicity. For example, Chinatown, Little Italy and Harlem. My cousin also told me once that there is a neighborhood in Brooklyn that is mostly Russians (I forgot the name). Although we might not get as heavily discriminated upon when we enter these neighborhoods some of us might feel a little out of place like the white guy in the movie that is walking into his house. The neighborhood in “Taxi Driver” most certainly does not exist today at such extremes(Which is another reason why it is unrelatable to us) but the neighborhood in “Do the Right Thing”could be any neighborhood of today( with less discrimination and racial tensions :p).
One similarity that the movies shared, that for the most part does not exist today, is the corruption of the law enforcement. In “Taxi Driver” the cops were nonexistent and really held no power whereas in “Do the Right Thing” they were always around and abused their power. In both cases though they were corrupted.
Even after seeing these two sides of New York I still love this place nonetheless, just like we seem to love a person even if they have some bad qualities. Although in our world racism and hate still exist I think that New York is a place where most people are able to open their minds to new ideas and customs and learn to love and respect other people too. In the end we’re all one big family anyways. =)
NEW YORK BABEYYY ♥ ♥
