Do the Right Thing is a 1989 American comedy-drama film, directed and written by Spike Lee, to highlight the racial tension between the white and black community in a Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. The film begins in the hot summer weather in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Mookie, the protagonist, is a young and unambitious pizza delivery man who works at an Italian-American pizzeria and lives with his younger sister, Jade. Mookie has a child with Tina, his girlfriend, but fails to take care of both of them. Sal is the owner and also his two of his sons, Pino and Vito, to work at the pizzeria. Pino is the dominant older brother, who often bullies Vito. Tension builds between Mookie and Pino, as Pino has a strong hatred against Black people. His bitterness against Black intensifies when Mookie persuades Vito to stand up for himself against his brother, Pino. Although Pino urges Sal, his father, to leave the black neighborhood and move the pizzeria back to the Italian neighborhood, Sal refuses because he has developed a friendly relationship with those people. Mayor, the drunken man, wanders around the block and plays the pure and good man in the film. Mother Sister is the bystander who watches all the action of the block in her apartment.

One day Bugging Out, one of Mookie’s friend, orders a slice of pizza and realizes at all the pictures on the Wall of Fame are Italian people. He demands Sal to put a picture of a black individual since the pizzeria is located in a predominantly black neighborhood and most of the customers are black. Sal reluctantly refuses and responds that this is his pizzeria, so he can do whatever he wants. An argument suddenly broke out between Sal and Bugging Out, which leads Bugging Out to start a protest against Sal’s Pizzeria.Only Radio Raheem and Smiley support him.
During the day, the heat begins to rise. Some of the local teenagers open a fire hydrant and douse a white man’s car. The cops intervene, but then nothing is done to reimburse the damaged car. As the film progress, a series of scenes illustrate the character’s racial tension and discomfort as they spew racial insult towards another individual. That night, just as Sal begins to close his pizzeria, Bugging Out, Radio Raheem, and Smiley angrily march into the place and demands that Sal changes the Wall of Fame with pictures of Black people. Raheem owns a loud radio that plays contemporary Black pop music. Overwhelmed and disgusted with the noise, Sal argues with him to turn off the radio and leave his place. The argument escalated when Sal, out of frustration, tells them that he will”tear his nigger ass” and takes a baseball bat to destroy the radio. Raheem attacks Sal and a massive violent fight breaks out into the street. When the police arrive at the scene, they used excessive restraint which chokes Raheem and leaves.

The onlookers are outrages and blame Sal and his sons for the death of Raheem. They destroy Sal’s pizzeria and sets the place on fire. Firemen and riot patrols soon arrive to disperse the crowd, but the onlookers resisted which leads to more chaos and violence. Shocked in disbelief, Jade and Mookie sit on the sidewalk as Mother Sister cries in the middle of the street. Smiley hangs a picture of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr, inside the burning building. The film ends as Mookie returns to the ruins of the pizzeria and demands for his weekly pay of $250. Unemployed and helpless, Mookie walks away from Sal after an argument. The last scene of the film, is two quotes, from Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, that highlights their point view of violence.

Production

Spike Lee began developing Do The Right Thing in 1987 with his cinematographer while on a flight to shoot a previous film in California. Initially titled Heat Wave, the film was heavily influenced by the racially motivated attacks in Howard Beach, Queens the year prior which resulted in the assault of one black man and the death of another at the hands of a white mob. The Howard Beach events are alluded to throughout the film, which coincidentally also began in an Italian owned pizzeria. In Lee’s film, as the pizzeria burns, the crowd can be heard chanting the words “Howard Beach”.

Lee developed the screenplay himself and worked closely with his cinematographer Ernest Dickerson to develop the unique visual style of the film. Having set the film during the “hottest day of the year”, Lee and Dickerson sought to convey the full effects of this heat to the audience visually. The two were praised for their use of color throughout the film, relying on a completely warm-hued palette with carefully accented cool tones. They often burned cans next to near the camera lens to simulate heat rising off the ground. Lee was praised for his inventive use of disorienting Dutch angles, tilting the camera at 45 degrees from overhead in an increasingly exaggerated way. One of the films most well-known sequences involves extreme close-ups of characters berating one another with racial slurs one after another, a style that would become a staple in Lee’s films.

The film was produced over a span of six weeks, shot entirely on Stuyvesant street between Quincy and Lexington in the Bedford-Stuyvesant, or Bed-Stuy neighborhood of Brooklyn. Lee employed a team of people to shut down crack houses, paint exteriors, add graffiti, and put up a giant mural of Mike Tyson. Sal’s Pizzeria was a fully built restaurant with functioning appliances and gas piping, so when it burned, it really burned. The Production was a family affair for Lee, whose father Bill Lee, a jazz musician, scored the film. His real-life sister takes on the role of his sister in the film. Lee’s long-time friend Roger Guenveur Smith originated the role of Smiley after he approached Lee for a part in the film. Not having anything to offer him, Lee gave him a copy of the script and offered him a chance to make his own role.

Lee found most difficulty in finding funding and distributors for the film. Having built up some credibility among production companies with previous hits She’s Gotta Have It and School Daze, Lee had bankability. But many major studios were wary of attaching themselves to such a political film about race. A common fear was that the film would incite racial rioting with its angry tone. Universal Pictures agreed to develop the project for a reported budget of $6.5 million. The film grossed roughly $28 million during its release.

Reception

The same worries held by production companies, that the film would catalyze real-life violence were shared by a few critics. Following its debut at the Cannes film festival, New York Magazine’s film critic called Lee’s message “dangerously stupid” alluding to the fears that the film would ignite tensions which were already high. But as the film broadened its release the divisiveness gave way to a consensus that the film is a necessity for society. It received four out of four stars from both Rolling Stone and Roger Ebert, who claimed the film penetrated his soul. Washington Posts critic Hal Hinson acknowledged the film’s ambition and called it “infuriating and mostly brilliant”. The film is certified fresh on rotten tomatoes with a 93 percent critics score and 90 percent audience score. The film is rated 7.9 stars on IMDb and has a Metacritic score of 91, equating to critical acclaim. The individual reviews are often incredibly positive with an occasionally incredibly low score, explained by the generally divisive nature of the film’s topic.

Lee has received most acclaim for his seemingly impartial handling of the subject matter. The film has been lauded for its lack of definitive heroes and villains. Lee constructs his characters so that we at once empathize with them all, and must, therefore, struggle to weigh the motives and consequences of their actions. The world of his characters was praised by Roger Ebert as being one where “the dominant emotions are sadness” not anger, and where all the characters command as much empathy as they do condemnation. Many critics praised Lee for his ambiguity, especially in the ending of the film. His choice to include both a quote by Martin Luther King Jr. against violence and one by Malcolm X for it left the moral dilemma in the hands of the audience. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone argued that Lee’s unwillingness to guide the audience to a specific side is fitting of the subject, given this debate over the effectiveness of non-violent versus violent practices have been ongoing within the Black community of the United States for the length of our history. Thus, Lee has dragged a controversial subject into the mainstream, with humor and heart. As Travers concluded in his review, the only wrong thing to do about Do The Right Thing “would be to ignore it.”

Seminar Theme(s)

One seminar theme that the film evokes is New York City characters and lifestyle. Located in the melting pot of the world, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn creates an environment of diverse and multi-connections. There is a close-knit community of Blacks in this neighborhood where everyone knows each other. Although the neighborhood is a predominantly Black, there is still a glimpse of the Koreans in the grocery shop, Italians in Sals, and some Hispanic people in the buildings. Nonetheless, the neighborhood is full of distinct and unique personalities: Da Mayor, a local drunken; Mother Sister who watches the block, Smiley, a mentally disabled man, and Radio Raheem who blasts Public Enemy on his boombox. The multicultural difference highlights the beauty of New York City, where people from different places all come together in one location. For example, some of the Black admire the achievements of the Korean family to adapt to American culture and to create their own business. In the case of Sal, Pino tries to convince his father to leave this black neighborhood, but Sal stays for economic stability and also for the relationships he has built with the black community. Many of the people are born and raised on Sal’s pizza, so he is proud of that.This concept cultural acceptance and bond building among the racial group is the core value that New York City represents. It is American Dream where each family can prosper and pursue their happiness in a new place. However, this bond among the residents is gone after the death of Raheem.

Another seminar theme is morals and norm. When the police officers choked Raheem, the black onlookers blamed Sal and his sons for his death. The whole neighborhood is frustrated by the supremacy of white cops killing black lives. Mookie takes a garbage can and breaks the window. The angry mob destroys the pizzeria by breaking the furniture and applications, stealing all the money and setting the place on fire. This theme of morality is hampered by the thought of hatred and violence involving racial tension. The act of violence to achieve social justice is wrong and purely leaves the mark of destruction. There is no understanding of the opponent’s side, rather just annihilation. The idea of “an eye for an eye” is blinded by the thirst and desperation of vengeance and hostility. At the destruction of the pizzeria, people act as savages and lose all moral consciousness to sanity. Bitterness and brutality still lie in the heart of many people. At the end, the film Do the Right Thing, does not preserve moral righteous rather contradicts the idea of tolerance and acceptance end to violence.

 

Citations

“Do the Right Thing.” Do the Right Thing (1989) – Rotten Tomatoes, 7 Nov. 2017,

www.rottentomatoes.com/m/do_the_right_thing/.

“Do the Right Thing (1989).” IMDb, IMDb.com, www.imdb.com/title/tt0097216/.

“Do the Right Thing.” Metacritic, Universal Pictures, 30 June 1989, www.metacritic.com/movie/

do-the-right-thing.

Ebert, Roger. “Do the Right Thing Movie Review (1989).” RogerEbert.com, Ebert Digital LLC.,

27 May 2001, www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-do-the-right-thing-1989.9.

Haber, Matt. “The Little Known Story Behind Do the Right Thing.” The Little Known Story

Behind ‘Do the Right Thing’ , Mental Floss, 28 June 2015, mentalfloss.com/article/57249/ little-known-story-behind-do-right-thing.

Hinson, Hal. “Review | ‘Do the Right Thing’.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 30 June

1989, www.washingtonpost.com/goingoutguide/movies/do-the-right-thing/2017/06/27/

5754b810-5b6a-11e7-a9f6-7c3296387341_story.html?utm_term=.064b82cca6cc.

Travers, Peter. “Do The Right Thing.” Rolling Stone, Rolling Stone, 16 June 2015,

www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/do-the-right-thing-19890630.