The hate and bias among different races, at the beginning of the movie, are not powerful enough to reach the threshold to cause violence against each other, but as the narrative continuing, the verbally fights and hate finally rise to a level that stimulates the aggression.
At such a hot summer, everyone’s temper seems like going crazy. At the beginning, there are several squabbles between family, friends, and neighbors, such as Sal and his sons Pino and Vito (the Italian American family), Da Mayor and Mother Sister, Da Mayor and Korean couple, Tina and her mom. However, none of these seems to cause big problem; there is soft, lively orchestra music comes along when Da Mayor and Mother Sister bicker, which shows only petty daily episodes among people in the same neighborhood. Whereas, I believe that these trivial squabbles and extremely hot weather that is intensified by the heavily use of red color foreshadow the chaos in the end.
I also believe that Buggin Out is the heat that makes Sal and the neighborhood react against each other more and more aggressively. Buggin Out is neither satisfied with paying extra money to get more cheese for his pizza nor happy with a group of pictures of white celebrity on the wall of Sal’s pizzeria. He is kicked out by Sal for his mischievous complains. Later he instigates his brothers to boycott pizza from Sal’s. He is heating up the devolution of the relationship between Sal and Spike’s neighborhood and stirs up the hate between them and when the catalyst, death of Radio Raheem, join the reaction, it explodes.
At the climax, the fight scene is set at night. I guess the transition of color from red to dark imply the surge of anger. When red that represents anger become darker, it looks like black color which represents chaos and disaster. The dark background also makes the flame stands out, which also represent the eruption of fury. The score is muted and replaced by the noise, which also intensifies the turbulent scene.
As for Mookie’s final reaction, I guess he is identifying himself with his brothers because he is furious too when he witnesses Radio Raheem being killed by the policeman. We know Mookie’s personality well; he will hurt nobody. Therefore, instead of beating Sal up, he chooses to break down the pizzeria. On the other hand, I also think that he is trying to protect Sal from being killed and he also knows that there must be something done for his brothers to release their anger so he direct them to dismantle the pizzeria.
After reading the reading materials and watching the movie, I find that people’s bias against other races is derived from their ethnocentrism—— people tend to evaluate other people and culture according to the standard of their own culture. I believe that there is no categorically true standard of what is good and what is bad and there is neither the best nor the worst culture.
