Do the Right Thing

English 20 April 2019 Do the Right Thing In 1989, director Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing was released, telling the story of a neighborhood in Brooklyn that experiences racial tensions over the course of a summer. The film follows Mookie, a young black man who is living with his sister and working at the local pizzeria run by Sal. While we are meant to like Mookie, he is no hero or all around good person. In fact, none of the characters in the movie are clear heroes or villains. Lee designed the characters to be flawed, making the movie more realistic. In the film, there are tensions between Sal and the people of the neighborhood. The neighborhood is predominately African American, so some people wanted Africans to be represented on Sal’s well known “wall of fame” in his restaurant. Sal refused, as he states he is proud of his Italian stars on the wall. This causes tensions which eventually grow stronger to the point where a fight breaks out, eventually causing the death of Radio Raheem. Do the Right Thing is a film that shows how damaging racial tensions are to society, which is an issue still prevalent in today’s world. Do the Right Thing shows realistically what can happen when racial tensions intensify and blow up. This is shown in the movie by looking at the neighborhood at the end versus the beginning of the summer. In the beginning people liked going to Sal’s, a place they had grown up with that was a key part of their neighborhood. It all started with Mookie’s friend Buggin’ Out, who was offended by the lack of African Americans on Sal’s wall of fame. This was just the small spark. The movie demonstrated how this small spark intensified, eventually turning into a large fire, literally. The racial strains got worse, and led to many arguments protests. The spark would eventually ignite, as Radio Raheem stormed into Sal’s on a hot summer day with his radio blaring. In a moment of outrage and frustration, Sal screamed, “You black cocksucker! I’ll fucking tear your fucking n***** ass!” This added fuel to the fire. Sal wrecked Radio Raheem’s radio with a bat. Raheem attacked Sal, and was then killed by intervening police. An angry crowd formed, and Mookie threw a trash can at Sal’s which started a riot which resulted in a fire that burned down the pizzeria. This movie showed realistically how when there are underlying racial tensions, all it needs it one small instance to bring upon a series of events that will eventually and inevitably end in violence. The series of events depicted in the film were realistic because of how figuratively; none of the characters were black and white. Throughout the film, the characters and situations were complex, and involved a lot of gray area. Viewers can sympathize with Sal. Sal was a good person, even though he ended up saying racist statements and fighting with Raheem. Mookie, while a main character, was still flawed. He lacked ambition, and threw the trash can that started the riot. Even Radio Raheem was flawed. He was disrespectful in blasting music in Sal’s. At the same time, he would have killed Sal had the police not stepped in, even though he ended up dying. The police officers who killed Raheem were not entirely bad as well. One of them can be heard yelling, “That’s enough Gary!” three times. Another officer was African American also. Spike Lee’s film is realistic because the characters and situations are flawed and complex. His characters are human, and certainly not perfect. This style of film achieves an accurate representation of how an inner city neighborhood must face racial issues. While Do the Right Thing is a fictional story about how racial tensions can damage a neighborhood, it accurately portrays society in America today. The film was released in 1989, yet the situations mirror circumstances that happen in society today. Recently, there have been several instances of police brutality against African Americans that have received widespread media attention. Trayvon Martin, Kimani Gray, Ervin Jefferson, Eric Garner, and Michael Brown are just a few of the many unarmed African Americans that were killed by police officers in the past two years. Michael brown was killed by a police officer in Ferguson, a predominately black community that had reportedly faced years and years of built up anger. This is similar to the film, where anger and hatred grew over time until it eventually blew up. Eric Garner was also similar to Radio Raheem in many ways. Both men were killed in a choke hold by police officers. The videos of the two deaths are eerily similar, showing how accurate Spike Lee was able to create the racially charged scene. It is certainly shocking how identical the events of a fictional film released in 1989 are to today’s society in 2015, a whole 26 years later. Do the Right Thing shows us how quickly racial tensions and hatred can spread and how they will always and inevitably result in violence or damage to society.