do the right thing analysis essay

Jotted Lines

A Collection Of Essays

Do The Right Thing: Summary, Analysis

Summary: .

Set on a city block during the hottest day of the summer in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant (‘Bed-Stuy’), Do The Right Thing follows the character of ‘Mookie’ (Spike Lee), a pizza delivery boy, and a day in the life of the neighborhood residents as the climate gives way to escalating encounters and disputes around culture, ethnicity and community.

Do The Right Thing was Spike Lee’s third feature film following School Daze (1988) and She’s Gotta Have It (1986). The film came a decade removed from the Blaxploitation film cycle and two years before the ‘black film explosion’ of 1991.1 A prolific film auteur, Lee continues to challenge the idea of black film and American cinema.

The opening credits of Do The Right Thing open to the strains of a soprano saxophone rendition of James Weldon Johnson’s ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’. The song ends screen black and the title sequence begins with Public Enemy’s ‘Fight The Power’ and a cut to a stage. Evoking the conceit of the film musical’s opening number, the montage of the sequence features the hip-hop dance of Rosie Perez in multiple costumes against a changing backdrop of Brooklyn photographs backlit by an array of colour schemes. This opening montage is cut to match the movements of Perez’s dance, a dance of militancy and popping contractions with a face that never smiles. She is more than merely a woman to be leered at or reductively posed as an object of pleasure. Her dance signals a cultural politics of hip-hop and what Guthrie Ramsey notes as the mark of ‘a present that has urgency, particularity, politics, and pleasure’. 2 With these two compositions and their distinct spatiotemporal origins, the present of Do The Right Thing demonstrates a century of urgency.

‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’ began as a poem by James Weldon Johnson that debuted in 1900. Johnson and Johnson’s brother, J. Rosamond, would set the poem to music and this composition would eventually be dubbed the ‘The Negro National Anthem’ and adopted as the official song of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The NAACP promoted the use of the song as an anthem for the black struggle for access to freedoms and inalienable rights denied by the discriminatory and terrorist practices of white supremacy and the Racial Contract. Moreover, the use of the song during the Civil Rights Movement and its eventual retitling (‘The Black National Anthem’) continued the purposing of the song as black anthem of protest. As Shana Redmond points out,

“Black anthems become incubators not only for a race/sound fusion but also the merger of art and practice. The conditions that give rise to these anthems within diaspora include colonialism, Jim Crow segregation, and myriad legal and extralegal enactments of persistent inequality; therefore liberation and its pursuit are necessarily narrated and exercised in tandem with philosophies and acts of resistance.” 3

Public Enemy offers an anthem less reconciled to the Christian doctrine of social protest and nonviolence but nonetheless remains a song compelled by conditions that animate defiant verse.

While the first song offers the perseverance of faith and belief in inalienable rights, the latter demonstrates a cultural nationalist tact, a more politicised sense of culture and the black lifeworld. Cultural nationalism shifted the meaning of race from the biological to a deliberate posing of race as cultural praxis and a matter of engagement with the anti-hegemonic struggle against white supremacy as embodying features of black personhood. Moreover, the distance between the poles is made plainer with the modal of hip-hop modernism and not that of the sacred verse of gospel. As a sorrow song of what Mark Anthony Neal calls ‘postindustrial soul’, ‘Fight The Power’ offers a sobering and artful discontent from streets far removed from Birmingham, but a relation nonetheless.4

The depth of Do The Right Thing demonstrates the staging of a political art richly informed by multiple historiographies of black visual and expressive culture. The film is propelled by an intersection of history, music, cinema and blackness. This generative nexus of historical scripts encompasses such issues as gentrification, the black public sphere, police brutality, the popular, cultural and ethnic conflict, and the everyday urban. In other words, anti-realist in its stance, the film positions itself in the matrix of black representation as an interpretative echo and refabulation of race and art. The film employs a 24-hour conceit of the hottest day of the summer in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant (‘Bed-Stuy’). This plotting of a ‘day in the life’ amplifies the masterful way the film functions as a discrete representational system. The seamless accounting of the day on the block through continuity editing is facilitated by such things as Mister Señor Love Daddy’s radio broadcast, colour, physical movements, emblematic framing, an intricate orchestration of ensemble casting in the depth of field, and sound bridges. With the deliberateness of the film structure, one learns to watch the film and recognise the spatiality of the setting. Eventually, one recognises that at one end of the block is Mookie and Jade’s building, Mother Sister’s brownstone, the Korean-run grocery, and across the street against the red wall are the corner crew (Sweet Dick Willie, ML, and Coconut Sid). At the other end of the block, starting across from the grocery is Sal’s Famous Pizzeria, the stoop where the Puerto Ricans sit, the station home for 108FM ‘We Love Radio’, and the brownstone owned by the Celtics’ fan. The film details a dynamic community of personalities and histories, a space textured by infinite encounters.

The cohesiveness of this spatial conceit does not comply with the platitudes of Our Town, USA. The film proves that the most rewarding consequence of America as ‘The Melting Pot’ is that the analogy has never worked. We the people are not the same: we have different cultures, belief systems, and freedom dreams. These differences Do The Right Thing (1989) 209 represent at times collateral interests but never truly identical ones. In this way, the interethnic conflicts that circulate up and down the block are but a red herring. Do The Right Thing vitally avoids the classical tact of the social problem film to present the problem of differences as systemic or a result of the idea of America itself. In the social problem film, these staged eruptions of racial conflict are resolved and contained with a tacit framing of our spectatorship in terms of cinematically enacted cures.

As Michael Rogin writes, ‘Hollywood, inheriting and universalizing blackface in the blackface musical, celebrated itself as the institutional locus of American identity. In the social problem film it allied itself with the therapeutic society. Generic overlap suggests institutional overlap; Hollywood was not just Hortense Powdermaker’s dream factory, but also the American interpreter of dreams, employing roleplaying as national mass therapy.’ 5 Social problem films with race as their object choice usually enact a limited and circumspect sense of social problem-solving. In particular, the way these films are saddled with the extra-diegetic responsibilities of reconciliation between the races promotes a dangerously ridiculous sense of film as social policy. After all, what James Baldwin called the ‘price of the ticket’ should mean more than matinee admission. Do The Right Thing poignantly demands that one’s spectatorship entail a recognition of our respective subject positions and/or complicities in a productively non-patronising way.

The central conflict of Do The Right Thing cycles around the issue of How come there ain’t no brothas on the wall? Outraged by the absence of black representation on the pizzeria wall, Buggin’ Out (Giancarlo Esposito) organises a boycott against Sal’s Pizzeria in response to the ‘Wall of Fame’, a collage of photographs devoted to Italian Americans. The call for economic sanctions echoes the use of these strategies throughout the twentieth century by churches, unions and civic leaders as a way of combatting the economic disenfranchisement of anti-black racism. This call for representation is emblematic of a diacritical sense of value. First, there is the value suggested by economic empowerment of a raced consumer-citizen. Second, there is the measure of culture as value. In this way, the central conflict that accrues over the course of the film becomes that of the political and cultural value of blackness.

However, the film’s vessel of civil disobedience and cultural nationalism is far from sound. Buggin’ Out does not articulate a clear plan of black economic development. His persona is that of empty rhetoric; more hothead than firebrand. Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn) lumbers and speaks like a heroic throwback from the mind of Jack Kirby. A laconic giant, his voice and being are embodied by ‘Fight the Power’, the only thing constantly blaring from his boombox. His ‘Love vs. Hate’ direct address constitutes the most that he ever speaks, a gesture to the absurd holyroller ways of Robert Mitchum’s itinerant honeymoon killer in Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1955). Yet, this ad infinitum struggle between good and evil, coupled with Raheem’s devotion to the gospel of Public Enemy, frame him as a very textured figure. He wanders throughout Bed-Stuy spreading the word, battling any and all windmills along the way. Every interaction is a contest and exclamation of his being. Finally, closing out the rebel band is Smiley (Roger Guenveur Smith). Mentally disabled and physically spastic, Smiley’s speech is as indecipherable as the irreconcilable coupling of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. in the photograph postcards he marks and peddles. Stumbling through the film, Smiley tags his cherished wares in a style imitative of Jean-Michel Basquiat.6

This crisis of representation emblematic of this rebel ensemble embodies the necessary tensions surrounding the political question of black representation and film as an art practice. Specifically, what is the purpose of the term ‘black film’? Does it represent an entirely foreign film practice? Is it merely a reflection of black people, not art but simply black existential dictation? Like all other expressions of the idea of black film, Do The Right Thing should not be thought as mimetically tied to the social category of race. The ‘black’ of black film represents something other than merely people. Instead it must be appreciated in terms of the art of film and enactments of black visual and expressive culture. In this way, film blackness functions as a critical term for the way race is rendered and mediated by the art of film.7

This alienation effect of the film escalates with the final sequence of Radio Raheem’s murder by 210 Do The Right Thing (1989) the police. The broken band of rebels storm the pizzeria and what begins as canted and absurd quickly accelerates. Sal begins a litany of ‘nigger’ and pulls out a baseball bat. He then proceeds to destroy Raheem’s boombox, silencing the roar of the Public Enemy anthem.8 Yes, the film resonates with prejudices and interethnic conflict but it also gestures towards the idea of communities constituted by ambivalences. Regardless, the confusion of this confrontation signals a shattering break. Things have gone too far and as Radio Raheem strangles Sal, pulling him over the counter, the fight spills into the street. The fight draws a crowd and the NYPD arrive. A police hold is administered with a nightstick against Raheem’s neck as he is raised and lynched until his kicks wind down. He is murdered. Radio Raheem is dead.

A void appears in the quick exit of the police with a corpse and Buggin’ Out in tow. There is the mournful calm of what has happened and how it has come to this. Mookie they killed him. They killed Radio Raheem. A divide appears, with Mookie, Sal, Pino and Vito on one side and the witnesses from the neighbourhood frozen still, growing angrier in the street. Everyone is a stranger; everyone is revealed. Murder. They did it again. Just like Michael Stewart. Murder. Eleanor Bumpers. Murder.9 The extradiegetic victims of murder at the hands of the police (not persons unknown) now have Raheem among their ranks. Mookie walks away before returning into this breach, throwing a garbage can through the pizzerio’s window. Fireman and police readied in riot gear arrive and the historical rupture is complete. Even in the absence of Birmingham’s finest with German Shepherds at hand, Sweet Dick Willie makes it plain: Yo where’s Bull Connor?10 Smiley begins a new Wall of Fame amid the wreckage by tacking one of his postcards on the smouldering wall: finally some brothers are on the wall. But, was this really what it was all about? Smiley with his ever-delirious visage appears to be the only one to claim some semblance of a victory.

The day after brings the new normal of an awkward, yet tender, meeting between Mookie and Sal. In the end, Mister Señor Love Daddy broadcasts the only available closure – a reminder to register to vote and a mournful shout-out to Radio Raheem.11 The film ends with scrolling citations from Martin Luther King Jr. and X before the film’s final image: the King and X photograph. The offering of these two contrasting political positions – the immorality of violence and the pragmatism of self-defence – is one of the major reasons that the film continues to haunt, inspire, and provoke. For only there on the screen does their proximity hint at some kind of dialectical resolve or compatibility. Do The Right Thing orchestrates the tensions and distinctions between social categories of racial being and the art of film. The film is a question masquerading in the form of a call to action. In other words, the film functions in a way too irresolute to be thought of as merely provocative protest. If the film is troubling, so be it. Killing the messenger has always been convenient, but it never truly disavows that a message has been sent. Always do the right thing. That’s it? That’s it. I got it. I’m gone.

Michael B. Gillespie

Notes

1. For more on the history of the Blaxploitation cycle and the significance of 1991, see Ed Guerrero, Framing Blackness, Philadelphia, PA, Temple University Press, 1993.

2. Guthrie Ramsey, Race Music: Black Cultures from Be Bop to Hip-Hop, Berkeley, CA, University of California Press, 2003, p. 178.

3. Shana L. Redmond, ‘Citizens of Sound: Negotiations of Race and Diaspora in the Anthems of the UNIA and NAACP’, African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal, Vol. 4, No. 1, 2011, p. 22.

4. See Mark Anthony Neal, What The Music Said: Black Popular Music and Black Public Culture, London and New York, Routledge, 1999, pp. 125–57.

5. Michael Rogin, Blackface, White Noise: Jewish Immigrants in the Hollywood Melting Pot, Berkeley, CA, University of California Press, 1998, p. 221.

6. The photograph was taken on March 26, 1964, in the halls of the United States Capitol Building during Senate debates on the Civil Rights Bill. It documents the only meeting between the two men and lasted only a few minutes.

7. For more on ‘film blackness’, see Michael B. Gillespie, ‘Reckless Eyeballing: Coonskin, Film Blackness, and the Racial Grotesque’, in Mia Mask (ed.), Contemporary Black American Cinema: Race, Gender and Sexuality at the Movies, New York, Routledge, 2012. Also, see the press conference (May 1989) that followed the premiere screening of Do The Right Thing at the Cannes Film Festival. (Available on the Criterion Collection and 20th Anniversary Edition DVD releases of the film.) The insistence by much of the audience on reading Do The Right Thing in social reflectionist terms glaringly illustrates the need to distinguish between black people and black film.

8. The baseball bat references Howard Beach and the death of Michael Griffith. On the evening of 19 December 1986, a group of black men entered a pizzeria in the Queens neighbourhood of Howard Beach seeking help after their car broke down a few miles away. Upon leaving, the men were confronted by a group of Italian Americans from the neighbourhood armed with baseball bats. Attempting to escape from a continued beating by the mob, Griffith was struck and killed by a car on the highway.

9. Michael Stewart was a New York City graffiti artist killed while in the custody of New York Transit Police (1983). Eleanor Bumpers was a mentally ill, African American senior citizen killed by NYPD officers during the eviction from her home (1984).

10.Eugene ‘Bull’ Connor served as Public Safety Commissioner of Birmingham, Alabama (1957–1963). A rabid white supremacist, Connor was responsible for the brutal and violent responses (the use of police dogs and fire hoses against protestors) to the desegregation campaigns spearheaded by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

11.This call to vote was part of Lee’s endorsement of David Dinkins’ mayoral run. Dinkins would be elected New York City’s first African American mayor the following year.

Cast and Crew:

[Country: USA. Production Company: A Forty Acres and a Mule Filmworks Production. Director: Spike Lee. Producer: Spike Lee. Co-producer: Monty Ross. Line Producer: Jon Kilik. Screenwriter: Spike Lee. Cinematographer: Ernest Dickerson. Editor: Barry Alexander Brown. Music: Bill Lee, featuring Branford Marsalis. Cast: Danny Aiello (Sal), Ossie Davis (Da Mayor), Ruby Dee (Mother Sister), Richard Edson (Vito), Giancarlo Esposito (Buggin’ Out), Spike Lee (Mookie), Bill Nunn (Radio Raheem), John Turturro (Pino), Paul Benjamin (ML), Frankie Faison (Coconut Sid), Robin Harris (Sweet Dick Willie), Joie Lee (Jade), Miguel Sandoval (Officer Ponte), Rick Aiello (Officer Long), John Savage (Clifton), Samuel L. Jackson (Mister Señor Love Daddy), Rosie Perez (Tina), Roger Guenveur Smith (Smiley), Steve White (Ahmad), Martin Lawrence (Cee), Leonard Thomas (Punchy), Christa Rivers (Ella), Frank Vincent (Charlie).]

Do the Right Thing Analysis Essay by Spike Lee

Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” is a groundbreaking film that tackles tough topics like racism, police brutality, and community tensions. Released in 1989, this movie still rings true today.

In this post, we’ll dive deep into what makes this film so important and how it reflects real-life issues.

What You'll Learn

Who is Spike Lee?

Before we jump into the movie, let’s talk about the man behind it. Spike Lee is a famous American filmmaker known for tackling social issues, especially those affecting African Americans. Born in 1957, Lee grew up in Brooklyn, New York, which often serves as the backdrop for his films.

Some key points about Spike Lee:

He’s directed over 35 films
His production company is called “40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks”
He’s known for his unique visual style and storytelling techniques
Lee often appears in his own films, including “Do the Right Thing”

Setting the Scene: Welcome to Bed-Stuy

“Do the Right Thing” takes place in Bedford-Stuyvesant (Bed-Stuy for short), a neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. The movie unfolds on the hottest day of the summer, which is important because the heat adds to the tension throughout the story.

Let’s paint a picture of Bed-Stuy in the movie:

It’s a predominantly African American neighborhood
There’s a strong sense of community, with people hanging out on stoops and in the streets
Local businesses play a big role, especially Sal’s Famous Pizzeria
The community is diverse, with African American, Italian American, Korean American, and Puerto Rican characters

The setting is like a character itself, showing us the good and bad sides of urban life in the late 1980s.

Main Characters: The Faces of the Neighborhood

To understand the movie, we need to know its key players. Here are some of the main characters:

A young African American man who works as a pizza delivery guy for Sal’s
He’s trying to balance work, family, and his place in the community
The Italian American owner of the pizzeria
He’s proud of his business and sees himself as part of the neighborhood
A tall, imposing figure who always carries a giant boombox playing Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power”
He represents the voice of young, angry African Americans
An outspoken community activist
He starts the conflict with Sal over the lack of photos of black people on the pizzeria’s Wall of Fame
An older, alcoholic man who acts as a kind of neighborhood philosopher
He often gives advice, including the film’s title phrase, “Always do the right thing”

These characters, and many others, represent different viewpoints and experiences within the community.

The Plot: A Day in the Life That Changes Everything

Now that we know the setting and characters, let’s look at what actually happens in the movie. Remember, all of this takes place on one really hot summer day:

The day starts with Mookie going to work at Sal’s Pizzeria
Buggin’ Out notices there are no photos of black people on Sal’s Wall of Fame
Tensions start to rise as Buggin’ Out demands changes and Sal refuses
Throughout the day, we see different conflicts and interactions between characters
The heat makes everyone more irritable and quick to anger
At night, Radio Raheem and Buggin’ Out confront Sal about the photos
A fight breaks out, and the police are called
In a tragic turn, the police kill Radio Raheem
The community, enraged by the killing, riots and burns down Sal’s Pizzeria
The next day, Mookie and Sal have a tense conversation about what happened

This simple plot hides a lot of complex ideas and emotions that we’ll explore next.

Themes: The Heart of the Matter

“Do the Right Thing” isn’t just about what happens – it’s about what it all means. Let’s break down some of the big themes in the movie:

Racism and Prejudice

This is the big one. The movie shows how racism affects everyday life, from small comments to big actions. We see it in:

The argument over photos on Sal’s Wall of Fame
How the police treat black characters differently from white ones
Pino’s (Sal’s son) open dislike of black people, even though he loves black celebrities

Community vs. Outsiders

There’s a constant tension between who “belongs” in the neighborhood and who doesn’t. This plays out in several ways:

Sal feels he’s part of the community because his business has been there for years
The Korean shop owners are seen as outsiders by some
Even within the black community, there are divisions (like between Mookie and his sister)

Police Brutality

The movie was ahead of its time in addressing police violence against black people. The killing of Radio Raheem is a central moment that echoes real-life events, both then and now.

Economic Inequality

Money (or the lack of it) is a big deal in the movie. We see:

People struggling to make ends meet
Businesses trying to survive in a poor neighborhood
Arguments over who profits from the community

The Power of Music

Music isn’t just in the background – it’s a key part of the story. From Radio Raheem’s boombox to the local radio station, music represents cultural identity and resistance.

Cinematography: How the Movie Looks and Feels

Spike Lee isn’t just telling a story; he’s creating a whole world we can see and almost feel. Here are some ways he does this:

The movie is full of bright, warm colors, especially red. This isn’t just to look good – it makes us feel the heat of the day and the rising tensions.

Camera Angles

Lee uses some unique camera techniques:

Characters sometimes speak directly to the camera, breaking the “fourth wall”
During tense moments, the camera might tilt, making us feel off-balance

The “Spike Lee Dolly Shot”

This is a famous technique where it looks like a character is gliding towards us. Lee uses this to create dreamlike moments that stand out from the rest of the action.

Symbolism: Hidden Meanings

Lee fills the movie with symbols that add extra meaning to what we’re seeing. Here are a few examples:

Radio Raheem’s “Love” and “Hate” Rings

These brass knuckles represent the constant battle between love and hate in the community and in all of us.

The Ice Cubes

In one scene, a character rubs ice cubes over his body to cool down. This symbolizes the temporary relief from the “heat” of racial tensions.

The Photos on the Wall

The lack of black faces on Sal’s Wall of Fame represents the larger issue of representation and who gets to be seen as important in society.

Controversy and Impact: Why It Matters

When “Do the Right Thing” came out, it caused a lot of debate. Some people worried it would cause real-life riots. Others praised it for showing hard truths about race in America. Here’s why it was (and still is) so important:

Starting Conversations

The movie forced people to talk about racism and police brutality in ways they hadn’t before.

Representation in Film

It showed complex, realistic black characters at a time when that was rare in Hollywood.

Artistic Innovation

Lee’s unique style influenced many filmmakers who came after him.

Ongoing Relevance

Sadly, many of the issues in the movie are still problems today, making it feel as current as ever.

The Big Question: What is “The Right Thing”?

The title of the movie asks us to think about what it means to do the right thing. But here’s the tricky part – the movie doesn’t give us a clear answer. Different characters have different ideas:

Mookie throws a trash can through Sal’s window. Is this the right thing to protect the crowd from the police?
Sal serves the community for years but refuses to put up photos of black people. Is he doing the right thing for his business?
The community riots after Radio Raheem’s death. Is this the right response to injustice?

Lee doesn’t tell us what to think. Instead, he wants us to wrestle with these questions ourselves.

Legacy: How the Movie Lives On

More than 30 years after it came out, “Do the Right Thing” is still powerful. Here’s how it continues to matter:

In Film Studies

It’s taught in film schools as an example of innovative storytelling and social commentary.

In Popular Culture

References to the movie show up in TV shows, music, and other films.

In Social Movements

Activists often point to the movie when talking about ongoing issues of racism and police brutality.

For Spike Lee’s Career

This film put Lee on the map as a major director and set the tone for much of his later work.

Conclusion: Why You Should Watch (or Rewatch) “Do the Right Thing”

“Do the Right Thing” isn’t an easy movie to watch. It’s intense, it’s uncomfortable at times, and it doesn’t give us simple answers. But that’s exactly why it’s so valuable. By showing us a day in the life of this Brooklyn neighborhood, Spike Lee holds up a mirror to American society.

Watching this film helps us:

Understand different perspectives on race and community
See how small tensions can build up to big conflicts
Think about our own role in fighting (or ignoring) racism
Appreciate innovative filmmaking techniques

Whether you’re seeing it for the first time or the hundredth, “Do the Right Thing” has something important to say. It reminds us that doing the right thing isn’t always clear or easy, but it’s always worth thinking about.

Do The Right Thing Essay

FAQs About “Do the Right Thing”

To wrap up our analysis, let’s answer some common questions about the movie:

Q: Is “Do the Right Thing” based on a true story? A: While the specific events in the movie are fictional, they were inspired by real incidents of racial tension and police brutality in New York and other parts of the U.S.
Q: Why does Mookie throw the trash can through Sal’s window? A: This is one of the most debated moments in the film. Some see it as Mookie choosing his community over his job, others as a way to redirect the crowd’s anger away from Sal. Spike Lee has said he wants viewers to decide for themselves.
Q: What does the ending mean? A: The movie ends with two quotes, one from Martin Luther King Jr. opposing violence, and one from Malcolm X defending self-defense. This reflects the movie’s theme of conflicting ideas about how to respond to injustice.
Q: Why is it always so hot in the movie? A: The extreme heat serves as a metaphor for the rising tensions in the neighborhood. It makes everyone more irritable and prone to conflict.
Q: What’s the significance of the song “Fight the Power”? A: This Public Enemy song, which plays throughout the movie, represents the spirit of resistance against racism and oppression. It’s like a theme song for the movie’s message.
Q: Has Spike Lee made any follow-ups to this movie? A: While there’s no direct sequel, many of Lee’s later films deal with similar themes of race and community in America.
Q: Why didn’t the movie win any major awards? A: Despite critical acclaim, the movie was controversial at the time. It received two Oscar nominations but didn’t win. Many people now see this as a major oversight.
Q: Is the movie still relevant today? A: Unfortunately, yes. Many of the issues it addresses, like police brutality and racial tensions, are still major problems in America and around the world.
Q: Where can I watch “Do the Right Thing”? A: The movie is available on various streaming platforms and can be rented or purchased digitally. Check your local listings or preferred streaming service.
Q: Are there any books about the making of the film? A: Yes, Spike Lee has published a book called “Do the Right Thing: A Spike Lee Joint” that includes the screenplay and behind-the-scenes information.

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The Definitives

Critical essays, histories, and appreciations of great films

Do the Right Thing

Essay by brian eggert july 28, 2019.

“Wake up!” announces Samuel L. Jackson’s Mister Señor Love Daddy, a disc jockey in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, the setting of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing . The first line, which is also the last line of his previous feature from 1988, School Daze, is meant to incite contemplation and discussion rather than supply an unequivocal lesson. In Do the Right Thing , the DJ’s morning address follows the stagelike title sequence in which Rosie Perez dances to a Public Enemy song that encourages listeners to “fight the power.” Within its first moments, Do the Right Thing establishes Lee’s dialectical intention to pose unanswered questions by exposing the artifice of cinema and engaging the critical viewer. The film does not explain what exactly its audience should wake up from, what power we should be fighting, or what constitutes doing the right thing. But Lee’s aesthetically rich work of art uses a distancing effect to incite critical viewership. His technique draws attention to his stylistic choices: the theatrical quality of the drama and staging, the unforgettable moments that nonetheless interrupt the narrative, the choices of actors and their performative styles, and scenes that amount to an allegory in the manner of a Greek tragedy. Together these elements arouse contemplation about the intractable dilemmas of race and ethnicity in American culture. And given Lee’s refusal to provide easy solutions to enduring problems or pacify our emotions with some measure of closure, Do the Right Thing endures as an essential work of cultural introspection.

Set on the hottest day of the summer, Do the Right Thing frames the rise of racial tensions between an African American community and an Italian American business. Sal’s Famous Pizzeria, long-established in the Bed-Stuy neighborhood, is owned and operated by the venerable entrepreneur Sal (Danny Aiello). His sons, the unapologetically racist and angry Pino (John Turturro), and Pino’s bullied younger brother Vito (Richard Edson), also contribute to the parlor. Though, Pino no longer wants to work there as he despises the local African American community. Their sole employee, the slacking delivery boy Mookie (Lee), spends much of his time wandering the neighborhood or attempting to reconcile with Tine (Rosie Perez), the mother of his child. The day’s conflict begins when a young Black man named Buggin Out (Giancarlo Esposito) demands that Sal include some African American faces on his establishment’s “Wall of Fame,” which features exclusively Italian American actors and performers. Sal refuses, arguing that it’s his restaurant, and he will display whomever he chooses. Buggin Out wants Sal to acknowledge that he’s in a neighborhood populated almost entirely by people of color, and since without them Sal’s would not exist, he should show his respect. When Sal refuses, Buggin Out attempts to organize a neighborhood boycott.

Lee structures Do the Right Thing as a philosophical argument whose lessons are ambiguous and whose methods spur the viewer into a dialogue. His dialectical intentions begin with the Universal Pictures logo in the opening, over which a saxophone plays the first bars of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” sometimes called “The Black National Anthem” given its author, NAACP leader James Weldon Johnson. In the next moment, Perez delivers her pulsating dance of coded gestures and shadowboxing to Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power,” a rap song that urgently challenges the so-called progress made to end racism in the United States during the Civil Rights Movement, and then demands action. The two songs are representative of the many strains of back-and-forth viewpoints present throughout the film. The viewer can understand Buggin Out’s opinion that Sal should recognize his place in the Black community by including people of color on his Wall of Fame, just as the viewer can accept Sal’s right as a business owner to decide how to decorate the interior of his restaurant. The way Radio Raheem, Buggin Out, and Smiley provoked Sal may not have been wise, but then Sal’s use of racial epithets and a baseball bat to smash Radio Raheem’s boombox escalated matters to violence. Almost every confrontation in the film can be read from multiple perspectives. And after the sobering conclusion, Lee offers two quotations, one from Martin Luther King and another from Malcolm X, each outlining their oppositional views on the use of violence to solve matters of racial intolerance. He sees the benefits and dangers of both violence and peaceful protest, and rather than declare his faithfulness to one or the other, he does something far more dangerous by calling on the audience to answer his dialectical prompt.

Lee’s quintessentially American brand of filmmaking springs from his cultural and ethnic background, and from there, he focuses on an equally specific range of themes, stylistic choices, and social values in his work. Lee was born in Atlanta in 1957, but his family moved to Brooklyn when he was still an infant. His mother taught African American art and literature while his father worked as a jazz musician. As a boy, he explored his neighborhood with a Super 8 camera and quickly realized what he would do with his life. He completed his first short film, Last Hustle in Brooklyn , at 20, as an undergraduate at Morehouse College. He later graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in 1982, and his thesis film, Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads , earned the Student Academy Award. In an interview with Delroy Lindo, the star of Lee’s Crooklyn (1994) and Clockers (1995), the director said that he wanted to film “the richness of Africa American culture that I can see, just standing on the corner, or looking out my window every day.” But Lee has always been concerned with more than representations of contemporary New York life in his resident neighborhood. Ed Guerrero called him an “issues-oriented” filmmaker, noting that he often frames his films around a sociopolitical concern or historical event. Lee does not work in a single genre or style. The defining quality of his cinema is his willingness to engage with the social dynamics of race and culture, most often through the lens of African American identity, history, and representation.

Do the Right Thing was released at a time when hostilities involving race and difference flared, rippling out from New York City across the entire country. A series of racially charged killings of African American men—Willie Turks in 1982, Michael Stewart in 1983, and Yusuf Hawkins in 1989—were carried out by mobs of white people in New York, heightening racial tensions. Lee references the highly publicized Tawana Brawley rape case, where the 15-year old girl accused four white men of raping her over several days and leaving her body marked with racial epithets in November 1987. Although the allegations were contested in court, one scene in the film features “Tawana told the truth” written in graffiti on a wall. The shooting of Eleanor Bumpers by white NYPD officers during an eviction process in 1984 also fueled the tension. And just before the film’s release, the sexual assault of Trisha Meili in April 1989 led to the Central Park Five scandal, where African American and Hispanic teenagers were coerced into confessions of rape and assault, only to be exonerated much later after the true perpetrator confessed in 2001. For much of this, Lee blamed the policies of Ed Koch, and the director included the words “Dump Koch” in the background of another scene. The voting public did just that when they elected David Dinkins over Koch in 1990. These interwoven issues of race, crime, and accusation saturated the cultural discourse that inspired Lee’s film, making Do the Right Thing seem of the moment .

The film premiered at the Canned Film Festival in May 1989 and remains his most widely esteemed and debated work. It received an impressive number of awards and nominations after its release, including a nomination for the Palme d’Or and an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. Lee and his cast also won several awards. These include the Los Angeles Film Critics Association’s prizes to Lee for his direction, Lee’s father Bill for composing the score, Aiello for best supporting actor, and the top prize for best picture. Several other critical associations and film institutions gave it honors, whereas the mainstream Academy Awards issued their statues to Driving Miss Daisy , a film whose discussion of race relations limits itself to a white audience. Whereas the Oscar for Best Picture went to Driving Miss Daisy , a film that has been largely forgotten in the decades since its release, Lee’s film continues to be at the forefront of the cinematic discussion about representation, race, and unanswerable questions about America and its history. It also took only ten years for the Library of Congress to add Do the Right Thing to the National Film Registry as a work that demands cultural preservation. Driving Miss Daisy has yet to make the list.

Actually, it’s a small miracle that a Hollywood studio distributed Do the Right Thing. Most studios, especially in the 1980s, maintained an aversion to films that rested on ambiguity, polemical ideologies, or challenged widespread views about American identity. Hollywood, too, rarely made films about issues of race and difference, and their conflicted place in the fabric of American history and social power structures. Lee’s film goes against the usual Hollywood production’s push toward entertainment-first and commercial certainty, challenging the relatively moderate limits of the usual political liberalism of Hollywood. Though historically Hollywood productions have used ambiguity and left-leaning ideologies, rarely does a studio film make an unwavering statement, so as not to isolate a segment of the market and, thus, limit the commercial appeal. Then again, the film industry of the 1980s viewed African American audiences as a niche market, and so Black filmmakers and stories were marginalized because such material rarely had crossover appeal. Lee had his own obstacles to overcome. His first two films were profitable but earned him a reputation, which he described as “a wild-eyed black militant, a baby Malcolm X” that flashed a warning sign to Hollywood executives.

When Lee was shopping the script to various studios, Paramount Pictures was the first to show interest; however, they demanded that Lee make alterations to the material to suit their audience. “Paramount wanted Mookie and Sal to hug at the end of the movie,” Lee told The Hollywood Reporter . Lee expanded in his journal, “They are convinced that black people will come out of the theaters wanting to burn shit down.” When Lee refused to tame the film’s central conflict, the studio canceled negotiations. After talks with Paramount ended, Touchstone Pictures also turned down the production. Lee felt he had to combat how he was perceived in Hollywood at the time, that any Black man who was not accommodating to white interests was deemed “difficult” and would not align with studio considerations. Still, Universal Pictures ultimately agreed to finance Do the Right Thing . Head of production Tom Pollack maintained it was not because they wanted to release social issue films, which was the perception after they distributed Martin Scorsese’s controversial The Last Temptation of Christ in 1988. Rather, Pollack noted their interest in Lee’s film was primarily a matter of recognizing its potential to make money from a relatively inexpensive $6.5 million budget ( School Daze cost the same and earned over $14 million). After Pollack agreed to finance the picture, Lee shot for 40 days and, by the end of its theatrical run, Do the Right Thing earned $27 million at the domestic box office. Universal would distribute several “Spike Lee Joints” throughout the 1990s.

Structurally and visually, Do the Right Thing alternates among the Bed-Stuy characters, building through a dialectic the tensions and uncertainties that charge Lee’s situations and themes. The rhythm of the film’s arrangement has a theatrical quality, as though the entire neighborhood was the stage and, from scene to scene, Lee dims the lights on one area and illuminates them on another. It’s a film comprised of intervals and interruptions, asides and isolated moments. Lee does not follow a single character for long periods of the film. His drama alternates from individual scenes with Mookie to Sal to Buggin Out to children on the street cooling down in an open fire hydrant. The transitions seldom occur through abrupt cutting, but rather as Dickerson’s fluid camera movements track one scene and then, as another character enters from elsewhere in the neighborhood, the camera reconfigures its attention. Within a given scene, however, Lee often alternates between quarreling characters in a mirroring technique of editing that emphasizes the conflict. The harder the cut, the more intense the argument. When Buggin Out first enters Sal’s early in the film, Lee frames his debate with Sal about the cost of extra cheese, a relatively mild topic of contention, with both characters in the same shot. A moment later as their argument about Sal’s “Wall of Fame” heats up, the cutting becomes a sharper back-and-forth with a cut between each response, representing their opposition since the conflict is more serious. Lee uses these visual rhythms to underscore the connections and breaking points between people of Bed-Stuy.

Disjointed as this may feel at times, Lee ensures that every interval leads to something more in the overall drama of the film. For instance, several scenes involving the Korean store owner Sonny (Steve Park) and his wife Kim (Ginny Yang), and their interactions with more prominent characters, supply an unmistakable arc. In an early sequence involving the Greek chorus, ML bickers about the presence of the Korean grocer in the Black neighborhood: “I betcha they haven’t been a year off da motherfucking boat before they opened up their own place.” Sweet Dick Willie refuses to listen, saying “you got off the boat too,” before sauntering over to get a beer from the grocer. In another scene, Radio Raheem has a tense exchange with Sonny and Kim over batteries for his boombox and the language barrier that prevents him from getting the twenty “D” Energizers he needs. The initial impression of the Korean family in Bed-Stuy is one of animosity; however, the African American locals begin to identify with the Korean Americans, relating to them as similarly displaced people—the African Americans by slavery, the Koreans by emigration. When, in the climactic scene, the rioters enraged over Radio Raheem’s death direct their rage at the Korean grocery store, ML turns from Sal’s to Sonny and shouts, “Your turn, fucker!” But Sonny declares in broken English, “I no White! I Black! You. Me. Same!” The rioters accept this and refrain from continuing their attack.

The racial slur sequence is just one of many Brechtian flourishes, where Lee breaks from the narrative momentum to face the viewer. Another moment features Radio Raheem performing a “Love and Hate” monologue to Mookie during their brief encounter in the street. Raheem wears large gold rings, almost brass knuckles, with the words “LOVE” and “HATE” spelled out on the right and left hand, respectively. He proceeds to tell a mythical story, represented as Raheem shadow boxes toward the camera, each punch marking how either Love or Hate has the advantage in their ongoing battle, until finally the Hate is “KO’ed by Love.” Lee borrowed the moment from Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter (1955), featuring Robert Mitchum as a murderous preacher with the words “LOVE” and “HATE” tattooed on his hands. Mitchum’s Rev. Harry Powell tells “the story of good and evil” in a writhing, expressive display in which his fingers are interlocked, and the sequence exemplified that film’s storybook conflict between the evil preacher and the innocent children he sought to kill. In Do the Right Thing , the monologue places Raheem at the center of the film’s conflict between love and hate, echoed by the philosophies of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X quoted at the film’s conclusion. Caught between these two opposing views, Raheem becomes a victim of the conflict at the climactic scene, marshaling the neighborhood and the viewer into introspection. As a character who teaches a lesson in the middle of the film, his death becomes the catalyst for another type of lesson in the finale whose interpretation is far less apparent than the one symbolized in his monologue.

Although Lee never breaks the fourth wall, he offers, in a manner that addresses the spectator, scenes that call attention to their uniqueness and placement within the overall film as emblematic of Do the Right Thing ’s persistent themes. When the frame rushes toward each participant in the racial slur sequence, these characters unleash their discriminating remarks on each other. But Lee has framed them as though they are vented directly to the viewer. Similarly, Dickerson’s handheld camera faces Raheem during the “Love and Hate” monologue, and though the shot could be interpreted as being from Mookie’s perspective, Lee seems to want the audience to consider Raheem’s words outside of the film’s surface context. Along with the presence of Mister Señor Love Daddy, the Greek chorus on the corner, and even the violent climax of the film, Lee frees himself from the constraints of cinematic realism and engages in a form of theatricality, wherein the characters and, perhaps most importantly the violence , occurs on a performative and edifying platform. The violence of the finale functions as a highpoint to the emotional trajectory of the film, but it also represents the meeting of several conflicting views that are neither resolved within the story nor by lessons of the film. These theatrical moments in the film’s discourse become a strategy through which Lee demands a dialectical and not purely emotional outcome.

Lee’s interest in the theatrical legacy of actors extends from Davis and Dee to the Oscar-nominated turn by Danny Aiello, who developed and deepened his character into more than the racist figure Lee originally wrote. Davis and Dee’s performances in the film exist in another, older theatrical style, as their scenes play out in a stagey mini-drama with allusions to the past. In tender performances that could have been authored by playwright Lorraine Hansberry, the two characters have lived through the last half-century of racial tensions and personal failures, and the scars weigh on them. Though the details of their characters’ lives remain scant, the presence of these actors as these characters tells us everything we need to know about them. The performances themselves are theatrical and marked by emotional projection; their voices and expressions reach to the back row, while their presence offers a metatextual link to the tradition of progressive African American voices in cinema and theater. In a different sort of performance, Aiello and Turturro carry out their roles with a naturalism defined by the characters’ shared background, which the actors improvised on the set. In a scene of pronounced psychological realism, Sal and Pino discuss the pizzeria’s legacy, Sal’s devotion to the neighborhood, and Pino’s unwavering racism, and the scene transforms Sal into someone worthy of the audience’s empathy.

Lee grants humanity to each of his characters, while also demonstrating how quickly racism and anger strip away that humanity. In the climactic moment, Mookie, often a voice of reason, shouts “Hate!” before he tosses a garbage can into Sal’s window. During the riot, the seemingly goodhearted Smiley lights the match that sets Sal’s ablaze, while the sweet Mother Sister shouts “Burn it down!” outside. It is the film’s enduring dialectic between nonviolence and violence, love and hate, that keeps the viewer engaged in an essential and productive discussion. The end titles put much of Do the Right Thing into a constructive, open-ended context by questioning what constitutes the appropriate action for people of color to combat racism given the divergent lessons of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. Two quotes appear on the screen. First, King denounces violence as a method to bring about racial justice because it stops a healing dialogue and achieves only “a descending spiral ending in destruction for all.” Second, Malcolm X calls the use of violence in “self-defense” a form of “intelligence.” Before the end credits roll, a photograph of the two leaders laughing and shaking hands appears on the screen, the same photo Smiley hawks throughout the film. Lee ends his masterpiece by juxtaposing two personal philosophies that remain at the center of an ongoing debate.

Bibliography:

Bogle, Donald. Hollywood Black: The Stars, the Films, the Filmmakers . Running Press, 2019.

Conrad, Mark T., editor. The Philosophy of Spike Lee . The University Press of Kentucky, 2011.

Enelow, Shonni. “Feel the Love.” Film Comment . July-August 2019, pp. https://www.filmcomment.com/article/feel-the-love. Accessed 20 July 2019.

Guerrero, Ed. Do the Right Thing . BFI Modern Classics. Palgrave Macmillan, 2001.

King, Susan. “‘Universal Was Not Afraid’: Spike Lee Reflects on the Fearmongering That First Met ‘Do the Right Thing’.” The Hollywood Reporter . 2019 June 28. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/do-right-thing-spike-lee-reflects-fearmongering-first-met-1989-film-1220715. Accessed 21 July 2019.

Lee, Spike, and Lisa Jones. Do the Right Thing: A Spike Lee Joint . Simon and Schuster, 1989.

Reid, Mark A., editor. Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing . Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Schuessler, Jennifer. “Portrait of a Marriage, Onstage and at the Barricades.” The New York Times. 12 November 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/12/arts/ossie-davis-ruby-dee-archives-schomburg.html. Accessed 20 July 2019.

Sterritt, David. Spike Lee’s America . Polity Press, 2013.

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Do the Right Thing

By Roger Ebert

Feb 19, 2001

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L eaving the theater after the tumultuous world premiere of Do the Right Thing at Cannes in May of 1989, I found myself too shaken to speak, and I avoided the clusters of people where arguments were already heating up. One American critic was so angry she chased me to the exit to inform me, “This film is a call to racial violence!” I thought not. I thought it was a call to empathy, which of all human qualities is the one this past century seemed most to need. Perhaps I was too idealistic, but it seemed to me that any open-minded member of the audience would walk out of the movie able to understand the motivations of every character in the film—not forgive them, perhaps, but understand them. A black viewer would be able to understand the feelings of Sal, the Italian-American whose pizzeria is burned by a mob, and a white viewer would be able to understand why a black man—who Sal considered his friend—would perform the action that triggers the mob. It is this evenhandedness that is at the center of Spike Lee’s work, and yet it is invisible to many of his viewers and critics. Because he is black and deals with anger, he has been categorized as an angry man. However, it is not anger, but rather a certain detached objectivity that I see in his best work. His subject is the way race affects the way lives are lived in America. More than any filmmaker before him, he has focused his stories on African-American characters, considering not how they relate to the white society, or it to them, but how they relate to each other. School Daze is no less about skin color because all of its characters are black. Jungle Fever is not only about a romance between black and white, but about all of the social, class and educational factors that race stands in for. Malcolm X is about a man who never abandons his outrage at racism, but comes to understand that skin color should not define who he can call his brother. In Do the Right Thin g, the subject is not simply a race riot, but the tragic dynamic of racism, racial tension, and miscommunication, seen in microcosm. The film is a virtuoso act of creation, a movie at once realistic and symbolic, lighthearted and tragic, funny and savage; one of the reasons we recoil at the end is that we thought, somehow, the people of this neighborhood, this street, whom we had come to know, would not be touched by the violence in the air all around them. We knew them all, Da Mayor and Radio Raheem, as well as Sal and his sons. And they knew each other. Surely nothing bad could come between them. And yet something bad does happen. Radio Raheem is murdered; Sal’s Pizzeria is destroyed. Spike Lee has been clever enough to make us sympathize with Sal, to like him and his pizzeria, so that it is not an easy target but a shocking one. And Lee twists the story once again, making the instrument of Sal’s downfall not a “negative” character but the one we like the most, and identify with: Mookie, the delivery man played by Lee himself. The woman who found the movie a call to violence was most disturbed, I suspect, because it was Mookie who threw the trash can—Mookie, who the movie led her to like and trust. How could he do such a thing to Sal? The answer to that question is right there on the screen, but was elusive for some viewers, who recoiled from the damage done to Sal’s property but hardly seemed to notice, or remember, that the events were set in motion by the death of a young black man at the hands of the police. Among the many devastating effects of Lee’s film, certainly the most subtle and effective is the way it leads some viewers (not racist, but thoughtless or inattentive or imbued with the unexamined values of our society) to realize that they have valued a pizzeria over a human life. I have written here more about Lee’s ideas than about his style. To an unusual degree, you could not have one without the other: style is the magician’s left hand, distracting and entertaining us while the right hand produces the rabbit from the hat. It’s not what Lee does that makes his film so devastating, but how he does it. Do the Right Thing is one of the best-directed, best- made films of our time, a film in which the technical credits, the acting, and Lee’s brazenly fresh visual style all work together to make a statement about race in America that is all the more powerful because it blindsides us. Do the Right Thing was the finest, the most controversial, most discussed and most important film of 1989. Of course, it was not nominated for an Academy Award as Best Picture (that award went to Driving Miss Daisy , which has a view of race in America that is rotated just 180 degrees from Lee’s). To an extent, I think some viewers have trouble seeing the film; it is blurred by their deep-seated ideas and emotions about race in America, which they project onto Lee, assuming he is angry or bitter. On the basis of this film it would be more accurate to call him sad, observant, realistic—or empathetic.

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Forming a Critical Sense of Race with Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing”

Interpretations of the film may differ by race, media scholar Kelli Marshall finds.

Each term, my film students watch Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989). And each term, they react similarly to the scene in which Mookie (Spike Lee) throws a trash can, igniting a neighborhood riot by breaking the window of the pizzeria where he works. Most students of color feel Lee’s character “did the right thing” while the majority of white students cannot understand why Mookie “would do such a thing to his boss.” Why this reaction—term after term, year after year?

Like most of Spike’s Lee’s films, Do the Right Thing challenges viewers. For starters, Lee consistently rams together the conflicting ideologies of Malcolm X (violence as self-defense and when necessary) and Martin Luther King, Jr. (always non-violence) without explicitly informing the spectator which is the better choice. What’s more, the large cast—compiled mostly of secondary characters—theoretically uneases filmgoers since Hollywood normally offers only two or three leads for us to follow.

But undoubtedly, it’s Lee’s characterization of Italian-American pizzeria owner, Sal (Danny Aiello), and Mookie’s decision to hurl that trash bin into Sal’s restaurant window that challenge many viewers. Is Mookie doing the right thing here? Is he not?

A first thought is this: students of color readily identify with Mookie because he is the film’s lead black character while white students relate to Sal because he is the film’s central white character. This conclusion, of course, is too simplistic. After all, a spectator of any race, ethnicity, class, age, or sexual orientation can connect with a character of any race, ethnicity, class, age, or sexual orientation.

But as Dan Flory points out in “Spike Lee and the Sympathetic Racist,” perhaps there is a tad of truth to this rather naïve assessment about identification and audience reception.

Spike Lee has said he wrote Danny Aiello’s Sal as a racist. Aiello, however, interpreted his character otherwise. “He’s a nice guy,” Aiello claims, “and he sees people as equal.” Aiello further points out that in the film’s climatic scene—when he destroys the boom box of Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn)—Sal has to look deep inside himself “to find the most insulting words he could to throw at those who made him angry.” As a result, Aiello argues, his character “ends up acting like a racist, even though he is not one.” It appears many of my white students make similar conclusions.

But as Dan Flory points out, several anti-black cues pepper Sal’s actions and speech, each of which should make viewers think twice about Aiello’s interpretation. For instance, Sal refers to his black customers as these people , language that distances himself from them and, in essence, “others” them. Similarly, in two scenes, Sal wields a baseball bat—a symbol of white-on-black violence in the 1980s. Moreover, Sal insults his black patrons with terms like jungle music , Africa , and niggers .

Finally, Aiello’s character reacts indifferently to Radio Raheem’s murder by uttering to the growing multiracial crowd around him, “You do what you’ve gotta do.” With such vitriolic words and actions on display one wonders why many of my students, mostly white, don’t (initially) see Sal as a racist.

Flory has a valid answer to this question: because of their life and viewing experience, non-white viewers form “a critical sense of race or double consciousness merely to function and survive in cultures like America’s.” In other words, my students of color possess a more “finely tuned racial awareness” than (most of) their white classmates.

Conversely, white viewers have difficulty “imagining their whiteness from the outside.” They are rarely asked to look at their whiteness critically and , furthermore, their life and viewing experiences have not required them to develop such forms of cognition. Consequently, when called upon to question and/or recognize such issues—as is the case with Do the Right Thing— my white students often find it challenging, even though they may not know why.

For white viewers to see Sal as a racist, they would be required to make “a disruptive change in their system of belief”—an ideology that already (although unconsciously) privileges “aspects of white advantage and power.” So rather than seeing Sal as racist and problematic, many white audiences view him as empathetic and morally good. Nonwhite audiences, on the other hand, see a character that represents—as is doubtless Spike Lee’s goal—a more realistic, more complex perspective on race.

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While I agree with Flory’s conclusions here, I want to clarify one thing: neither Flory nor I believes white viewers are somehow incapable of analyzing a complex text like Do the Right Thing . Certainly not! At the same time though, for nearly ten years the majority of my white students have read the character of Sal and Mookie’s decision to throw the trash can somewhat simply, which suggests there’s still work to be done.

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What is do the right thing about, movie guide table of contents, a recap of the ending, the escalation of racial tensions, the riot and its symbolism, the struggle for recognition and respect, ending with contrasting philosophies, the struggle for racial recognition, the use of racial slurs, the need to riot, what is the “right thing”, love vs. hate, the tension between community and identity, the coexistence of community and identity.

Why is the movie called Do the Right Thing?

Sal’s wall of fame

Love and hate, the trash can, radio raheem’s radio, the neighborhood, police brutality, why won’t sal put any black people on the wall of fame, why did mookie throw the trash can, now it’s your turn.

Welcome to our Colossus Movie Guide for Do the Right Thing . This guide contains everything you need to understand the film. Dive into our detailed library of content, covering key aspects of the movie. We encourage your comments to help us create the best possible guide. Thank you!

A woman dances outside an apartment building

Do the Right Thing is an emblematic narrative about racial tension, policing, and the consequences of pent-up frustration in a culturally diverse community. The film presents a microcosm of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, on the hottest day of the summer, where a boiling point of racial conflict reaches its inevitable climax. Central to this tale is the inherent paradox of “doing the right thing,” a theme that is complex and is constantly reframed, thereby triggering the audience to question its own moral compass.

The movie’s core conflict derives from the systemic divide and racial disparity witnessed within the urban neighborhood, projecting both subtle and overt displays of prejudice. From Sal’s pizzeria, a locus of contention due to its Wall of Fame lacking black celebrities, to the fatal chokehold incident, Do the Right Thing continually forces audiences to grapple with what is just and unjust. The film’s conclusion leaves an impression of cyclical violence, suggesting that the resolution of societal conflicts can’t be achieved through violent retaliation, but also pointing out that peaceful protests often go unheard. By not providing a clear answer to what the “right thing” is, the movie suggests that the path towards justice is labyrinthine and fraught with challenging ethical dilemmas.

Spike Lee – Mookie (also writer and director)
Danny Aiello – Sal
John Turturro – Pino
Richard Edson – Vito
Bill Nunn – Radio Raheem
Rosie Perez – Tina
Giancarlo Esposito – Buggin’ Out
Ossie Davis – Da Mayor
Ruby Dee – Mother Sister
Samuel L. Jackson – Mister Señor Love Daddy
Roger Guenveur Smith – Smiley
Rick Aiello – Officer Gary Long
Miguel Sandoval – Officer Mark Ponte
Joie Lee – Jade
Martin Lawrence – Cee
Leonard L. Thomas – Punchy
Christa Rivers – Ella
Robin Harris – Sweet Dick Willie
Paul Benjamin – ML
Frankie Faison – Coconut Sid

The ending of Do the Right Thing explained

Buggin’ Out, Radio Raheem, and Smiley storm into Sal’s Pizzeria, protesting Sal’s Wall of Fame. Sal orders Raheem to turn off his blaring boombox, but Radio Raheem refuses. Fueled by the tension, Buggin’ Out becomes derogatory towards Sal and his sons, vowing to close the establishment until Black people are represented on the Wall.

Sal retaliates in a fit of anger, racially insulting Buggin’ Out and smashing Raheem’s boombox, sparking a brawl that quickly engulfs the pizzeria and spills onto the streets, attracting a crowd. As Raheem puts Sal in a chokehold, Officers Long and Ponte arrive to quell the chaos. Raheem and Buggin’ Out are apprehended, and in an alarming twist, Long chokes Raheem with his nightstick despite pleas from Ponte and the crowd. Raheem’s life is tragically taken and the officers, cognizant of their error, hastily drive off with his body.

The crowd, shattered and incensed over Radio Raheem’s death, hold Sal and his sons accountable. Da Mayor tries to reason with the crowd about Sal’s innocence but to no avail. Overcome by fury and sorrow, Mookie hurls a trash can through Sal’s Pizzeria window, catalyzing the mob to raid and wreck the establishment. Smiley sets it ablaze as Da Mayor rescues Sal and his sons from the impending mob, now fixated on Sonny’s store.

Sonny, in a state of dread, successfully dissuades the mob. With the arrival of the police, firemen, and riot patrols, the crowd is dispersed, and the fire is extinguished amidst continued discord and arrests. A bewildered Mookie and Jade observe the scene from a safe distance while Smiley, reentering the charred premises, places one of his photos on the remnants of Sal’s Wall.

In the aftermath, Mookie confronts Sal about his due pay, following an argument with Tina. The two men bicker, reach an uneasy truce, and Sal finally pays Mookie his wages. Local DJ Mister Señor Love Daddy memorializes Radio Raheem with a dedicated song.

As the film nears its end, contrasting quotes on violence by Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X appear, followed by an image of the two leaders in a handshake.

Here is the quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.:

Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than to convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends by destroying itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.

And the quote from Malcolm X:

I think there are plenty of good people in America, but there are also plenty of bad people in America and the bad ones are the ones who seem to have all the power and be in these positions to block things that you and I need. Because this is the situation, you and I have to preserve the right to do what is necessary to bring an end to that situation, and it doesn’t mean that I advocate violence, but at the same time I am not against using violence in self-defense. I don’t even call it violence when it’s self-defense, I call it intelligence.

The film is then dedicated to the families of six victims of police brutality or racial violence: Eleanor Bumpurs, Michael Griffith, Arthur Miller Jr., Edmund Perry, Yvonne Smallwood, and Michael Stewart.

The climactic confrontation in Do the Right Thing is a reflection of escalating racial tensions that have been brewing throughout the entire film. The tension between the different racial groups in the neighborhood is palpable from the onset, underscored by motifs of incredible heat and Sal’s Wall of Fame.

The heat represents the smoldering racial tensions within the community. The sweltering summer weather creates an atmosphere of restlessness and agitation that mirrors the community’s emotional state. It’s a visual and sensory metaphor for how racial tension and frustration can simmer below the surface, intensifying until they reach a boiling point.

Sal’s Wall of Fame acts as another significant symbol, representing the denial of racial recognition. The wall, adorned with only Italian-American celebrities, starkly contrasts with the predominantly Black neighborhood the pizzeria resides in. This omission doesn’t go unnoticed, especially by Buggin’ Out, and becomes a significant point of contention that adds to the building tension.

When Sal destroys Raheem’s boombox after a heated confrontation over the Wall of Fame, it is not merely an act of aggression but a metaphorical dismissal of the Black community’s culture and identity, thus igniting the existing tension into a full-blown conflict. The fight spills onto the streets, attracting a crowd and the police’s attention, which culminates in Raheem’s tragic death by chokehold.

Radio Raheem’s death thus underscores the deadly consequences of systemic racism and racial tension. Even though Sal didn’t instigate the fight, he becomes the community’s target due to Raheem’s unjust death, showing how racial tension can distort perceptions and escalate conflicts. This escalation reflects the destructive cycle of racial prejudice, illustrating how deep-seated biases can lead to unjustifiable violence.

Riots are often a manifestation of pent-up frustrations of marginalized communities. In Do the Right Thing , the destruction of Sal’s Pizzeria is the physical representation of this suppressed anger breaking free. The community feels disenfranchised, and this explosive display of defiance becomes a means to voice their longstanding grievances.

The riot, in this sense, becomes a form of catharsis, an emotional release for the community. For them, it’s a reaction against systemic inequities that they have been forced to endure. It is a destructive, yet significant, means of rebellion against a system that consistently overlooks their needs and concerns. While the destruction may seem senseless to an outside observer, for the people involved, it is an act of reclaiming power and agency, however transient it might be.

This act of rebellion is further underscored by Radio Raheem’s earlier “Love and Hate” speech. Here is that speech in full:

Let me tell you the story of Right Hand, Left Hand. It’s a tale of good and evil. Hate: it was with this hand that Cain iced his brother. Love: these five fingers, they go straight to the soul of man. The right hand: the hand of love. The story of life is this: static. One hand is always fighting the other hand, and the left hand is kicking much ass. I mean, it looks like the right hand, Love, is finished. But hold on, stop the presses, the right hand is coming back. Yeah, he got the left hand on the ropes, now, that’s right. Ooh, it’s a devastating right and Hate is hurt, he’s down. Left-Hand Hate KOed by Love.

That speech takes on an ironic tone as the riot unfolds. The community, driven by love for their own and a sense of justice, turns to what can be perceived as an act of hate: the destruction of Sal’s pizzeria.

This irony embodies the complex reality of racial struggles, where love for one’s community can lead to actions perceived as hateful. The riot, while destructive, embodies this struggle, highlighting the community’s desperate need for acknowledgment and change. It shows that when pushed to the brink, when love seems to be losing the fight, actions born out of frustration and a thirst for justice can be misunderstood as acts of hate.

Mookie’s act of throwing the trash can is a powerful image and a potent symbol for the ongoing struggle between love and hate that Radio Raheem talks about. Mookie loves his community and sees it suffer. He’s also aware that Sal’s pizzeria, at that moment, is a symbol of the community’s oppression—an embodiment of the racial tensions and the lack of recognition that sparked the fight and led to Raheem’s death. Mookie chooses an act of apparent hate, not because he hates Sal personally, but out of love for his community and a need for justice. You could also argue that he throws the trash can out of love in order to protect Sal and his sons.

In the aftermath of the riot, Mookie’s return to Sal to demand his weekly pay carries significant symbolic weight. Mookie’s insistence on being paid, despite the previous night’s catastrophic events, underscores a fundamental theme of the film: the struggle for recognition and respect.

Mookie’s demand for his salary, against the backdrop of the smoldering remnants of Sal’s pizzeria, isn’t just about money. It represents his assertion of self-worth and dignity in a system that consistently undermines it. Mookie, a pizza delivery man, has spent his days serving the community, and his demand for pay is symbolic of his fight for acknowledgment of his labor’s value, even amidst chaos. And Sal’s eventual decision to pay Mookie, albeit begrudgingly, signifies a moment of recognition.

This scene, however, doesn’t suggest a complete resolution of the racial tension. Instead, it reveals a moment of temporary truce within the ongoing struggle, a small step towards mutual recognition. It emphasizes that the journey towards racial harmony and recognition is fraught with conflict, but not devoid of the potential for understanding and change. This small act of transaction underscores the film’s commentary on the complex dynamics of race, labor, and respect in a racially diverse community.

At the end of Do the Right Thing , Spike Lee presents quotes from two iconic figures in the civil rights movement: Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. These quotes reflect their respective philosophies towards social change: King’s nonviolent resistance and Malcolm X’s belief in self-defense in the face of oppression.

King once said, “The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.” This speaks to his conviction that violent reprisals, while initially gratifying, are ultimately detrimental to the larger goal of societal harmony.

In contrast, Malcolm X once stated, “I am for violence if non-violence means we continue postponing a solution to the American black man’s problem—just to avoid violence.” This is emblematic of his belief in the legitimacy of violence as a tool for self-defense, asserting that black people have the right to protect themselves when institutions fail to do so.

Spike Lee’s decision to include these seemingly contrasting statements is a reflection of the complex nature of racial struggle, particularly as it’s depicted in the movie. The narrative doesn’t promote one approach over the other. Instead, it showcases the multifaceted and often conflicting responses to racial oppression.

By juxtaposing these quotes, Lee suggests that the film’s narrative is not a prescriptive solution to racial tensions, but an exploration of the myriad ways individuals might respond to the same. It’s a recognition that the struggle for racial equality is not monolithic and that different approaches can coexist, even if they seem contradictory.

In the end, Do the Right Thing doesn’t definitively answer what the “right thing” is. Instead, it encourages viewers to contemplate the complexities of racial tension and the multitude of responses it evokes. This makes the film not just a depiction of racial tension, but also a platform for dialo

The themes and meaning of Do the Right Thing

A "Wall of Fame" features several celebrities

Racial tension

Racial tension is a pervasive theme in Do the Right Thing , manifesting through various characters, their interactions, and conflicts. The film provides a microcosmic view of the broader racial dynamics in America by focusing on a single day in a Brooklyn neighborhood. It presents racial tension not as an external force, but as an inherent part of everyday life in an ethnically diverse society.

Racial recognition, or the lack thereof, serves as a significant driving force behind the tension and conflict in Do the Right Thing . The struggle for recognition and respect of one’s racial identity and culture is a shared experience among many characters, creating an undercurrent of resentment and frustration that fuels the escalating tension throughout the film.

The struggle for racial recognition is deeply entwined with the motif of Sal’s Wall of Fame. The Wall, solely featuring Italian-American celebrities, stands in Sal’s Pizzeria, a business operating in a predominantly black neighborhood and serving mostly black customers. The Wall becomes a symbolic site of contention because it omits representation of the black community, even though the pizzeria is a shared community space. This omission is a stark reminder of the broader societal bias that often overlooks the contributions of marginalized groups.

Buggin’ Out, recognizing this lack of representation, challenges Sal to include African American icons on the Wall. Sal’s refusal and his argument that it’s his pizzeria and he can display whomever he wishes shows an entrenched racial bias and disregard for the cultural contributions of his black customers. This conflict underlines the struggle for racial recognition, illustrating how the lack of representation can lead to feelings of erasure and fuel discontent.

The motif of baseball serves a similar purpose, highlighting the struggle for racial recognition within shared cultural experiences. The heated argument between Buggin’ Out and Pino over the best baseball player becomes a proxy battle for racial pride and recognition. Each character argues for a player of their own race, emphasizing the divide that persists even within universal cultural symbols like baseball. This conversation illuminates the fact that even in areas of shared national identity, racial disparities and the struggle for recognition persist.

In Do the Right Thing , these motifs accentuate the constant struggle for racial recognition faced by the characters. This struggle is not a mere subplot but forms the foundation of the narrative, driving the actions and reactions of the characters. The growing frustration and tension due to this lack of recognition eventually erupt in the film’s climax, manifesting in the form of the riot. The riot, therefore, is not just an act of wanton violence, but a bold assertion for racial recognition, marking a culmination of the characters’ long-standing struggle.

Language plays a pivotal role in Do the Right Thing , serving as a mirror to reflect the simmering racial tension in the neighborhood and offering a critique of the casual prejudice that permeates everyday society.

Throughout the film, characters express their racial prejudices and underlying tensions through their choice of words and phrases, revealing how deeply ingrained these biases are in their everyday interactions. For instance, the loaded conversation between Pino and Mookie about famous African-Americans reveals Pino’s subconscious racial bias. Although he admires several black celebrities, he harbors prejudice against the black community in his immediate vicinity. His words, heavy with contradiction, illustrate how stereotypes and prejudice can coexist with admiration, underscoring the complex nature of racial bias.

A particularly potent example of language reflecting racial tension is the scene often referred to as the “racial slur montage.” Here, characters unleash a flurry of racial slurs against various racial groups, unveiling the raw, unfiltered racial prejudices that exist beneath the surface of their daily interactions. This verbal violence serves as a metaphor for societal tension, laying bare the stereotypes each racial group harbors about the others. By doing so, the film depicts the multifaceted nature of prejudice, where individuals can be both victims and perpetrators of bigotry.

The casual and conversational manner in which these slurs and biased comments are tossed around further demonstrates how racial prejudice has seeped into the fabric of everyday life, often normalized and unchallenged. This habitual use of racially loaded language illustrates how racial tension can simmer beneath the surface of a community, ready to boil over at any provocation.

The riot at the end of the movie is triggered by the unjust death of Radio Raheem, a black man, at the hands of the police. This brutal event resonates with real-world instances where violence against black individuals has sparked widespread public outrage and unrest, such as the murder of George Floyd. The representation of Radio Raheem’s death and the subsequent riot underscores the film’s critique of systemic racism and police brutality, issues that remain pertinent decades after the movie’s release.

The film portrays the riot as an eruption of pent-up racial tension, accumulated resentment, and shared frustration. It is a chaotic, violent, and emotional response to the violence inflicted upon Radio Raheem and, by extension, the black community. The act of Mookie throwing the trash can through the window of Sal’s Pizzeria can be interpreted as an act of deflection, diverting the mob’s wrath from Sal to his property, or as an act of rebellion, symbolically challenging the system that continually marginalizes his community.

In this context, Do the Right Thing is neither justifying nor condemning the riot but presenting it as a complex reaction to a deeply embedded societal problem. The film, instead of simplifying the event into a matter of right or wrong, forces audiences to grapple with the circumstances that lead to such incidents. It challenges viewers to question the structures and biases that perpetuate racial violence and injustice, eventually leading to such outbursts.

Ethics and morality

The theme of ethics and morality runs deep in Do the Right Thing , challenging audiences to grapple with what constitutes “the right thing” in a racially charged context. The film presents various characters wrestling with their moral convictions amidst escalating racial tensions, forcing audiences to reflect on the relativity of moral judgments.

The advice from Da Mayor to Mookie to “do the right thing” is a significant narrative element that sets the stage for the exploration of ethics and morality in Do the Right Thing . This seemingly simple advice, delivered early in the film, introduces the audience to the complex moral universe they are about to navigate.

By positioning Da Mayor, an older character with life experience, as the deliverer of this advice, the film establishes a sense of generational wisdom. Da Mayor is portrayed as a somewhat flawed but wise figure who has witnessed and understood the complex nature of morality in their racially charged environment. His advice underscores the inherent moral quandaries the characters face and positions him as a moral compass, albeit a nebulous one, as he doesn’t spell out what the “right thing” is.

The phrase “do the right thing” is deceptively simple but inherently complex due to its subjective nature. It presents morality as a fluid concept, shaped by personal perspectives, societal norms, and cultural backgrounds. This leaves room for interpretation, setting the stage for the moral dilemmas that unfold throughout the movie. It allows for multiple interpretations of what the “right thing” is, reflecting the diversity of viewpoints in the neighborhood and the wider world.

The climax of the film, where Mookie throws a trash can through the window of Sal’s Pizzeria, culminates in this theme of moral ambiguity. Mookie’s action can be viewed from different ethical perspectives: as a betrayal of his employer, as a justified act of defiance against a system that devalues black lives, or as a strategic move to redirect the mob’s anger away from Sal and onto his property.

The film does not provide a definitive answer on whether Mookie’s actions constitute “the right thing,” which aligns with the film’s broader approach to ethics and morality. It suggests that morality isn’t fixed or universally agreed upon, but rather a product of individual circumstances, societal influences, and personal interpretations. This approach encourages the audience to engage with these complexities, asking them to consider the factors that shape their understanding of “the right thing.”

Radio Raheem’s “Love and Hate” speech in Do the Right Thing is a pivotal moment that delves into the thematic exploration of ethics and morality. Holding up his brass knuckle-adorned hands, one reading ‘LOVE’ and the other ‘HATE,’ Raheem delivers a dramatic monologue about the eternal struggle between these two forces.

Here’s the entire speech:

This speech is a nod to the dichotomy of good and evil, love and hate that has been a central theme in literature and philosophy for centuries. It introduces the concept of ethical and moral dualism, the conflict between positive and negative moral forces, into the narrative. Radio Raheem’s hands become metaphors for these opposing forces, demonstrating how closely they can coexist and how one’s actions can tip the balance in either direction.

In terms of ethics and morality, this speech underscores the complexity of the characters’ choices and actions throughout the film. The struggle between love and hate is reflected in the characters’ interpersonal dynamics, their actions, and their reactions to the escalating racial tension. It symbolizes the ethical quandaries they face, the choices they make, and the consequences they bear.

For instance, Mookie’s decision to throw a trash can through Sal’s Pizzeria’s window can be viewed through the lens of this dichotomy. Was it an act of hate against Sal, or an act of love to divert the crowd’s anger away from Sal to his property, potentially saving his life? This act, like many others in the film, doesn’t fit neatly into categories of “right” or “wrong,” reflecting the intricate interplay between love and hate, good and evil, ethical and unethical.

Radio Raheem’s speech encapsulates this moral complexity, reminding viewers that actions are often motivated by a mix of love and hate, righteousness and anger, morality and immorality. It reflects the film’s overall stance on ethics and morality, demonstrating that these concepts aren’t clear-cut but rather a product of constant struggle and negotiation between conflicting forces.

Community and identity

Do the Right Thing presents community and identity as intertwined themes, exploring how individual identities contribute to community dynamics and vice versa. The motif of the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, with its diversity, is a melting pot of identities, all coexisting in a delicate balance of harmony and discord.

Do the Right Thing delves into the tension between maintaining individual identity and fostering community harmony, shedding light on the complexity and delicate balance of multicultural societies. Throughout the film, characters grapple with expressing their unique cultural identities while cohabitating a shared community space, revealing the inherent challenges and conflicts that can arise from such a dynamic.

Sal’s Pizzeria serves as a central location for this tension. Sal, an Italian-American, runs this establishment in a predominantly black neighborhood, leading to clashes of cultural expression. The Wall of Fame, adorned with only Italian-American icons, is a clear symbol of Sal’s insistence on maintaining his individual identity. Yet, his pizzeria operates as a communal hub for a black neighborhood, raising questions about representation and the inclusivity of community spaces.

Buggin’ Out’s demand to include black icons on the Wall of Fame exemplifies the tension between individual identity and community harmony. Buggin’ Out seeks acknowledgment of the neighborhood’s cultural identity, believing that the community’s patronage should be reflected in the space they frequent. This is seen as a threat by Sal, who feels his personal identity within his business is being undermined.

However, the film does not present this tension as a simplistic binary conflict. Characters such as Da Mayor and Mother Sister demonstrate a more harmonious coexistence of individual identity within the community fabric. Da Mayor, though often at odds with younger community members, ultimately embodies wisdom and peacekeeping. Mother Sister, while maintaining a somewhat aloof and watchful role, shows concern and care for her neighborhood.

The climax of the film underscores the devastating potential of these tensions when left unresolved. The riot that engulfs Sal’s Pizzeria can be viewed as an explosive expression of suppressed individual identities that felt unheard and unrecognized within the shared community space.

At the same time, the film emphasizes the strength of the community. Despite the conflicts, there is a sense of shared experience and mutual support among the residents. The community’s collective outrage at Radio Raheem’s death and the subsequent riot signify a shared sense of injustice and a collective struggle for change. This shared experience, born out of adversity, underlines the power of community and the importance of collective identity in challenging societal structures.

Why is the movie called Do the Right Thing ?

Buggin' Out looks angry as a group of people stand around him

The title Do the Right Thing might appear straightforward, suggesting a simple moral directive to make ethically correct decisions. However, as the film unfolds, it becomes clear that determining what constitutes the “right thing” is steeped in layers of complexity, ambiguity, and subjectivity.

Da Mayor’s directive to Mookie to “do the right thing” early in the film sets the stage for the narrative’s exploration of morality, ethics, and societal pressures. His advice, though seemingly simple, resonates throughout the movie as we observe characters navigating their personal moral landscapes amid escalating tensions. Initially, the quote seems to foreshadow a traditional morality tale where characters will face clear choices between right and wrong, a concept most audiences are familiar with.

The deeper meaning of the title lies in the fact that what may be deemed as “right” is often a matter of perspective. Depending on one’s values, experiences, beliefs, and even their place in a social or racial hierarchy, the definition of the “right thing” can drastically differ. For instance, the character Mookie throws a trash can through the window of Sal’s pizzeria, which, on the surface, is a violent act of vandalism. However, in the context of the story, it can be viewed as an expression of pent-up anger, frustration, and a desperate cry for justice following the death of Radio Raheem. Is Mookie doing the right thing? From his viewpoint, this act was perhaps a necessary measure to draw attention to racial violence. However, to others, his actions might seem destructive and unproductive, potentially escalating the conflict.

By the end of the movie, Da Mayor’s quote takes on a more profound significance. The climactic conflict at Sal’s pizzeria, culminating in Mookie’s act of throwing the trash can through the window and the subsequent riot, forces the audience to grapple with what the “right thing” truly means in such circumstances. Is it peace at the cost of justice, or is it a disruptive act to draw attention to a grave injustice? The ambiguity inherent in Da Mayor’s advice thus becomes a point of reflection for the audience, prompting them to reconsider their understanding of morality and justice.

In the broader context, the title serves as a commentary on systemic racial and social inequalities that still persist in society. It underscores the fact that individuals from marginalized communities often have to navigate a complex moral landscape where the “right thing” may differ vastly from the mainstream narrative. In the face of systemic oppression, their fight for equality might be deemed as an act of defiance, disobedience, or even criminal activity by those in power.

The title’s deeper meaning lies in its challenge to the audience. As viewers, we’re urged to question our notions of what is “right” and “wrong.” We’re prompted to examine our biases, our preconceived notions, and the societal narratives we’ve accepted. This demand for introspection and self-reflection continues to resonate long after the film ends, causing us to grapple with these issues in our own lives.

Important motifs in Do the Right Thing

A man sits in his apartment counting money

In Do the Right Thing , heat is a constant presence that accentuates the rising racial tensions. The temperature, which continues to escalate throughout the day, not only aggravates the discomfort and irritability of the characters but also symbolizes their growing frustration and anger. The heat-induced exhaustion and agitation of the characters mirror the societal fatigue that stems from enduring racial inequalities. The film’s climactic riot occurs at the peak of the day’s heat, symbolizing that when tensions, like temperatures, rise too high, a boiling point is inevitable, resulting in an explosive reaction.

Sal’s Wall of Fame serves as a constant visual reminder of the racial divide and lack of representation. By exclusively displaying Italian-American celebrities, Sal subtly dismisses the cultural contributions of his predominantly black clientele. This oversight escalates into an issue of contention, leading to the pivotal conflict in the movie. The Wall of Fame is a representation of the cultural erasure and systemic bias faced by the black community. Its destruction during the riot is a symbolic act of rebellion against this exclusion, highlighting the community’s demand for recognition and respect.

The “Love” and “Hate” rings worn by Radio Raheem serve as a metaphor for the societal and personal struggles the characters face. They depict the internal struggle between love, represented by understanding and acceptance, and hate, characterized by prejudice and anger. The symbolic battle between these forces reflects the volatile dynamics within the community. The narrative arc of these rings also mirrors the film’s progression: while Radio Raheem’s monologue about love conquering hate initially offers hope, his death at the hands of the police, a tragic symbol of hate, paints a grim reality.

Music is used in Do the Right Thing to give voice to the community’s struggle. Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” resounds throughout the film, symbolizing the black community’s resistance against systemic oppression. It’s more than just a background score—it becomes a rallying cry that reflects the anger and defiance of the community. This repetition serves as a constant auditory reminder of the unresolved societal issues at hand. The conflict around the volume of Radio Raheem’s radio is also indicative of the clash between individual expression and conformity.

The act of Mookie throwing the trash can through the window of Sal’s pizzeria is one of the film’s most iconic scenes. The trash can is symbolic of the pent-up frustrations, racial tensions, and simmering anger within the community. Mookie’s action is not merely an act of vandalism—it is a bold assertion of protest against racial injustice. This act of rebellion, caused by the metaphorical “heat” of the conflict, challenges the status quo and demands immediate attention to the unjust death of Radio Raheem, making the trash can a powerful motif of resistance and call for justice.

Radio Raheem’s boombox serves as an extension of his identity, broadcasting his presence and his defiance against the norms of society. The persistent blare of “Fight the Power” underscores the theme of resistance against racial injustice. When Sal destroys the radio, it signifies a violation of Radio Raheem’s personal space and an outright dismissal of his cultural expression. This act escalates the existing tensions, leading to the climactic confrontation. Therefore, the radio functions not only as a symbol of individual autonomy but also as a catalyst for the events that unfold.

In Do the Right Thing , pizza serves as a symbol of cultural interaction and, paradoxically, cultural division. Sal’s pizza joint, a primarily Italian establishment in the heart of a black neighborhood, becomes a meeting point of cultures. However, Sal’s decision to only honor Italian-American celebrities in a place frequented by mostly black patrons underscores the racial disparities. The pizzas, sold to black customers but representative of Sal’s Italian heritage, also symbolize the economic transaction that doesn’t necessarily translate into cultural respect or understanding, reflecting the real-world dynamic often found in racially diverse urban settings.

The Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Do the Right Thing is not just a setting—it’s a character in its own right. The neighborhood, with its vibrant mix of racial and ethnic groups, embodies a microcosm of broader societal relationships. The dynamics between the residents, their shared spaces, and escalating tensions serve as a reflection of real-world racial conflicts and complexities. The tight-knit urban setting amplifies the personal and social issues faced by the characters, making the neighborhood a crucial motif in the narrative.

Baseball, as a motif in the film, serves as a conduit to discuss racial tension and cultural pride. The sport, considered a quintessential part of American culture, becomes a battleground to challenge racial representation. The debate between Buggin’ Out and Pino over who the best baseball player is, with each arguing for a player of their own race, exemplifies the struggle for recognition and respect within the same national fabric. This motif underscores the racial divide that persists even within shared cultural experiences.

Police brutality is a recurring motif in Do the Right Thing , symbolizing the systemic violence and racial injustice prevalent in society. The unjustifiable killing of Radio Raheem serves as a stark reminder of this societal issue. The scene of the police car driving away after the act symbolizes the impunity often enjoyed by law enforcement in cases of police misconduct. This motif is a grim commentary on the ongoing struggle against racial discrimination and police brutality, resonating beyond the narrative of the film into real-life societal discussions.

Questions & answers about Do the Right Thing

Vito, Pino, and Mookie have a conversation in a pizza shop

In Do the Right Thing , Sal’s Wall of Fame becomes a focal point of the movie’s racial tension. It prominently features Italian-American celebrities, a fact that Buggin’ Out points out as problematic, given that the pizzeria is situated in a predominantly African-American neighborhood.

Sal’s refusal to put up pictures of black celebrities is a complex issue. It’s not merely an act of racism, but rather, a testament to his personal identity and history. Sal’s pizzeria, including the Wall of Fame, is a microcosm of his Italian heritage, a testament to the figures he admires and identifies with. In a neighborhood that is rapidly changing, it serves as a symbol of stability and tradition, something that he holds onto tightly.

However, this adherence to his tradition comes at the cost of acknowledging the changing demographic of his customer base. His customers are predominantly African-American, and his refusal to represent them on the Wall of Fame could be interpreted as a lack of respect for their culture and contributions.

Sal’s resistance to alter the Wall of Fame is a visual representation of the broader struggle for recognition and representation in the film. It becomes a symbol of racial tension and cultural clash, representing Sal’s unwillingness to fully acknowledge and respect the African-American community that sustains his business. It’s a potent symbol of the unspoken racial divide in the neighborhood, which ultimately escalates to the destructive climax of the film.

Mookie’s act of throwing the trash can through Sal’s pizzeria window is a pivotal moment in Do the Right Thing and has been the subject of much debate. It’s a symbolic act that represents a culmination of the racial tension simmering throughout the film. Mookie’s act of destruction is not necessarily directed at Sal personally, but more towards the system that he sees as responsible for Radio Raheem’s death and the general racial inequality that the community faces.

Several interpretations can be drawn from this moment. Some argue that Mookie is redirecting the crowd’s anger towards property instead of people, possibly saving Sal and his sons from physical harm. Sal’s pizzeria becomes a stand-in for the systemic injustices they’ve been enduring. By targeting the property, Mookie sparks a riot that expresses the community’s rage and grief without directly harming the individuals they’ve associated with the cause.

Others interpret this as Mookie’s personal tipping point, where he can no longer remain neutral amidst the racial tensions. Despite his affiliation with Sal, he identifies more strongly with his community’s anger over Radio Raheem’s death, leading to his drastic action. It’s an act of rebellion against the racial injustices he and his community face, aligning himself firmly with them.

Regardless of the interpretation, this moment underscores the film’s central theme of racial tension and serves as a tangible manifestation of the community’s collective frustration and anger. Mookie’s act is a decisive response to an ambiguous command given earlier in the film: to “do the right thing.”

Have more unanswered questions about Do the Right Thing ? Are there themes or motifs we missed? Is there more to explain about the ending? Please post your questions and thoughts in the comments section! We’ll do our best to address every one of them. If we like what you have to say, you could become part of our movie guide!

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Provoking Reflection: "Do the Right Thing" Film Analysis

Table of contents, dynamic characters, visual storytelling, social commentary, moral ambiguity, enduring relevance, conclusion: a provocative exploration.

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Stam, R. (Ed.). (1998). Race in American film: Voices and visions that shaped a nation. John Wiley & Sons.
Clemons, W. M. (2008). "Fight the Power": Music and political struggle in Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing. Black Music Research Journal, 28(1), 101-126.
Clark, A. M. (2013). "It's Got to Be the Heat": "Do the Right Thing" and the Role of Music in Spike Lee's Art. Notes, 69(1), 83-104.
Bogle, D. (2001). Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films. Continuum.

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The Enduring Urgency of Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” at Thirty

Spike Lee’s third feature, “Do the Right Thing,” returns to movie theatres this weekend in honor of the thirtieth anniversary of its release. Lee dedicated the movie, in the end credits, to the families of Eleanor Bumpurs, Michael Griffith, Arthur Miller, Edmund Perry, Yvonne Smallwood, and Michael Stewart—six black people, five of whom were killed by police officers, as the character Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn) is, in the film’s climactic scene. (Griffith was killed by a white mob.). Three decades later, with police forces virtually militarized and with the judicial system largely granting officers impunity for killings committed on duty, the shock of the movie is that, even as many cultural and civic aspects that it represents have changed, its core drama—the killing of black Americans by police—continues unabated and largely unredressed.

“Do the Right Thing” isn’t a comprehensive representation of a cross-section of Bedford-Stuyvesant, the Brooklyn neighborhood where it is set, but a vision of private lives with a conspicuous public component—a sense of community and of history that’s a crucial aspect of identity. The movie’s individuals are boldly sketched with expressive exaggerations, not characters with deeply developed psychology but ones who bear the marks, the scars, and the emblems of history, and who also bear the pressure of the white gaze, the police gaze. No less than Lee’s script, his aesthetic offers a sharply original way of looking at the lives of black people—and of looking at life at large from a black person’s perspective. “Do the Right Thing” is grand, vital, and mournful; it is also, crucially, proud, a work not only of the agony of history—and of present-tense oppressions—but also of the historic cultural achievements of black Americans, and it takes its own place in the artistic history that it invokes.

The movie’s bright palette, its sense of contrasts of light and color, its distinctive and prominent addresses by characters looking in high-relief and fish-eye closeup at the viewer, its sense of bold declamation and assertive movement: all suggest a personal sense of style that builds on the cinematically disjunctive methods of the nineteen-sixties. They also evoke a cultural history—visual, dramatic, and tonal—informed by such artists as Romare Bearden and Jacob Lawrence, Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin and John Coltrane. Lee’s artistic collaborations are central to the movie’s rich sense of an artistic gathering, including the cinematography of Ernest Dickerson, the production design, by Wynn Thomas, and the costume design, by Ruth E. Carter . The score was composed by Lee’s father, Bill Lee, a bassist who has recorded with many major jazz musicians and appears on a wide range of albums, including Clifford Jordan’s classic “ Glass Bead Games .”

“Do the Right Thing” starts where Lee’s 1988 film “School Daze” ends—with a call to “Wake up”—but here it comes through by way of local media and in the context of art. It begins with one of the cinematic voices of the era—with Samuel L. Jackson, in the role of Mister Señor Love Daddy, the d.j. of a radio station operating from a storefront perch, where he’s on the air, watching the streets and orchestrating its moods with music, reporting back on what he sees and inflecting the moment with musings that connect the music to the community at large. In one spectacular monologue, Mister Señor Love Daddy recites his list of dozens of classical black musicians whose records he plays, beginning with Boogie Down Productions and ending with Mary Lou Williams.

The cultural clash at the center of “Do the Right Thing” is one that foreshadows major changes in the recent media landscape. The fast-talking young man called Buggin Out (Giancarlo Esposito) goes to Sal’s pizzeria for a slice, where Sal (Danny Aiello), the sympathetic but hotheaded owner, has photos of celebrities assembled into a “wall of fame.” Buggin Out notices that all of the photographs are of Italian-Americans (including Frank Sinatra, Liza Minnelli, and Joe DiMaggio) and asks why there aren’t any photos of black stars, given that the pizzeria is in a mainly black neighborhood. Sal’s answer—“Get your own place, you can do what you want to do”—doesn’t, of course, satisfy Buggin Out, who tries to organize a boycott of Sal’s. It doesn’t work, but Radio Raheem—who has already incurred Sal’s wrath by refusing to turn down his boom box, playing Public Enemy, in the pizzeria—ultimately decides to join him. (Raheem’s musical passion is also reverently devotional; his gesture is a crucial symbolic act of a black customer bringing his culture into a white-owned space.)

“School Daze” was more overtly tough-minded and more analytical in its portrait of divisions within the student body at a historically black university. In “Do the Right Thing,” Lee depicts a different sort of division, one that’s of deep political import but isn’t directly dramatized: the apparent ideological division between Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X, which echoes bitterly through the film’s final tragedy. It’s exemplified in Lee’s placement of a quote from each at the end of the film. Dr. King’s quote begins, “Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral”; Malcolm’s concludes, “I don’t even call it violence when it’s self-defense, I call it intelligence.” The division is both presented and symbolically resolved in the photo of the two leaders together that the character Smiley (Roger Guenveur Smith) decorates and sells—and which Lee puts on the screen after the two quotes.

Lee, as Mookie, the deliveryman for Sal’s, plays a role that symbolized his own position in Hollywood at the time, as an employee of a white-run business and a mediator between it and the black community. When Buggin Out first challenges Sal about the photos on the wall, Mookie walks him out of the pizzeria and admonishes him for putting his job in jeopardy. But after the murder of Raheem, Mookie—at first standing alongside Sal and his sons (John Turturro and Richard Edson) in confronting the crowd in the wake of the killing—walks off, grabs a metal trash can, returns, and throws it through Sal’s window. That action sets Mookie’s neighbors to ransacking the pizzeria—culminating in Smiley lighting the match that torches it, as the elderly woman called Mother Sister (Ruby Dee), wise and bitter and rueful, calls out, “Burn it down.” (She’s one of only three prominently featured women in the movie; there’s another virtual movie lurking behind this one, which pays more attention to the public role of women in the community.)

With “Do the Right Thing,” Lee was letting Hollywood know that it, too, was on the wrong side of history—and was doing not just wrong but harm. Nonetheless, what’s astonishing about the response of Raheem’s friends and neighbors to his murder isn’t the trashing of Sal’s; it’s their restraint—the handful of police officers manage to leave, dragging away Raheem’s body and arresting Buggin Out, with little incident. The rage directed at Sal, for his obtuseness and for his words and acts of hatred, is in its own way symbolic—the blood is on the hands of the police officers, who’d likely go unpunished. It’s their gaze at peaceable black people that foreshadows the trouble to come; it’s their derogatory remarks about the neighborhood, in private conversation with Sal, that suggest the hatred and contempt motivating their official behavior.

In “Do the Right Thing,” Lee—in challenging the cultural segregation of Sal’s wall—challenges the very nature of a public space as private property. Here, too, Lee evokes the burden and the responsibility of history. The very theme of private property in public space was a crucial one in the civil-rights movement, when white segregationists attempted to maintain a ban on black people in their restaurants and stores by asserting that the facility was their private property. The notion was overturned in the definition of “public accommodations” in the Civil Rights Act of 1964; but those laws had nothing to do with another sort of public space, the media as a crucial part of civic life; though the concept is now widely recognized, the practice is still woefully inadequate.

“Do the Right Thing” was released the same year as “Driving Miss Daisy,” which won the Oscar for Best Picture; Lee’s film wasn’t nominated. Today, the industry mainstream, or whatever’s left of it, is at least superficially more diverse, and sometimes substantially so, as with “Creed” and “ Black Panther .” But some things haven’t changed: Lee’s “ BlacKkKlansman ,” which was a Best Picture nominee this year, lost out to “ Green Book ,” another regressive tale of interracial friendship.

History virtually pierces the screen in one image from “Do the Right Thing” that’s unbearable to watch—a closeup of Raheem’s feet, kicking and dangling off the ground, while he’s being choked by the police. It’s an image that evokes a hanging and suggests a lynching; to watch it now is to see it in the context not just of a long and horrific history of acts of racist violence against black Americans but also of the police brutality that, thirty years after the film’s release, continues. “Do the Right Thing” is, regrettably, not a work of history but a film set, in many ways, in the present tense.

Moral Dilemmas in “Do the Right Thing”: a Critical Analysis

This essay is about Spike Lee’s film “Do The Right Thing,” exploring its portrayal of societal tensions and moral dilemmas. Set in Brooklyn, the film delves into racial tensions on a hot summer day, focusing on Mookie, who faces conflicting loyalties between his employer, Sal, and his community. Lee masterfully depicts moral complexities faced by characters like Sal, Buggin’ Out, and Da Mayor, highlighting systemic injustices and personal biases. The film provocatively raises questions about violence and social change, challenging viewers to confront moral ambiguity. In conclusion, “Do The Right Thing” remains relevant in addressing issues of racial injustice, urging reflection on moral imperatives in the pursuit of social justice.

How it works

Spike Lee’s seminal film “Do The Right Thing” remains a profound exploration of societal tensions, cultural identity, and moral ambiguity. Released in 1989, the film is set in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn on the hottest day of the summer, where simmering racial tensions erupt into a tragic climax. This essay seeks to critically analyze the intricate moral dilemmas portrayed in the film, examining the complexities of “doing the right thing” within a context of systemic injustice and personal biases.

Central to the film’s narrative is the character of Mookie, played by Spike Lee himself, a young African-American man working for Sal’s Pizzeria, owned by an Italian-American family.

Mookie finds himself torn between his loyalty to Sal, who has employed him for years, and his allegiance to his own community, which is increasingly discontent with the perceived racism embedded in Sal’s establishment. Mookie’s actions in the film’s climactic scene, where he throws a trash can through the pizzeria window, serve as a catalyst for the eruption of violence, sparking a chain reaction that ultimately leads to the death of Radio Raheem at the hands of the police.

Lee masterfully portrays the moral complexities faced by Mookie and other characters throughout the film. Sal, for instance, grapples with his own prejudices and desires for assimilation within the black community, evident in his insistence on displaying pictures of Italian-American icons in his pizzeria. His refusal to acknowledge the cultural significance of Radio Raheem’s boombox and subsequent altercation with him underscores the deep-seated racial tensions permeating the neighborhood.

Similarly, characters like Buggin’ Out and Da Mayor confront moral quandaries as they navigate their place within a society rife with inequality and discrimination. Buggin’ Out’s insistence on boycotting Sal’s Pizzeria highlights his commitment to challenging systemic oppression, while Da Mayor’s mentorship of the younger generation reflects his desire for redemption and reconciliation.

Moreover, the film provocatively raises questions about the role of violence in effecting social change. While Mookie’s actions may be interpreted as a desperate attempt to assert agency in the face of oppression, they also perpetuate a cycle of violence that ultimately leads to tragic consequences. Lee refuses to offer easy answers or moral absolutes, instead forcing viewers to confront the complexities of morality within a context of systemic injustice.

In conclusion, “Do The Right Thing” remains a seminal work that challenges viewers to confront the intricacies of moral decision-making in the face of systemic oppression. Through its nuanced portrayal of characters grappling with conflicting loyalties and deep-seated prejudices, the film invites audiences to interrogate their own conceptions of right and wrong. As we continue to grapple with issues of racial injustice and inequality, the film’s enduring relevance serves as a powerful reminder of the moral imperatives inherent in the pursuit of social justice.

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Home — Essay Samples — Entertainment — Do The Right Thing — Analyzing the Film Shot Do the Right Thing

Analyzing The Film Shot Do The Right Thing

Categories: Do The Right Thing

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Published: Jan 31, 2024

Words: 677 | Page: 1 | 4 min read

Overview of the film, analysis of the film's visual style, exploration of social and cultural issues, examination of characters and character development, critique of the film's narrative structure, reception and impact, references:.

Siskel, G., & Ebert, R. (1989). Do The Right Thing [Film review]. At The Movies. https://ebert.sites.truman.edu/files/2020/01/siskel-ebert-do-the-right-thing.jpg
Press, J. (2019). Spike Lee Reflects On His Career In The Shadow Of 'Do The Right Thing'. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2019/02/17/695110288/spike-lee-reflects-on-his-career-in-the-shadow-of-doth-right-thing
Sharrett, C. (2018). American Cinema in the Reagan Era: Do the Right Thing. Edinburgh University Press. doi:10.3366/edinburgh/9781474424579.003.0012

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Pharmaceutical companies generated billions of dollars in additional revenue from the COVID-19 vaccine, buoyed by bidding wars between wealthy countries as the virus spread across the planet. 1 Faced with unparalleled demand, deals were being locked in even before the vaccines were developed. And once distribution started, vaccine hoarding began. Some countries had enough vaccines to vaccinate their populations several times over. As a result, millions of doses passed their use-by date and were thrown away , while people in poorer economies remained unvaccinated.

More than 1 million deaths in lower- and middle-income countries could have been avoided if COVID-19 vaccines had been shared more equitably in the first year they became available, according to retrospective modeling with vaccine distribution data from 2021. 2 Whether this figure can be solely attributed to inequitable distribution by vaccine manufacturers or other factors came into play — such as the lack of cold storage and health infrastructure during distribution — is up for debate. However, a significant number of lives were undoubtedly lost because vaccines did not reach people who needed them.

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It is easy to blame the aggressive efforts of wealthier nations to ensure their own supply of vaccines for this striking inequity. But our inquiry, conducted as the pandemic unfolded and focused on the vaccine producers, suggests pharma companies could have done a lot more to combat the rush by wealthy countries to vaccinate their own people.

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N. Craig Smith is the Insead Chair in Ethics and Social Responsibility, director of the Ethics and Social Responsibility Initiative at Insead, and a visiting professor at the University of Birmingham. Markus Scholz ( @scholz101 ) is a professor of business administration and responsible management at Dresden University of Technology.

1. P. Loftus, “ Pfizer, Moderna, and Other Drugmakers Make Billions Responding to COVID-19 Pandemic ,” The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 25, 2022, www.wsj.com.

2. S. Moore, E.M. Hill, L. Dyson, et al., “ Retrospectively Modeling the Effects of Increased Global Vaccine Sharing on the COVID-19 Pandemic ,” Nature Medicine 28, no. 11 (November 2022): 2416-2423.

3. M. Scholz, N.C. Smith, M. Riegler, et al., “ Public Health and Political Corporate Social Responsibility: Pharmaceutical Company Engagement in COVAX ,” Business & Society 63, no. 4 (April 2024): 813-850.

4. M. Scholz and N.C. Smith, “ In the Face of a Pandemic, Can Pharma Shift Gears? ” MIT Sloan Management Review, April 16, 2020, https://sloanreview.mit.edu.

5. World Health Organization, “ Fair Allocation Mechanism for COVID-19 Vaccines Through the COVAX Facility ,” PDF file (Geneva: World Health Organization, Sept. 9, 2020), www.who.int.

6. “ Our Credo ,” Johnson & Johnson, accessed April 12, 2024, www.jnj.com.

7. M.C. Gentile, “ Giving Voice to Values: How to Speak Your Mind When You Know What’s Right ” (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2010).

8. T. Donaldson and P.J.H. Schoemaker, “ Self-Inflicted Industry Wounds: Early Warning Signals and Pelican Gambits ,” California Management Review 55, no. 2 (January 2013): 24-45.

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Do the right thing Essay

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Do the right thing is a film that was authored and directed by Spike Lee in 1989. The film has been one of the most ground-breaking comedies and it exposes the simmering racial prejudices that dominated America at that time (Reid 3).

The author uses a large cast in the film making it possible to bring out the major themes on issues dominating American society. In the scene, the author exposes his complex study on the dichotomies of daily life among diverse ethnic communities thus making the film to appear more of a comedy than an ordinary drama (Cooper 456).

Previously, the comedy has gained commercial success where the author received myriad awards and accolades due to its cultural significance (Cooper 454). One of the key issues dominating the scene includes various forms of bigotry such as racism existing in Metropolitan cities of US. This essay aims to examine how the concept of “Right” thing has been developed citing examples from the film.

How the concept of the “right’ thing has been developed in the film

Spike Lee has made a deliberate attempt in the scene to develop the concept “right” thing in a manner that delivers a true meaning to distinguish good from evil.

According to the way the concept has been used in the scene, it is definite that there is a true law that distinguishes a right act from a wrong one. In other words, Spike Lee attempts to bring out some of the characteristics of a “right” thing. From a careful analysis of the film, the author has clearly demonstrated that there are universal and natural laws governing the “right” thing.

For example, as the film ends the author projects an utterance by Martin Luther king which says that, “Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral” (Cooper 459). From this phrase, it is definite that in every society, there is a recommended way of doing “right”. In this case, one can argue that the concept “right” thing should be practiced naturally since it is the only way to conform to true laws that operate in a given society.

This also implies that there are actions that are unacceptable and for this reason, they cannot be regarded as right. On a slight note, Spike Lee intends to reveal to the audience that a “Right “thing is that action which is socially acceptable (Reid 27). However, the author fails to demonstrate the fact that a “right” thing might be socially acceptable in one society and unacceptable in another. For example, there are certain taboos held by Whites that are unacceptable among the Black people.

In line with this, the concept “right” thing has been depicted as the action that brings joy and happiness to a human life. A good example from the film include a case of Mookie, one of the main characters in the scene who is seated so happily counting his money after working very hard.

One can also discern that as he works, he keeps reminding Sal (his employer) to give him his salary early enough to cater for his upkeeps. Since there is no single moment Mookie ever neglected his responsibilities in the work place, Sal eventually gives him his pay without delay. The author also portrays how the concept helps to eradicate social conflicts and possible losses in the society. For example, in the scene, Mookie does right by working hard to earn in order to silence his problems.

From the scene, doing the right thing requires one to think and act critically (Reid 43). In this case, Spike Lee develops the concept “right” thing by defining it to be a critical and a rational action. It is arguable that when one think and reason rationally, the action that follows will definitely have positive impacts. Failure to do the right thing eventually increases chances of conflicting with people as observed at the beginning of the scene.

For example, as the film unfolds we find long-simmering racial-based tensions in Brooklyn neighborhoods (Reid 23). Racial prejudices escalate to numerous tragedies and violence simply because some people perceive themselves to be better than others (Reid 41). For instance, the Latin American fails to reason that they are not in any way better than Black Americans. Consequently, this results to racial intolerance, hatred, conflicts and deaths of innocent people from minor races.

In the scene, the author develops the concepts “right” thing in a way that it becomes synonymous to that action which conforms to nature. Though this is not explicitly expounded in the comedy, this is evident from Martin Luther King’s quote which says that, “The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind” (Reid 161). From this phrase, it is definite that blindness interferes with the law of nature by making people immoral, cruel and impersonal. In this case, the “right” thing is that action which does not humiliate or even annihilate the opponent.

At some point, the author poses a controversial question in the viewer’s mind. After viewing the film, one tends to ask, “What is the right thing to do in a society dominated by racism such as America?” This question might appear simple from the film’s outset though it is not easy to get a straight answer (Cooper 459). In fact, the author himself does not provide a clear answer to the question. This is due to the fact that in the scene, it appears very difficult to break some dominant taboos exhibited by characters on stage (Reid 45).

For instance, the White people perceive other races as minor and this is acceptable to them unlike a case where Black people perceive every race to be equal to others. Notably, the author uses characters that are good while others are bad yet we do not see him take a stand on what is perfectly “right”. Instead, the scene is full of suspense leaving the audience to carefully scrutinize what the author perceives to be “right” thing in the society.

To recap it all “Do the Right Thing” is a comedy that depicts how a society should respond to critical issues such as racial intolerance. It also emphasizes how people of diverse races and gender should become accountable to their actions. In line with this, there are numerous ways in which Spike Lee has developed the concept of “right” thing in the film.

In other words the concept “right” thing has been developed in diverse viewpoints as portrayed in the film. For example, one can discern from the scene that the concept “right” thing has been used to denote actions are well guarded by natural laws. Moreover, the concept simply refers to an action that conforms to the state of nature. In line with this, the author to some extent develops the concept to denote a rational and critical action that is socially acceptable.

Works Cited

Cooper, Jill. “What is the Right Thing? A Self-Psychological Discussion of Spike Lee’s do the Right Thing.” Psychoanalytic review 86.3 (1999): 455-64. Print.

Reid, Mark. Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1997. Print.

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"Do the Right Thing" by Spike Lee: Film Analysis Essay
Introduction. The movie "Do the Right Thing" by Spike Lee can be acclaimed as one of the most successful dramas released in 1989. This is no wonder as the film features outstanding play by actors, an interesting and thought-provoking layout, and good quality of its accomplishment. Overall, the film appears to be a great piece of film-making ...
Do The Right Thing Analysis
Do The Right Thing Analysis Essay. Crisis and conflict characterize the film "Do The Right Thing". However, explicit racial divisions and tones that the characters who belong to different races in the film bring out the motive in this crisis. Spike lee intends to bring out the notion that human beings are different and unique in their own ...
Do The Right Thing: Summary, Analysis
A film review of Spike Lee's 1989 classic Do The Right Thing, which explores the interethnic conflicts and cultural politics of a Brooklyn neighborhood on a hot summer day. The review analyzes the film's opening montage, its 24-hour structure, and its representation of blackness, hip-hop, and history.
Do the Right Thing Film Analysis: [Essay Example], 605 words
A sample essay on Spike Lee's 1989 film Do the Right Thing, which explores the racial tensions and violence in a Brooklyn neighborhood. The essay discusses the themes, characters, music, and cinematic techniques of the film, as well as its social and historical context.
Do The Right Thing Analysis Essay By Spike Lee
August 9, 2024. Essay Topics and Ideas. Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing" is a groundbreaking film that tackles tough topics like racism, police brutality, and community tensions. Released in 1989, this movie still rings true today. In this post, we'll dive deep into what makes this film so important and how it reflects real-life issues.
Do the Right Thing
Brian Eggert's essay about Do the Right Thing provides an in-depth critical analysis, exploring its production, history, and themes. "Wake up!" announces Samuel L. Jackson's Mister Señor Love Daddy, a disc jockey in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, the setting
Analysis of Spike Lee's "Do The Right Thing"
A 750-word essay that examines the film's cinematography, sound, character development, narrative structure, themes, and reception. The essay argues that the film is a powerful and relevant critique of race and social injustice in America.
Spike Lee "Do the Right Thing" Analysis Essay
Spike Lee "Do the Right Thing" Analysis Essay. Spike Lee is famous for his attention to the problems of African-American people in the US. He expressed his deep concern through thorough and scrupulous work on his films, which were praised by critics and audience and honored with most prestigious awards. One of the first and most ...
Do the Right Thing
Ebert praises Do the Right Thing as a film that explores the tragic dynamic of racism, racial tension, and miscommunication in America. He admires Lee's style, ideas, and empathy for his characters, and criticizes the film's omission from the Oscars.
"Do The Right Thing": Analysis of The Film's Scene
This essay examines a pivotal scene from Spike Lee's film "Do the Right Thing", which explores the themes of race, class, and police brutality. It focuses on Mookie's transformation and his decision to align with his community, using cinematic elements such as framing, character positioning, and facial expressions.
Forming a Critical Sense of Race with Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing
How does Spike Lee's film challenge viewers' racial awareness and perspective? Media scholar Kelli Marshall explores how white and non-white audiences react differently to the characters of Sal and Mookie.
Do the Right Thing (1989)
A comprehensive analysis of Spike Lee's classic film about racial tension and violence in a Brooklyn neighborhood. Explore the cast, themes, motifs, questions, and ending of Do the Right Thing.
Provoking Reflection: "Do the Right Thing" Film Analysis
Spike Lee's 1989 film "Do the Right Thing" stands as a poignant subject for film analysis essay, offering a compelling and thought-provoking examination of racial tensions and societal intricacies within a Brooklyn neighborhood.
"Do the Right Thing" by Spike Lee: A Film Review Essay
The racial controversies depicted in Spike Lee's film Do the Right Thing are unfolded in a vivid form, which is depicted in the confrontation of characters and the opposition of love and hate. These virtues are portrayed as the two manifestations of distributing power in society, while hate representing bad people appears to dominate.
The Embodiment of Civil Rights Struggle in Do The Right Thing
This essay explores how Spike Lee's film Do The Right Thing depicts the civil rights struggle against racial profiling, police brutality, and discrimination. It analyzes the use of heat, sweat, music, and mise-en-scène to symbolize the racial tension and violence in the film.
The Enduring Urgency of Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing" at Thirty
In "Do the Right Thing," Lee depicts a different sort of division, one that's of deep political import but isn't directly dramatized: the apparent ideological division between Dr. Martin ...
Moral Dilemmas in "Do the Right Thing": a Critical Analysis
Essay Example: Spike Lee's seminal film "Do The Right Thing" remains a profound exploration of societal tensions, cultural identity, and moral ambiguity. Released in 1989, the film is set in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn on the hottest day of the summer, where simmering racial
"Do the Right Thing" Film by Spike Lee Essay (Critical Writing)
Nothing happens when one person protests against the photos, but a riot that ends with death starts when a group of people unites. Spike Lee created Do the Right Thing to reveal the effects of racial discrimination and stereotypes. In the film, he describes the life of a neighborhood that unites African-Americans and Italian-Americans.
Analyzing The Film Shot Do The Right Thing
A sample essay that provides an in-depth analysis of the film's visual style, portrayal of social and cultural issues, character development, narrative structure, reception, and lasting impact. The essay explores how the film reflects the sociopolitical climate of the late 1980s and challenges viewers to confront the complexities of race relations.
Do the Right Thing: Crash Course Film Criticism #6
Mainstream American films don't often tackle race and racism head-on, and when they do, they often end up trying to find easy answers. Which makes films lik...
What Makes Companies Do the Right Thing?
Their media analysis used the Factiva database to better understand the timing of company engagement with COVAX and to compare the interview findings with media reports. Business executives face no starker test of their leadership than when confronting the choice between capturing profits and saving lives.
The Movie "Do the Right Thing"
The Movie "Do the Right Thing" Essay. This controversial film illustrates one day of events in a black neighborhood. It shows the African American population's frustration with how they are being treated and how it elicits their reactions. The storyline also comments on other racial stereotypes, including Hispanics, Koreans, Italians, and ...
Do the right thing
Do the right thing Essay. Exclusively available on IvyPanda®. Do the right thing is a film that was authored and directed by Spike Lee in 1989. The film has been one of the most ground-breaking comedies and it exposes the simmering racial prejudices that dominated America at that time (Reid 3). Get a custom essay on Do the right thing.

Do The Right Thing: Summary, Analysis

Notes

Cast and Crew:

Further Reading:

Related Posts:

Do the Right Thing Analysis Essay by Spike Lee

Who is Spike Lee?

Setting the Scene: Welcome to Bed-Stuy

Main Characters: The Faces of the Neighborhood

The Plot: A Day in the Life That Changes Everything

Themes: The Heart of the Matter

Racism and Prejudice

Community vs. Outsiders

Police Brutality

Economic Inequality

The Power of Music

Cinematography: How the Movie Looks and Feels

Camera Angles

The “Spike Lee Dolly Shot”

Symbolism: Hidden Meanings

Radio Raheem’s “Love” and “Hate” Rings

The Ice Cubes

The Photos on the Wall

Controversy and Impact: Why It Matters

Starting Conversations

Representation in Film

Artistic Innovation

Ongoing Relevance

The Big Question: What is “The Right Thing”?

Legacy: How the Movie Lives On

In Film Studies

In Popular Culture

In Social Movements

For Spike Lee’s Career

Conclusion: Why You Should Watch (or Rewatch) “Do the Right Thing”

FAQs About “Do the Right Thing”

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Table of contents

Sal’s wall of fame

The ending of Do the Right Thing explained

The themes and meaning of Do the Right Thing

Racial tension

Ethics and morality

Community and identity

Why is the movie called Do the Right Thing ?

Important motifs in Do the Right Thing

Questions & answers about Do the Right Thing

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