Do the Right Thing (film)
"Do the Right Thing" is a 1989 film written, directed, and produced by Spike Lee, notable for its exploration of racial tensions in a Brooklyn neighborhood during a sweltering summer day. The story unfolds primarily around Sal, an Italian American pizza shop owner, and his delivery worker Mookie, portrayed by Lee himself, as they navigate the complexities of race relations amidst mounting neighborhood tensions. Key characters include Buggin' Out, who demands representation of African Americans in Sal's restaurant decor, and Radio Raheem, whose refusal to lower his music volume sparks a violent confrontation.
Using a mix of expressionistic cinematography and a powerful soundtrack featuring Public Enemy's "Fight the Power," the film captures the chaos and emotional undercurrents of the community. It contrasts ideologies of civil rights leaders Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., through its characters and themes. The film concludes ambiguously, leaving viewers to ponder the moral implications of Mookie's actions in response to escalating violence. While "Do the Right Thing" received critical acclaim, earning nominations for two Academy Awards, it also significantly influenced subsequent socially conscious urban dramas. The film remains a poignant commentary on race, community, and the struggle for justice in America.
Do the Right Thing (film)
Identification Influential African American film
Director Spike Lee
Date Released June 30, 1989
Written, directed, and produced by Spike Lee, Do the Right Thing brought into focus racial tensions throughout the United States in the 1980’s through its raw dialogue and expressionistic style.
Key Figures
Spike Lee (1957- ), film director
Do the Right Thing was the third feature-length film writen, directed, and produced by Spike Lee. Born in Atlanta and nicknamed Spike by his mother Mary, Shelton Jackson Lee was raised in the Bedford-Stuyvesant (Bed-Stuy) neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, where the action of Do the Right Thing takes place. Lee received a B.A. in mass communications from Morehouse College, a private, all-male, historically African American, liberal arts college in Atlanta before earning an M.F.A. in film from New York University in 1982.
Plot Summary and Major Themes
Do the Right Thing opens in the early morning of what is predicted to be the hottest day of the summer. Radio deejay Mister Señor Love Daddy (Samuel L. Jackson), who serves as narrator, sets the scene. One by one, audience members are introduced to the neighborhood’s residents, including Sal (Danny Aiello), an Italian American who owns a local pizza parlor. He operates the restaurant with his two sons, the domineering Pino (John Tuturro) and Vito (Richard Edson), the frequent target of Pino’s abuse. Mookie (Spike Lee), a likable slacker, delivers pizzas for Sal and scrounges to earn enough money to take care of his Puerto Rican girlfriend Tina (Rosie Perez) and their infant son Hector (Travell Lee Toulson).
Despite changes in the racial and ethnic makeup of the block, Sal’s Pizzeria has remained a fixture in the neighborhood. Its proprietor takes great pride in the fact that his food has nourished the residents of the block over the years. Pino, however, harbors resentment toward many members of the community and would prefer to close up shop. Tensions rise when a young African American, Buggin’ Out (Giancarlo Esposito), threatens to boycott the restaurant unless Sal puts some photographs of African Americans on the restaurant’s walls, which currently display famous Italian Americans. Buggin’ Out’s confrontational black nationalism is balanced by the peacekeeping tendencies of the patriarch of the street, Da Mayor (Ossie Davis), a benign old drunk.
In many ways, the characters of Buggin’ Out and Da Mayor embody the divergent philosophies of two prominent civil rights activists from the 1960’s: Malcolm X, who advocated the use of violence for self-protection, and Martin Luther King, Jr., who supported strategies of nonviolence. Throughout the film, a mentally retarded African American man named Smiley (Roger Guenveur Smith) tries to sell photographs of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., to various people on the block. Most view Smiley as a pest and try to ignore him, perhaps suggesting that the messages of the two slain civil rights heroes have also been largely ignored.
Tempers reach the boiling point when an African American man, Radio Raheem, nicknamed for the huge portable stereo he supports on his shoulders, refuses to turn down his music as he orders a slice of pizza at Sal’s. The song that blares from his box is “Fight the Power” by the politically aware 1980’s rap group Public Enemy. This song, which calls for an active resistance by African Americans to white cultural hegemony, serves as an aural motif throughout the film. Its aggression is tempered, however, by the mellifluous jazz score composed by Bill Lee, Spike’s father, that rounds out the film’s softer moments.
Radio Raheem, who wears gold jewelry that spells out LOVE across the knuckles of one hand and HATE across the other, eventually has his radio completely demolished by Sal’s baseball bat. The scene quickly turns chaotic. Caucasian police arrive on the scene and, in their attempt to restrain Radio Raheem, choke him to death with a nightstick. Upon witnessing this, Mookie, who has been advised by Da Mayor to “always do the right thing,” picks up a trash can and throws it through the front window of Sal’s Pizzeria, inciting a riot that leads to the total destruction of the restaurant.
As the sun rises on the next day, Sal and Mookie make a tenuous reconciliation. The film closes by zooming in on a photograph of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X on the charred wall of Sal’s restaurant. Finally, quotations encapsulating each leader’s philosophy are slowly scrolled down the screen. The film does not suggest whether or not Mookie did the right thing by smashing Sal’s window, nor does it suggest which civil rights leader’s message bears the greater truth.
Stylistic Innovations and Awards
While the film provides an unflinching, realist portrayal of racial tensions, its overall style is better described as expressionistic. Shooting on location, Lee transformed several city blocks by painting Brooklyn brownstones with bright, hot colors. In terms of cinematography, the film makes use of striking canted angles that contribute to the mood of chaos and uncertainty. Do the Right Thing also contains an innovative montage in which characters of various races and ethnicities spew out a litany of racial epithets as if in direct response to a viewer’s provocation.
While Do the Right Thing won several important critics’ awards, including those of the New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles film critics’ associations, it received only two Academy Award nominations: Danny Aiello was nominated for Best Supporting Actor and Spike Lee for Best Original Screenplay. Neither Aiello nor Lee took home the Oscar.
Impact
Do the Right Thing helped pave a path for socially conscious urban dramas such as Boyz ’N the Hood (1991) and Menace II Society (1993). These films were written and directed by African American filmmakers John Singleton and Albert and Allen Hughes, respectively. In the ensuing decade, Lee continued to make edgy films about provocative subjects, such as his essay on interracial relationships, Jungle Fever (1991), and the biopic Malcolm X (1992).
Bibliography
Fuchs, Cynthia, ed. Spike Lee Interviews . Oxford: University Press of Mississippi, 2002. Collects twenty-two interviews on topics including race, politics, and the media.
Guerrero, Ed. Do the Right Thing. London: British Film Institute, 2002. Focuses on Spike Lee’s representation of race in Do the Right Thing and the rise of multicultural voices in filmmaking.
Reid, Mark A., ed. Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing.” Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1997. This volume from the Cambridge Film Handbooks series contains essays that analyze Do the Right Thing from a variety of perspectives, as well as reviews by influential critics.