Do The Right Thing (1 Viewer)

[Rich Romero]

I just saw this for the first time. I have a few observations. What was Spike Lee's intention with this movie? I know the point would be that violence isn't the answer to racial prejudice. Also, why were blacks portrayed so horrible in this film? Why wouldn't he just turn his radio off? I see the fact that Sal had no hate until it was instilled in him by the behavior of the guy with the radio and the other (sorry I've forgotten the names). Sal's son called them animals. They acted like it when they completely destroyed his pizzeria when he had nothing to do with the murder. I just don't understand why Spike Lee would make his own race look so bad. I'm not a racist by any means but this is just the way I see it. Despite all these concerns, I really enjoyed the movie, especially the look of it. The movie made me almost FEEL the heat.

 

[Tino]

Oh you're gonna feel heat alright!

 

[Rich Romero]

I sure hope not. :frowning:

 

[Tino]

No offense Rich, but I believe many of the films messages were lost on you. The fact that you think they were acting like "animals" leads me to that conclusion. I don't think Spike made the black people in Do The Right Thing look bad at all. There are many deep issues in DTRT that may not be readily apparent on it's surface. I think its an amazing film.
Perhaps after the eventual responses that are sure to come, you will revisit this film with a better understanding....and then again, perhaps not.

 

[Lew Crippen]

Well, to slightly misquote someone, your question is “what is the movie about? ”, and then, “what is the movie really about?”

While I’m not sure that I know the answer to either question, I’ll make some observations. This is, in my mind, Spike Lee’s masterpiece. His tendency to over sentimentalize (as in Mo’ Better Blues) is not present in this movie. Also Lee does not tell us what to think or how we should view events. He does, in my mind, manipulate our feelings about certain events or people, but does so in a way that challenges our preconceptions and requires us to think about the issues.

I don't think Spike made the black people in Do The Right Thing look bad at all.

IMO, Spike is challenging all of his viewer and requiring all of us to consider our conceptions as to race relations. This is true not only of Radio Raheem, his radio and the manner of his death, but of very minor characters such as the yuppie with his bicycle who is moving into the brownstone and of Mookie’s girlfriend, Tina. Do whites view the yuppie and his intrusion into the block differently than blacks? Do Hispanics view Tina differently than blacks or whites? There is no easy answer to any of these questions, and these are only minor, side issues.

Spike presents all of the characters as they are, not as idealized representatives. Who among us does not know a Mookie, charming, lazy but perhaps attempting to face up to his responsibilities, just not today. We all know a Buggin’ Out, the firebrand who is constantly looking for specific incidents and individuals to blame for the injustices that have been a part of his life. And is likely to take action for all of these injustices about one thing. Or a Radio Raheem, probably not as smart as the rest, but one who goes through life with just a few requirements, one of which is the music that he prefers on his radio. Note that early in the movie Spike introduces us to how others on the block feel about his radio and music when he gets into a mano-a-mano shootout with a group listening to different music. The problem is resolved easily and everyone is satisfied with the outcome. In my view, all of this background is to prepare us for why he does not turn his radio down, and why from some viewpoints it is unreasonable to even ask to have it turned down. And this incident occurs at the end of a long, hot day.

None of the characters are perfect, with the possible exception of Mookie’s sister Jade. And even she plays up to Sal, something that Mookie dislikes in the extreme. And yet none of the characters are completely dislikable, with the possible exception of Sal’s oldest son, Vito. And even he has positive character traits.

In short all of the characters are presented for us with the things that make them strong and weak, things that we like and dislike and things that we admire and despise. Real people, not idealizations. And it is probable that each of us finds different things that we like and admire and dislike and despise in each of the characters.

And in the incidents that the characters precipitate.

We are left to draw our own conclusions as to the characters, their motivations and actions, and to the various incidents in the movie, especially its conclusion.

It is my observation that whites generally view the burning of the pizzeria as more shocking than the killing of Radio Raheem and that blacks generally understand how that killing resulted in the riot. And most blacks have a hard time with why whites are not absolutely outraged at the death of an individual and appear to consider property more important, while whites are unable to get the connection between Raheem’s death and Sal. And many feel, that Sal himself is racist.

If you are having a hard time with the intent of this movie, that is not unexpected, especially after only one viewing. This is a complex movie, with complex characters and requires repeated viewings. If you have the Criterion edition, the commentary and extras will help. But even here Danny Aiello’s view of Sal is much different than Spike Lee’s. Which means that even the filmmaker and the actors can completely answer the question as to “what is this movie really about?”

I highly recommend the Criterion version (which may be the one you watched) of this film. Great commentary and extras, some of which may help in understating the film.

But it is only repeated viewing and thought that will lead you to what you think the film is about. Clearly Spike Lee has achieved at least one of his objectives insofar as you are concerned, in that you are wondering “why?” And this by the way, is what many of us who saw this film when it was first released discussed far into the evening, usually still in some disagreement at the end.

Good luck.

 

[Eric Franklin]

IMO everyone (especially the cops and except for The Doctor and Sal's youngest son) acted like animals in this scene. Everyone let their anger and hate get the best of them.

 

[Richard Travale]

the cops and except for The Doctor and Sal's youngest son

Do you mean "The Mayor"?

 

[Matt Pelham]

I think he means "Da Mayor".

 

[Todd Terwilliger]

I agree with everything said above. This film definitely requires multiple viewings. A few thoughts:

The heat is both literal and figurative. There is a tension brewing in the neighborhood that boils over with the killing of Radio Raheem and the destruction of Sal's restaurant.

The fault that runs through most of the characters is the fault of exclusion. The blacks don't want the yuppie in the neighborhood. The Koreans (I think) don't want the blacks in their store. Sal doesn't want the blacks on his wall. The Hispanics don't want to hear Raheem's music, etc. Just as Raheem refuses to turn his radio down so does Sal refuse to give in on his wall.

Everyone is at fault. Or nobody is. Can we live together peacefully in a neighborhood or can't we? Was it just the heat or was it something else?

Watch it again.

 

[Tom Ryan]

I also caught this film for the first time on last night's airing on IFC. Very well done. I don't think Spike Lee portrayed blacks any differently than he knows them; I don't doubt that the folk living in Brooklyn do act like that. And to an extent they did act like animals. But Spike shows you their plight and to some extent why they act the way they do. They are rude and hostile to outsiders from different races, but isn't that the way they've been treated, too?

 

[Eric Franklin]

LOL!!! Yes, I do mean "The Mayor". I guess i thought "The Doctor" 'cause "doctor" is what he calls everyone.

 

[Tom Ryan]

The fault that runs through most of the characters is the fault of exclusion. The blacks don't want the yuppie in the neighborhood. The Koreans (I think) don't want the blacks in their store. Sal doesn't want the blacks on his wall. The Hispanics don't want to hear Raheem's music, etc. Just as Raheem refuses to turn his radio down so does Sal refuse to give in on his wall.

I agree with this, but I thought Sal did the right thing in almost every circumstance. Buggin' Out and Radio Rahim didn't have the common sense to respect Sal's place of business. To realize that the pizza parlor is Sal's place, and therefore what he says goes. Radio Raheem was childlishly protective of his boombox and didn't realize that he was in the wrong by forcing his music on Sal in his own restaurant. I think a lot of this is because most of these people are youngsters, even children. Disrespect is typical of people this age. Anyways, I thought Sal's only big mistake was smashing Raheem's radio. Not a good thing.

On another note, was Raheem's death supposed to be accidental? It looked that way, but everyone was proclaiming that he was murdered. Was Spike Lee trying to make a point with that?

 

[Seth Paxton]

I'd say something, but Lew already did. Good post.
Hopefully that helped Rich. I think many of us see the film that way.
IIRC, most races who did see the film had reactions a bit like yours (assuming your race here). Instead of walking in the other's shoes (as we might guess Spike's intent was) they just identified with their race and saw the other actions as "wrong".
Blacks thought Sal had it coming, whites thought Mookie, or Buggin Out, etc were jerks, and so on.
As I said, my guess is that we are supposed to see how confusing and somewhat "blameless" racism can be. Who is right? Everyone and no one.
I've mentioned in other threads about films that often midway through the film the MAIN THEME is portrayed in dialog. In this case it's the sequence of racist complaints followed by Sam Jacksons "STOP! You all need to chill out." (or something like that)
To me that plays more like Spike saying "yes, we understand that you each have these issues and there might even be some truth behind them, but just LET IT GO ALREADY."
I think it's the only solution to the problem because "right" and "wrong" are far too confused in the matter to find a solution by "Doing the right thing". We don't know what the right thing is if we consider all sides of things.

 

[LaMarcus]

This is a great discussion.
Lew, Seth great post.
To add on to what you said. That movie came out in what 88' 89'? And life imitated art in the riots of L.A when they did the same thing. Those stores in L.A didn't have anything to do with the verdict either, buy yet and still...
I used to have that type of mind set coming from that life and those types of neighborhoods. You feel like you don't have nothin, and you'll do some dumb $#!t to vent your anger and show your pain. There's no logic in tearing up your own neighborhood to express your feelings. Since you'll still be there once the flames dies out. But at the same time when your doing it you feel like this is not really our neighborhood anyway, we don't own none of this stuff. If Sal didn't break Raheem's radio then, the police wouldn't have killed Raheem. That's the missed up logic you have in the ghetto, never mind Raheem should'nt have had his black ass in there in the first place. But Yo, that's just the thought process when you live in a fcuked up environment. And untill you make it out of that environment like I did, you don't see how messed up it really was. And until you live in that environment you won't understand how you would do the same thing too.

 

[Brian W.]

My take on this film has always been linked to the title. It's not only a plea to us, it's a plea to all the characters in the film, because nobody does the right thing.

I see the fact that Sal had no hate until it was instilled in him

Oh? Maybe. But let's not forget Sal's response when his son complains about their clientele. I haven't seen the movie for a few years, but he says something to the effect that he can't say anything bad about them because they're his bread and butter. This isn't quite respect.

And notice that all through the film the black customers were on the side of Sal until he used the word "nigger." They thought Buggin' Out's boycott was ridiculous, they were shouting at Radio Raheem, "Turn it down, man!" Then the second Sal used that word, they turned on him, because it was a word that also insulted them, whether Sal intended it to or not. As an analogy, I think most women would be livid at hearing another woman called a "c**t" -- it wouldn't matter what the woman had done, it's just a word that no woman should be called.

I think Spike Lee portrayed everyone in somewhat of a bad light in the film, with the exception of his sister and the retarded guy: the guy that threw a fit because the white guy accidentally marked up his new sneakers, the bitchy old Mother Sister, the alcholic bum Da Mayor (who ironically turned out to be the wisest person in the film at the crucial moment -- notice it's he the who has to restrain the previously sensible and no-nonsense Ruby Dee as she shouts in hysteria, "Burn it down!" (But if you want true irony, I know a guy who took an acting class from Ruby Dee in New York, and he said she was such a terrible alcoholic that Ozzie Davis had to take over the class for her.)

Spike's character is awful in some ways -- he's incredibly irresponsible, does the wrong thing by his girlfriend and does the wrong thing by starting the riot. But he has that line to Sal at the end: that Sal is more upset by his fully insured pizarria being burned down than he is by the fact that a young man was killed by the police in front of his eyes. (John Singleton did something similar in "Higher Learning" -- a white girl is raped by a white boy, the girl's black friend confronts him and the white boy calls the black girl a name; the black girl goes to get her tough black boyfriend and tells him the whole story; he goes and beats up the white guy, but, we find out, not for raping the white girl -- he beats him up for calling his girlfriend a name.)

Everyone hates everyone in this movie. The Korean store owners hate the black customers, the old black men on the street corner hate the Korean immigrants -- but it's pointed out that one of them is an African immigrant.

It's a film of "if onlys": if only the weather hadn't been so hot, if only Buggin' Out hadn't been so flipipant when he asked Sal to put up some pictures of black celebrities, if only the other kids in the neighborhood had agreed to join in his boycott (if they had, Radio Raheem would never have barged into Sal's place to make his demands), if only Raheem had not had his radio blastic, if only Sal had either called the police and had Raheem removed, instead of smashing his radio, or asked him to leave (which he never does, by the way), if only, if only...

It's not intended to be a film that leaves you with a settled feeling. It asks a million questions and never answers them, because it's honest. (Though partly due to Danny Aiello -- he said in an interview at the time that he asked Spike Lee if he could write his own dialog, because Lee's original script made Sal out to be too much of a villain, and to his credit Lee allowed it.)

Wait a few weeks or months and watch it again, Rich. I found it a bit upsetting the first time I saw it, too, but upon viewing it a few years later, I spent the whole movie saying, "I never noticed that." Things that I thought made some of the black characters look really bad, that when viewing it again, made me think, "Now how could I have thought that about this character the first time? How could I have missed that?"

 

[Bryant Trew]

I wish I had the time to really respond to this thread, but from what I've read so far, I think everyone has got it wrong. You have the concept of "Do The Right Thig." But exactly what is doing the right thing? Spike Lee planted scenario after scenario where it is impossible to say that one person is entirely right or wrong. You could take everyone from Sal right on down to Radio Raheem. While many of you have judged these characters as being right or wrong, I think that upon subsequent viewings and greater understanding you'll find that no one was right or wrong. No one was perfect. No one was guilt free. That is essentially what life is, and Spike does a masterful job of using race as a canvass. There is a whole lot of grey, instead of the black and white we try to see in life, and Do The Right Thing presents so many beautiful contradictions for us to think about.

 

[Mike Broadman]

Why did Radio Raheem refuse to turn down the radio? Why did Buggin' Out demand pictures of prominent black people to be placed on the walls of the pizeria?

To them, it was a form of protest. Yes, of course it was silly. But they felt powerless to effect anything on a larger scale or on more important matters (one could argue that this is because education is not important in their lives for various reasons), so they rebelled in these trivial ways.

Sal is not a diplomat, he is an average Joe. It would be a rare person who could recognise and handle the situation correctly.

What a brilliant film. I need to pick up that Criterion!

Do The Right Thing, Jungle Fever, and Malcolm X are his masterpieces, IMO. I have not seen Mo' Better Blues or that one about basketball. I thought Bamboozled was a good idea and had the potential and talent to be something special, but it got lost within itself.

Lee is arguably the most important film maker in the business.

 

[CharlyD]

Don't forget about "4 Little Girls", Spike's excellent documentary regarding a church bombing in the south.

BTW - I've always felt Sal brought alot of trouble upon himself with the "You do what you gotta do" line. The riot seemed inevitable at that point.

 

[Tom Ryan]

It bothers me a bit how much I WASN'T bothered by the death of Radio Raheem's character. I guess it stems from the fact that I just plain didn't like the character. I mean, I liked how he was written but I didn't like the guy! He was overbearing and rude. In a film, when someone like that dies, you're used to not caring. In real life it would be different. I was surprised when he was about to die and I wanted the police to let him go so he could live, but when he did die I couldn't help but think it was the consequences of his own actions that got him there (assuming the police didn't kill him on PURPOSE). I dunno.

 

[Matt Pelham]

The most brilliant thing about this movie is how it plays so differently to each individual. Overbearing and rude to you perhaps, but to others he was much more than that. A leader possibly? I agree that it takes several viewings to fully appreciate Spike's multi-layered masterpiece. One of the rare movies that is immensely entertaining yet gives you a lot to think about.