Throughout the film Do the Right Thing, we continuously observe racial conflict that builds up to such an extreme point that it leads to a fight for power. This movie portrays the struggles and realities of a neighborhood with white and black African American people. This can be seen in many instances for example when Buggin ' Out, Radio Raheem, and Smiley march into Sal 's and demand that Sal change the Wall of Fame. Another vital instance shows the height of power struggle. It is when the huge fight starts in the street and results in Raheem being killed by a white police officer.
The cause for all the tension in the movie can perhaps be attributed to the heat on this particular day, which ‘rises off the asphalt in quivering waves’. The temperatures were soaring high and the hottest day of the year, brought catastrophes with it. It was as if the tension was frozen and this heat let it all out. And thus all the emotions are opened wide and released.
Spike Lee the director creates character in such a way that they all have some sort of racist anger within them. Every interaction between the African American and the whites results in mounting tensions. Some openly threw out ethnic slurs, and barely suppressed the rage that festered within them waiting to come out at any moment. Lee does this in order to show that any small spark could result in a huge conflagration that could burn anything to the ground, be it relationships or friendships. This is the main focus of the
Do the Right Thing is a beautifully intense film directed by the talented Spike Lee, which revolves around the very diverse community of the Bedford-Stuyvesant district of Brooklyn on a hot summer Sunday. Throughout the entire film, characters are faced with obstacles and injustices that bring up the grand question of what the “right thing” even is. One scene in particular sums up the whole premise of the film into a concise and poetic speech spoken by the one and only Radio Raheem. This scene is imperative to have in the film as well as for the viewers. Without this scene, the film itself would not have the same impact and possibly the same message it has already given all of its spectators.
Spike Lee’s 1989 film Do the Right Thing is a great example about society and Individual racism. The movie takes place on a hot summer day in Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, and began with a sexy dance with Rosie Parize and a song in Public Enemy’s title: “ You got to fight the power, fight power, fight the power to be.” Then is the wake up call from Mister Señor Love Daddy. The society or the bigger racism is happening in Sal’s Pizzeria, owned by a family of Italians who have their own idea about the community. The vast majority of the customers of the pizzeria are black, and that becomes the source of the racial conflict. The first pick of the conflict is happening when Sal has been challenged by Buggin’ Out about why there is only Italians on the wall of fame. They yelled to each other about it for a while and the argue ended by Buggin’ Out leaving the pizzeria. But the spark has not extinct and the fuses of the next conflict have appeared. As Radio Raheem, who always carrying his boom
In the film, Do the Right Thing, director Spike Lee presents the audience with the theme of racism. The title represents the everyday choices that we as Americans of various ethnicities, cultures, and race. Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing allows the viewers to decide for themselves the right thing to do about racism. Everyone has the choice to be accepting of cultures, or people different from them. The film portrays how an Italian American named Sal has a neighborhood pizzeria in Bedford-Stuyvesant, New York. The neighborhood is primarily African American, but there is a diverse amount of other cultures made up of, Hispanics, European Americans, also there is a store owned by Koreans. This film displays the discrimination between the races and how this can lead to violence.
Spike Lee’s camera technique in “Do The Right Thing” enhances racial tensions between characters. uses a lot of canted frames, tracking shots, close-ups, high and low angles, parallelism, and music to achieve this. The heat wave going through Brooklyn is exemplified in many ways: on the radio, through discussion between characters, people’s dress, and actions, etc. Lee also uses cinematography to get across how hot this day really is. For example, the film begins with a montage of people in the neighborhood trying to cool off, struggling to get through their morning routines: a shot of someone taking a cold shower, cuts to a shot of someone sticking their face in ice, to someone sticking their head in the freezer, men drinking beer, someone
The film Do the Right Thing is a very relevant on issues of race. The film shows how there is tension between all races. The film shows racial tension between the communities in the hottest day of the year. The heat is a theme in the film. Heat in general gets people on edge and raises tension. The film relates to W.E.B. Dubois work “The Soul of Black Folk.” Dubois (1903) work includes the concepts of the veil and double consciousness. The African Americans in the film deal with the idea of a veil. Mookie the protagonist deals with the idea of double consciousness.
Both Lee and Singleton strive to give an authentic picture of how black youth interact with people of other races. For example, the Korean show owner from DO THE RIGHT THING saying: “I no white. I black, you, me, same. We same!” tells the black youth that other minorities in America have their own battles with civil injustice from white authority.
Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989) portrayed an important social problem of the time period – interracial rivalry. The movie was one of many ghetto action films made during the era. In the article “Producing Ghetto Pictures” by Craig Watkins, he says that the movies of the ghetto film cycle committed much of their storyline to that of the relationship between young, poor black males and the ghetto (170).
In spite of the fact that Do the Right Thing and Jungle Fever are both associated with social and political issues, they tend to navigate through various racial viewpoints using different cinematic elements. Spike Lee uses a variety of techniques in his film to bring awareness to events occurring in today's society. For example Do the Right Thing, is a film that tackles down the social issue of prejudice as well as the controversial issues between Italian-Americans and African Americans in New York City. The whole movie unravels around the “Wall of Fame” located inside Sal’s Pizzeria, which only features Italian actors. One day a local customer name Bugging Out, demands to have black actors, since after all the pizzeria is located within a black neighborhood. Soon enough the “Wall of Fame” becomes a symbolic representation of racism and hate which leads to a riot involving an explicit scene of police brutality. On the other hand Jungle Fever, tends to emphasise on the subject of interracial couples, as well as the controversy between Italian-Americans and African Americans and of course the usage of drugs. The movie is based on Flipper, an African American architect who has an affair with his secretary Angie, who is an Italian-American. The climax of the movie occurs when Flipper’s wife Drew, finds out about the affair and from then on society begins to reject Flipper and Angie because of social norms. Forcing them into a corner where they later learn that they were driven
During the end of the 3rd Century, the Playwright Plautus wrote many of the first Roman comedies. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is a musical comedy film adaptation of Plautus's comedies.Set in ancient Rome, many aspects of Roman theatre, including stock characters, were included in the film’s production. While the film is based off of multiple comedies, Plautus's Pseudolus character Calidorus is nearly identical to the film’s Hero. During the time Pseudolus was written, the Crisis of the Third Century led to up to 25% of Roman population being comprised of slaves(Southern). Of the many stock characters Platus included in his comedies, Calidorus/Hero, the son of Pseudolus’s owner and the stock character adulescens, best
In Spike Lee 's Do the Right Thing, the story takes places in 1989, another year in the long struggle for equality for African-Americans. The film portrays the racial tensions between locals of the neighborhood and an Italian-American family in the majority Black and Hispanic neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant (Bed-Stuy) in Brooklyn, New York. Spike Lee shows us what a day in the life of the Brooklyn neighborhood consists of and throughout the movie he portrays several different aspects of a modern urban neighborhood, using the many unique personalities of the characters in the movie.
Spike Lee’s movie “Do the Right Thing” portrays a time in American history when the post-civil rights movement was still fresh in everyone’s mind. It is 1989, and Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X have placed their stamp on the country. While MLK preached for peace, Malcom X wanted the people to fight back in self-defense. This movie portrays these two views side by side through several different scenes.
Do the Right Thing was filmed in the 80’s which is a new movie I have watched from those years. Spike Lee did a delightful job at showing portrayal of cultures, stenotypes, and racial issues in America. Do the Right Thing reflects what all races are dealing with in their lives. Therefore, throughout the movie, hip-hop culture dominates the setting as Raheem walks around with his loud music playing on the boombox. I think he should not have been a target to others because he was only living his life freely but in his own style. Several of my friends often had the same problem, who also are being harassed by others, because of their different lifestyle. When seeing this film. I found that Spike Lee puts an accentuation on the delicacy of a group
Spike Lee is an impeccable film director and actor. He receives a lot of backlash due to the topics he addresses in his films. Spike Lee is known for dealing with controversial issues within is film. Some of those issues depicted in his films were politics, urban violence, and racism. Spike Lee's famous films that displays these controversial issues are: A Spike Lee Joint, Bamboozled, and 25th hour, Do The Right Thing.
The most surprising part in the movie was that mark didn’t look how the book described him. Also
Spike Lee trains in on an imperative issue at African American culture and successfully paints the representation of a most exceedingly terrible conceivable situation. He requests that his gathering of people wake up. By giving his watchers a change to truly observe the lives of the youthful African American understudies. Demonstrating the battles of African American understudies in America, as well as inside their own grounds and social structures on an extraordinary level enables the producer to interface with his group of onlookers. This film is a genuinely legitimate