Spike Lee: Do the Right Thing Essay

Director and actor Spike Lee presents his "truth" about race relations in his movie Do the Right Thing. The film exhibits the spectacle of black discrimination and racial altercations. Through serious, angry, and loud sounds, Lee stays true to the ethnicity of his characters, all of which reflect their own individualism. Lee uses insulting diction and intense scenes to show how severe racism can lead to violence. The biases reflected through Do the Right Thing model those of today which has kept society in a constant feud for so long. In Oprah Winfrey's dynamic episode, "The Color of Fear", Mr. Mun Wah projects his strong opinion when he states, " . . . that racism is still going on today, that we've got to stop to hear the anguish

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 Do the Right Thing focuses on scenes representing failed communication, dire stereotyping, absence of trust, and wrongful violence that reflects the existing concerns about racism in America. The intense language and strong gestures enhance the film creating a realistic view for the audience.

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

Spike is no stranger to controversy due to the elements he uses in his films. Most of Lee’s films consist of an African American theme and inspect the issues of race relations, political issues, urban crime and violence. His 2nd film he made Do the Right Thing (1989) explored all of these issues. He also explored the issues of family/father & relationships in his films Crooklyn (1994), Get on the Bus (1996) and He Got Game (1998). In his films School Daze (1988), Do The Right Thing (1989), Jungle Fever (1991), Get on the Bus (1996), Summer of Sam (1999) and Bamboozled (2000) he included the issues circulating around racism. Another issue he explores is black female sexuality which is in the films She’s Gotta Have It (1986), Girl 6 (1996) and She Hates Me (2004).

These different ethnic relations are racially divide because it depends on someone's believe towards a race. In the film Do the Right Thing, written, directed by Spike demonstrates how social class, culture, and race can affect the way people interact with each other. For example, Buggin’ Out who is an African-American sees that the pizzeria's “Wall of Fame” and he is offended that the wall only has pictures of Italian “white” important people. The important wall becomes a symbol of racism and hate to the

It is unfortunate that intolerance continues to exist in our nation (or anywhere else for that matter). Racism, one of the largest and most prevalent forms of intolerance, commonly destroys relationships and can eventually lead to violence. The existence of such hateful ideologies is so prevalent in our society that popular culture is constantly trying to challenge the ignorant basis of racial conflict. Spike Lee’s film, Do the Right Thing, connects with this concept of racial conflict that is so foreign to my past. Through the application of my social and political views, I will demonstrate how Spike Lee’s film is difficult for me to relate to and, in my opinion, conveys a misleading message.

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.

Overall, BOYZ N THE HOOD AND DO THE RIGHT THING showcase the dysfunction among inner-city blacks during the 1990’s. Both films have something to say about Amercian society, and have a message (or warning) to other black men. Society views young black inner-city men as a lost cause, their only hope for success is to strive for something better. To succeed these men must avoid the temptations of the ‘hood, and get an education and motivate

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

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.

The movie Do the Right Thing, composed, coordinated and created by Spike Lee, concentrates on a solitary day of the lives of racially differing individuals who live and work in a lower-class neighborhood in Brooklyn New York. Notwithstanding, this common day happens on one of the most sizzling days of summer. The movie fixates on how social class, race and the ethical choices that the characters make directly affect the way individuals communicate with each other. Furthermore, in this essay I will analyses Spike Lee’s use of mise-en-scene, cinematography, editing, and sound in the film.

Spike Lee's 1989 film Do the Right Thing is able to effectively explore the problem of racial conflict in America by skilfully manipulating cinematic devices such as staging, narrative, cinematography, editing and sound. The concentration and emphasis on characters' certain physical attributes with the use of photography and camera framing, the fast pace editing style and manipulation of sound all contribute to film's overall meaning. In analysing the short sequence beginning with a small girl drawing a chalk painting on the road and ending with Sal, the local pizzeria owner, making Radio Raheem, "a hulking misunderstood home-boy" , two slices of pizza, these devices are seen to illustrate the hostility between Black and Italian working

In the film “Do The Right Thing” by Spike Lee, cinematography and editing serve as critical components to emphasize the racial tensions between the various characters. Set in a predominantly black neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York, the action of the film consists of a series of unfolding events that take place over the