Review Of Do The Right Thing By Spike Lee

Spike Lee’s films never fail to spark controversy in the filmgoing world due to constantly dealing with the delicate topic of race and by clearly portraying his pro-black view of the topic. His films point out the corruption of our world and realize the separation of our society, especially in the black culture. In his classic film, Do the Right Thing, he reveals the struggles of an interracial community that doesn 't get along with each other. The climax of the film is undoubtedly when Sal’s famous Pizzeria is vandalized and burned by the community after the police kill Radio Raham because of an aggressive confrontation in his shop.

Known for it’s provocative message, Spike Lee’s film Do the Right Thing (1989) direct’s the audiences attention toward police racism and violence. Spike Lee adds a dramatic flare to the movie through intense, colorful lighting and dialog. Characters in the movie fight for and against racial justice. The biggest argument of the movie is when a patron of a local pizza shop, Buggin Out (Giancarlo Esposito), believes that the pizza shop should have photos of African Americans along with the Italian Americans on the wall. The owner of the shop, Sal (Danny Aiello), disagrees.

When Major de Spain finds out about the ruined carpet he brings it to the father and tells him that he needs to wash it and give him some of his corn during harvest. The father is insecure about his inability to provide the best of everything for his family and he hates to be told what to do, especially by the wealthy. When they take the issue to court and he still has to pay part of the original price asked, the father acts out by setting fire to the barn. The father’s insecurity of being poor causes him to become angry and hard headed. He sets poor examples for his children, especially the boys and burns anyone’s barn that crosses

In the movie “Do the Right Thing” and Martin Luther King’s “A Letter from a Birmingham” compare in the aspect of focusing on the injustice that lies within the oppression of African American people within a Caucasian dominated society. In Martin Luther King’s Letter, Dr. King expresses the ideas of non-violent action being the action of choice in order to fight oppression of minority races in response to tension that is brewed within society between the Caucasian and African American races. In response to an individual labeling Dr. King as an “extremist” Dr. King merely replies with an explanation that he is a non-violent extremists in order to address the unjust laws that degrade the African American personality. To some degree, the movie

In the end, deception gets the best of one of the characters, leading to his demise. Although friendship is a partnership created in order to have understanding built upon trust and honesty,

Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, two authors, two activists who advocated different strategies to achieve a shared end, have since their deaths, transcended the local, pragmatic potency of their respective narratives of African-American resistance (Garrow, 1991). The film 's use of the metonymic figures “King” and “X” as well as the ethically divergent meta-narratives of which they are the cultural signifiers suffuses its dramatic structure with the ideological tension generated by the trope of “double-consciousness” (Garrow, 1991). The vehicle by which Do the Right Thing represents the black community reminding itself, so to speak, of the presence of these figures is the ubiquitous Smiley, a young man with cerebral palsy who earns money selling photographs of African-American heroes to his Bedford-Stuyvesant neighbors. The film calls attention to one image in particular: the famous photograph of King and Malcolm X shaking hands and smiling during their first and only meeting.

to the disdainful and vainglorious individual that incited the ultimate showdown betweenRadio Raheem and Sal. The book Framing Blackness by Ed Guerrero, depicts “Do the Right Thing” as agreat movie, important for making everyday racism the object of attention for a littlewhile. However, it criticizes the film in a way that I wasn’t expecting. It seems to havecontempt for the piece in the sense that the author believes that Spike Lee was doing thesame thing with sensitive issues that Hollywood has always done.

The film “Do The Right Thing” by Spike Lee has a lot of controversial issues in the New York community between different races. Each race tends to feel as though they deserve more recognition than the other, especially the African Americans. Throughout the movie we get to witness the stance amongst them dealing with their beliefs of being mistreated. This movie exhibits many different opinions, which cause uproar and riots to stir between many individuals. In this paper, I will discuss the concepts of violence and counter-violence as well as protest that occured in the movie.

Justyce is happy knowing that Manny was on his side, but he used to think differently. At the beginning of the book, Manny is pretty much clueless about what his friends are doing, putting up with their racist comments and actions. Justyce doesn't appreciate the fact that he's so ok with their behavior, as shown in the following quote, “These dudes disrespect you–disrespect us– all the time, and you never say anything about it. You just go along with whatever they say'' (Stone 72). Justyce and Manny both had different ways of dealing with racism at first, Justyce being more aware due to his experiences with police in the past, and Manny choosing to ignore it after putting up with his friends for so long.

The opening scene of Do The Right Thing, gives the audience a brief glimpse of several eccentric characters actions on the morning of a hot summer day in New York City. Although each shot appears unrelated, each of the characters exhibited will play a significant role in uniting or dividing the neighborhood they all inhabit during a riot which emmerges in the climax of the film. At its core, Do The Right Thing, directed by Spike Lee, is a film which explores race relations, following the lives and actions of several characters as a growing conflict emerges between the Italian-American and African-American residents of the community. Lee effectively builds tension throughout the film by following conventional narrative elements in some cases,

The African American Civil Rights movement existed at large between the early fifties and the late sixties in a society that was constantly on the verge of social destruction. The black rights movement existed politically, socially, and economically everywhere in the United States. As time progressed the movement developed and saw many changes along with schisms separating activists and how they approached getting their rights. In the early fifties there was a large non-violent integration based movement spearheaded by figures such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. However, as the time progressed, the movement started seeing a more aggressive leadership with figures such as Malcolm X, but eventually it turned into an extremist movement

Philosophical differences between martin luther king and malcolm X The philosophical differences between Martin Luther King and Malcolm X have to do with the their protest strategies. MLK never fought with violence. Although he would get physically attacked, he stood his ground and continued to fight for equality peacefully. King believed that whites and blacks should come together to end the hate and violence.

Title Sequence Analysis: Do The Right Thing Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing starts off right out of the gate with a soft and soothing saxophone playing in the background on a black screen. This delicate instrument only plays for merely half a minute then as the screen begins to open from the blackness viewers are pumped up by Public Enemy’s top hit, “Fight The Power.” This energetic song blares through the neighborhood of a Brooklyn, NY street with various silhouette poses from Rosie Perez flashing simultaneously.

Do you now dislike someone who was your friend before? Or do you have a friend whom you disliked before? Every type of relationship changes. The article “My enemy, My friend” mainly talked about Zelco’s changing relationship with Zoltan Dani who shot him down during the Bosnian-Serbian conflict. In other words, it illustrated how an enemy becomes a friend in the end.

Over the course of Malcolm X’s life, his perspective of identity changed, particularly before and after he went to Mecca. In the speech By Any Means Necessary Malcolm stated, “The time for you and me to allow ourselves to be brutalized non-violently is passe….Be non-violent only with those who are non-violent to you”(Malcolm X). Essentially, Malcolm X is implying that we should have the rights to defend ourselves from those who cause harm to us. Before Malcolm x went to Mecca, he believed that white supremacy could not be conquered through love, but only through vigorous self-defence (“By Any Means Necessary”) .