Emily Fox

Blue Group
Cinematic Analysis Do the Right Thing
Part A - Summary
Do the Right Thing by Spike Lee is a commentary on the contrasting views of Martin Luther
King and Malcom X. The movie is set in a black-dominated neighborhood in Brooklyn, on a blistering
hot day in summer where the heat brings racial tensions to a head.
Three businesses control the street a grocery store run by a Korean-American couple, a radio
station run by African-American DJ Mister Senor Love Daddy,, and Sals Pizzeria, run by ItalianAmerican Sal and his two sons, Vito and Pino. There is hateful stereotyping between from every race to
every other race, as demonstrated in a scene in which a member of each ethnicity shouts their strongest
insult at a member of the other. Pino, played by John Turturro, is especially racist, but the audience learns
later that he feels uncomfortable in a black neighborhood because of his lack of self-confidence. Mookie,
played by Spike Lee, is the only black employee at Sals. His sister, Jade, thinks that he lacks
responsibility, especially with his son that he fathered with his Puerto-Rican girlfriend, Tina. Two of
Mookies friends are Radio Raheem,, known for carrying a boom box playing the Public Enemy song
Fight the Power around the neighborhood and Buggin Out,, who has a short temper and coke bottle
glasses. While getting a slice from Sal's, Buggin Out notices that on the "Wall of Fame", there are only
Italian-American actors on the wall, even though almost all of Sal's customers are black. After telling Sal
that he will organize a boycott of the pizzeria, he gets kicked out. Buggin Out isn't successful in getting
persuading people to boycott the pizzeria, but he does get persuade Radio Raheem, who got in a spat with
Sal over playing his radio too loud in the restaurant. They, along with mentally-disabled Smiley, who gets
money from selling pictures of Malcom X and Dr. King, go into the store. Raheem plays his radio as loud
as he can and they say that they wont turn off the volume until they get some brothers up on the wall.
Sal, enraged, takes his baseball bat and smashes the radio to the ground. Everything goes downhill Sal
and Raheem get in a huge fight in which the police come and kill Raheem. The neighborhood is stunned
by the injustice; and uncharacteristically, Mookie, in rage, throws a trash can through the window of
Sals. This triggers the crowd; Sals is set on fire and burned to the ground. Smiley pins his picture of
Martin Luther King and Malcom Malcolm X to the wall. The next morning, debris is everywhere and the
neighborhood wakes up to another scorching day. At the end of the film, two quotes roll down the screen
one from Martin Luther King, that explains that an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind, and
Malcolm Xs says that violence should not be considered violence if its self-defense. Spike Lee leaves
who is right ambiguous, and it is up to the audience to decide.
Part B Historical Analysis
The film Do the Right Thing is accurate in its portrayal of the attitude towards disabled people,
police distrust, and racial tensions in the late 80s/early 90s.
Do the Right Thing features a disabled man, Smiley, who the neighborhood is nice to and
protects. When Pino gets mad and starts yelling at Smiley, the audience hears calls of Hey, stop that!
and You know hes not right in the mind. This is accurate to the era, as in 1990, just a year after the
release of the film, The Americans with Disabilities Act was passed by Congress. This law was the
nation's first comprehensive civil rights law addressing the needs of people with disabilities, prohibiting
discrimination in employment, public services, public accommodations, and telecommunications
(eeoc.gov). The passage of this law shows that people had open attitudes to people with disabilities, just
as in the movie.
The film is centered on tensions between races set in Brooklyn. Racial slurs are thrown around
freely throughout the movie to demonstrate the extent of polarization that has occurred within the
neighborhood. In an article in from 1987 it says that, there is a widespread perception that racial tension
in the New York area has increased markedly in the last several months, according to interviews with

Emily Fox
Blue Group
dozens of residents and experts in the field and the findings of a poll by The New York Times
(nytimes.com, Freedman).
Racial profiling, police brutality and distrust are some of the topics that the film is centered
around, and these problems are still seen today. In one of the scenes, the police drive by three black men
sitting on chairs by the road. The camera zooms in on the polices and the mens glares to show the hate
between them. The glares continue until the police are well down the road. Its well deserved; in a later
scene, the same police officer strangles Radio Raheem to death, just because he can. At this time (1989),
jails were filled with predominantly black people. There were huge problems with blacks and the law
enforcement (storify.com).
Part C -