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 Malcolm X. The movie is set in a predominantly black 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 Seor Love Daddy, and Sals Pizzeria, run by ItalianAmerican Sal and his two sons, Vito and Pino. There is hateful stereotyping between every 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. He moves relatively peacefully between the races and urges
people to try to get along. 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 persuading people to boycott the pizzeria, but he does
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 sells pictures of Malcolm X and Dr. King, go into the
store. Raheem plays his radio as loud as he can and says 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 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

Emily Fox
Blue Group
picture of Martin Luther King and 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
the audience with the question of who is right.
Part B Historical Analysis
The film Do the Right Thing is accurate in its portrayal of racial tension, police distrust, and the
attitude towards disabled people in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
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. A 1987 article 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 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 around which the film is
centered, 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 glares of the police and the men to show the
distrust between them. The glares continue until the police are well down the road. Its premonitory; in a
later scene, the same police officer strangles Radio Raheem to death, just because he can. This police
brutality towards blacks especially is a problem that was imminent back then and is still a problem today.
The killing of Raheem is actually based off of the killing of Michael Stewart, who was arrested for
writing graffiti on the subway walls and then strangled to death.
Do the Right Thing features a disabled man, Smiley, to whom the neighborhood is nice 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

Emily Fox
Blue Group
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.
Part C Impact
The ideas and questions brought up in Do the Right Thing increased awareness of racism but they
are ideas that we are still struggling with today. One of the questions that the audience is left with at the
end of the movie is whether violence is ever appropriate to use. The death of Radio Raheem is
disturbingly similar to the recent killings of Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, and Eric Garner. Violence
that pursues in Ferguson is surrounded with questions of whether peace should be kept after an injustice
has been done. The movie is referenced in news coverage today. About a protest in Ferguson that director
Spike Lee attended, he said, "It was diverse New Yorkers. Black, white, brown, Asian all chanting black
lives matter' ... And a lot of young peopleYou know, young people in this generation gets a bad rap.
Theyre the ones that are leading this. So watching you inspired me to get out there with these young
women and men and be a part of this" (huffingtonpost.com).
In one scene, Radio Raheem tells the struggle between love and hate with his rings. Radio
Raheems rings represent the struggle for black equality using nonviolence versus self-defense. Lee has
said about the topic of the violence that occurred in the film, White people still ask me why Mookie
threw the can through the window. No black person ever, in twenty years, no person of color has ever
asked me why (thenation.com, Greene and Tinson). People get angry, frustrated, and its hard to choose
the side of love and forgiveness when someone has been killed. But a quote at the end of the movie by Dr.
Martin Luther King sums it up. The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. It is immoral
because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather
than to convert.

Emily Fox
Blue Group

Works Cited
"The Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990." EEOC. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Apr.
2015.
Greene, Viveca, and Chris Tinson. "'Do the Right Thing': Still a Racial
Rorschach at 20." The Nation. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Apr. 2015.
Sterbenz, Christina. "New York City Used To Be A Terrifying Place." Business
Insider. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Apr. 2015.
Gross,Jane."WITNESSSAYSOFFICERUSEDACHOKEHOLDONSTEWART'SNECK."New
YorkTimes.N.p.,n.d.Web.27Apr.2015.
"SpikeLee:'IDon'tKnowWhatTheGrandJuryWasLookingAt.'"HuffPost
BlackVoices.N.p.,n.d.Web.27Apr.2015.