Do the Right Thing
Spike Lee’s Do the right thing provides a vibrant, energy filled and enjoyable slice of life look into a black neighbourhood in the 80s, while also providing an important and pertinent commentary on racism and police brutality. It is a film that sadly still holds up today with its key themes.
The clever use of colour and camera work to make you really feel the heat is very impressive and it is almost used as the main character in driving the film forward, as it gets hotter and hotter the tensions keep rising.
The dialogue between the characters feel very natural but they’re clearly well planned out as most conversations end up having some level of importance. The characters are also well written and likeable and the film slowly builds towards its final act where every storyline comes to a head and it all starts to make sense.
To me Sal not having any black people on his wall is an important metaphor, for him, and by extension society as well, not treating black people equally. In this metaphor Sal allows black people into his restaurant to eat but he won’t allow them onto the wall to celebrate their achievements, he will take their money but he still sees them as lesser. They have a “seat at the table” but that’s still not enough until they are truly treated equally and given the same opportunities and respect.
The example of police brutality in the murder of Radio Raheem is so disturbing and yet so familiar still to the world we live in today. Not just the violence of it but the casualness after he’s dead, the police literally kicking his lifeless body and then stuffing him into the back of the car, ridding him of any dignity and not allowing his friends to mourn over him. This then leads to a riot, with Mookie, played by Spike Lee, being the inciter. This has lead a lot of people to question whether he “did the right thing” whether he should’ve started this riot or calmed the crowd down as to not lead to more violence.
This dichotomy is the discussion at the centre of the film and it is epitomised by the two quotes from Malcom X and Martin Luther King at the end of the movie, where King says that “Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral”, whereas Malcom says “I don’t even call it violence when it is self defence, I call it intelligence.” The two key arguments of the debate of how you should respond to injustice. This is supposed to make you question where you stand on this debate, is violence the answer or do you solve it peacefully?
This is relevant to just a few years ago during the Black Lives Matter protests, despite the majority peaceful protests, people were criticising the protestors who were violently protesting as it’s not the “right way to protest,” and they didn’t think that was the best way to get change. However, when people are being treated unjustly, should you be trying to control peoples reactions and does a few burned and looted buildings really matter compared to the loss of life?
While the ending seems a bit unsatisfying, as the film does wonderfully to make you really feel a part of this community it then tears it all down and leaves us with no real resolution and just shows the start of the next day after all the riots and how life on the street will just carry on. But this is purposeful and it is poignant as this community will still have to pick itself up and carry on, as this has all probably happened before and will happen again. As Sam Jackson’s DJ, the all seeing eye of the film, says to end the film, there is no end in sight for this heatwave.
The film is obviously challenging viewers to think about the state of racism and police brutality in America, and it makes you consider what you can do and how you can respond and the consequences of that. It is questioning what the “right thing” is, should you be passive or should you take action and take matters into your own hands.