Is “Do the Right Thing” a “black movie?”
Its director Spike Lee is an African American who has long made films about race and politics, is very outspoken about the lack of black actors and roles in Hollywood movies, closed this film with two quotes from Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X and even made a biopic on the latter.
Hollywood knows how to market a movie like “Do the Right Thing” today, if it could even be made. And Lee has attained a label that colors (for lack of a better word) his films for better or worse.
But “Do the Right Thing” is non-partisan and unified in the way it depicts a whole melting pot of a community that doesn’t actually melt together, only simmers. Its blacks, Mexicans and Asians are no more admirable than the racist whites. Everyone shows hate and anger, but everyone has their problems and their reasons. No one party is strictly immune or antagonized.
The brilliance in Spike Lee’s film is that he led us to believe that this was a small-scale story about a misguided community, one he depicted with disappointment, but compassion, only to show chaos on a global scale. Like Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn) blaring “Fight the Power” at all hours, Lee shouts his frustration with the country and the world. He doesn’t make a film about race but about how anger and hate begets more violence and destruction. And to really alert us to our hypocrisy, he does so with a film that is as aggressive and animated as society itself.
“Do the Right Thing’s” opening credit sequence alone is so immersive into an urban setting, and the song, stark lighting and aggressive dancing scream Lee’s impatience. Even the film’s first shot is a stark wake up call.
The cool vibes of Samuel L. Jackson’s voice as Mister Senor Love Daddy are quickly contrasted by the hazy lighting depicting the arid city streets. Things are as “hot” as they’ve ever been, and it’s only a matter of time before everything just boils over.
Immediately you can observe how attached each group is to their home and culture. The Italians embrace their own stereotypes of dago-tees, pizza, Frank Sinatra and loud-mouthed rough housing with pride. The black people travel in packs, stay put on their porches or sidewalks and give nicknames that make everyone family (Da Mayor, Mister Senor Love Daddy, Mother Sister). The Mexicans blare their own music and talk in thick accents loud enough to go over it. All three parties use profanity excessively.
So when people spew their hateful judgments and biting generalizations, we can see where their anger stems from, but Lee shoots all these occasions with canted angles and quick edits to show just how skewed and hasty their views are.
Yet what makes “Do the Right Thing” so fun and engaging is that all this racial tension is just simmering underneath exuberant music and humor. These are things that belong and emanate from every neighborhood. Occasionally, it creates for a situation that doesn’t feel entirely believable or authentic, but the unlikely, surreal quality of these moments serves as a more poignant symbol for how race operates. Consider when Buggin Out’s (Giancarlo Esposito) new Air Jordans get scuffed by a biker. His posse comes out of nowhere to play the race card and assert their divided sense of territory. “Who told you to buy a brownstone on my block, in my neighborhood, on my side of the street? Yo, what you wanna live in a Black neighborhood for, anyway?”
Even the music creates barriers. Radio Raheem walks up blaring his box to a group of Mexicans hanging out listening to their tunes. The ensuing volume war is handled so delicately by legendary sound designer Skip Lievsay’s careful fade-in and out. We get a sense of overlapping cultures competing for space and attention in a crowded world.
But most of all, “Do the Right Thing” is a film about color. That’s why Lee’s film is one of the most dynamic color films ever made. Who would dare challenge the three old black men in front of their bright red wall? Who wouldn’t feel the heat with the orange filter across the entire neighborhood? Why wouldn’t people feel secluded in Sal’s pizzeria when the browns and greens hardly represent the colors that are so prevalent on the streets?
These images are in our face and cut deep to our consciences. When Lee organizes a series of racially charged monologues aimed directly at the camera, their insults are so hurtful and cut so close to the core, and yet they spew everything and anything we’ve ever thought. (He does a similar thing in “25th Hour,” only there it’s a starkly more personal attack on the world) All the racial groups use language that pits everyone against one another and even inspires hatred within these closely knit families. It hurts just as much to hear the young black kids call Da Mayor a worthless black drunk as it does to hear him say they’re too young to understand anything about life. All people have problems. Everyone is at fault. We’re not helping anything by antagonizing in the name of race and principles.
And yet if there’s a bigger misconception about Lee than being a “black director,” it’s that he’s an angry director. Early reviews of “Do the Right Thing” from Cannes in 1989 felt that it had the potential to start riots. But like when Da Mayor rescues the little boy from being hit by a car, we forget the people and the moments that make this life a little better.
Lee arranges a sexy, cool allegory scene of romance between him and his girlfriend Tina (Rosie Perez) in which he rubs an ice cube over her naked body. “Thank God,” he says over and over, for the beauty of the world and all humans. We just gotta keep things cool.
In the face of race and maintaining dignity, we’re hesitant to show compassion. This is how I felt watching “Do the Right Thing.” It’s the reason my heart stopped for a near 20 minutes as Mookie threw that trash can into Sal’s Pizzeria window. Even with Radio Raheem’s music off, the noise of dead silence and anger still resounds. Everything I saw just said to me that this life isn’t fucking working.
In one film, on one street, Spike Lee showed all the love, hate, music, culture, power, unity and distance in the world. In making this movie for the planet, Lee did the right thing.
