Do The Right Thing

Do The Right Thing was directed by Spike Lee, focuses on Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn. It takes place on one of the hottest days in the summer in a relatively poor neighborhood. The area is made up of a largely black population but focuses on the Italian run pizza place and it’s black delivery man. Sal Fragione owns the pizza place with his two sons who are pretty racist in the film. The young black guy who is called Buggin’ Out thinks the store is racist for not putting up pictures of black people on the wall of fame in the store. He causes trouble throughout the film and mainly makes it about race. The summer heat doesn’t help the growing tension between the white store owners and the black community in Bed-Stuy. I found it very interesting that Spike Lee was cast as one of the main characters (Mookie) while he was directing the film. Spike Lee’s actual hometown was Brooklyn too. This gave the film a somewhat accurate representation of the are during that time and really captured what it was like to live in an area like that. There was a lot of rap/hip-hop in the film and the radio guy Señor Love Daddy would make broadcasts throughout it. I also enjoyed how he was cast by Samuel L. Jackson and that it was one of his starting films. As the movie went on and the tensions rose, the guy named Radio Raheem started blasting his music in the pizza place. He adored his boombox and Sal destroys it with a bat after a fight broke out. The cops eventually come and add a police brutality aspect into the film which was intended to make a statement for that time. Radio Raheem ends up getting killed in the chaos by the police. The black community was outraged and Mookie eventually throws a trash can and proceeds to help burn down Sal’s place. I think the fire was symbolic and showed that it was the summer heat that eventually ruined everything and caused a massive fight. The heat caused people to lose their tempers and I liked how the fire captured that in the end.