Do the Right Thing

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Do the Right Thing

Directed by	Spike Lee
Produced by	Spike Lee
Written by	Spike Lee
Starring	Danny Aiello Ossie Davis John Turturro Ruby Dee Richard Edson Spike Lee Bill Nunn Rosie Perez Giancarlo Esposito John Savage
Music by	Bill Lee
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	May, 1989 (première at Cannes) June 30, 1989
Running time	125 minutes
Language	English
Budget	$6,500,000
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This article relates to the movie, 'Do the Right Thing'. For cultural terms such as "the Right Thing" the "Wrong Thing" "Good Things" and "Bad Things", see Right Thing.

Do the Right Thing is a 1989 motion picture produced, written, and directed by Spike Lee and released by Universal Pictures. The film tells a tale of bigotry and racial conflict in a multi-ethnic community in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, on the hottest day of the year. It stars Lee, Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Richard Edson, Giancarlo Esposito, Bill Nunn and John Turturro. Do the Right Thing also marks the feature film debuts of both Martin Lawrence and Rosie Perez. It is the second film role ever for Samuel L. Jackson, who plays DJ Mister Señor Love Daddy, an alternative voice of the author to Spike Lee's character.

In 1999, the film was deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. A Criterion Collection DVD of Do the Right Thing has been released: it is no. 97 in the Criterion series.

The song "Fight the Power" by Public Enemy is a recurring aural motif in the film, as blasted from a huge ghetto blaster toted by Radio Raheem (Nunn). It appears fifteen times in the film.

1 Synopsis
2 Production
3 Controversies
4 Political allusions
5 Awards & nominations
6 Connections with other Lee films
7 In popular culture
8 Notes
9 References
10 External links

[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The film features a multitude of characters. The main character in the film is Mookie (Lee), a young man who lives with his sister and works as a pizza delivery man for the local Sal's Pizzeria. Sal (Aiello), the pizzeria’s Italian-American owner, has owned the shop for decades because he respects his customers. His older son Pino (Turturro) "detests the place like a sickness" and is racist. Sal, after being harassed by youth looking for a reason to start a fight, loses his temper near the climax and begins shouting racial slurs in retaliation for the racial slurs against him, and winds up destroying the radio box that was blasting music so loudly that no one could hear one another. His younger son Vito is not racist at all and has a unique bond with Mookie.

The Bed-Stuy street corner the characters populate is filled with distinct personalities, most of whom are just trying to find a way to deal with the intense heat and go about their regular day-to-day activities. A philandering drunk called Da Mayor (Davis) is constantly trying to win both the approval and affection of the neighborhood matron, Mother-Sister (Dee). Three unemployed men on the corner constantly crack jokes on passers by, and comment discriminatingly on the Korean owners of the nearby convenience store. Mookie's girlfriend, Tina (Perez), is constantly nagging him about caring for their infant son. A young man named Radio Raheem (Nunn) lives for nothing else but to blast Public Enemy's "Fight the Power" on his boombox wherever he goes, and wears a "love" and "hate" four-fingered ring on either hand to symbolize the struggle between the two forces. A mentally handicapped man named Smiley (Roger Guenveur Smith) constantly meanders about the neighborhood, holding up hand-colored (with marking pens) pictures of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. We also meet Mookie's sister, Jade (Joie Lee, the director's real life sister), and the local DJ, Mister Señor Love Daddy (Samuel L. Jackson) who operates a radio station nearby and acts as both a narrator and a character.

Buggin' Out (Esposito) is a wannabe Black nationalist who makes sure his points are heard by whoever is in ear shot. Upon entering Sal's shop, he notices that Sal's "Wall of Fame" is decorated with dozens of pictures of celebrity actors, athletes, etc.--all of them Italian. When Buggin' Out questions Sal about the "Wall of Fame" and demands he place some pictures of African-American celebrities on the wall (since, he explains, Sal's pizzeria is situated in a black neighborhood), Sal replies that this is his store, he is proud of his Italian heritage, and that he isn't going to put anyone but Italians on his wall. Buggin' Out attempts to start a protest over the "Wall of Fame", but no one will listen to him or take his trivial issue seriously except for Radio Raheem, who had been criticized by Sal earlier that day for playing his boombox loudly in the shop without concern for others.

Buggin' Out's own racism comes to the front when he begins to verbally attack a white bicycler who accidentally knocks him in the back and unknowingly scuffs his shoe. Buggin' Out begins to harrass the man, regardless of the man's apology, telling him to "go back to Massachusetts." The man replies that he was born in Brooklyn, but a small crowd begins to harass him as he turns back toward his home.

Radio Raheem and Buggin' Out march back into Sal's, and stage a sit-in protest until Sal changes the pictures on the wall. Radio Raheem's boombox is blaring, as always, Public Enemy's "Fight the Power," and at the highest volume possible. Sal demands that they turn the radio down or leave the shop, which the two men refuse to do. Reaching his wit's end, Sal snaps and destroys Radio Raheem's boombox with a baseball bat. His prized possession destroyed, Radio Raheem becomes enraged and begins choking Sal. Vito and Pino jump onto Radio Raheem in attempt to pull him off their father, but the other African American men in the restaurant begin to attack them. A fight ensues between Radio Raheem and Sal on one side and Buggin' Out and Pino on the other, with Vito and Mookie trying to break it up. The fight spills out into the streets, to a crowd of spectators cheering on the fight, where a white policeman apprehends Radio Raheem and places him in a choke hold that kills him (a reference to a 1983 incident where graffiti artist Michael Stewart was apprehended for defacing public property and killed by the arresting officer in a similar manner^{[citation needed]}). An underlying issue in this series of arrests is that of six officers present in this mostly African American neighborhood, only one officer on the scene is black and the rest are white. Buggin' Out is arrested, but refuses to go quietly, stating angrily "You're taking me to jail, huh, you're not taking Vito or Pino or Sal.", and "You can't kill all of us" (referring to the African American race).

The fight had by this time gathered a large crowd of onlookers, all of whom become enraged after the police kill Radio Raheem. Deciding that the floodgates are going to burst open eventually, Mookie grabs a trash can and, screaming "HATE!", slings it through the window to Sal's. The angry crowd becomes an angry riotous mob, and rushes into the restaurant and destroys everything within and Smiley starts a fire. Firefighters arrive and begin spraying the building as the crowd are held back by riot patrol. With the crowd becoming more unruly and the police unable to hold them back, the firefighters turn their hoses on those in the mob in attempts to clear the group away so the fire can be controlled. The mob begins to attack the firefighters.

When it is all over, Sal's pizzeria is burned beyond recognition, Sal and his two sons (saved by Da Mayor just before the riot starts) are out of business, Buggin' Out has been carted off to jail, and Smiley, with no one else around to see, wanders back into the smoldering restaurant and, sympathetic to Buggin' Out's cause, hangs on what's left of Sal's "Wall of Fame" a picture of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. shaking hands.

The next day, Mookie goes to Sal's, where the two discuss the incident, Mookie gets his money, and he and Sal cautiously reconcile.

The film ends with two quotations. The first, from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., argues that violence is never justified under any circumstances. The second, from Malcolm X, argues that violence is "intelligent" when it is self-defense.

[edit] Production

Spike Lee wrote the screenplay in two weeks.^{[citation needed]} The original script of Do the Right Thing ends with a stronger reconciliation between Mookie and Sal. Sal's comments to Mookie mirror Da Mayor's earlier comments in the film and hint at some common ground and perhaps Sal's understanding of why Mookie was motivated to destroy his restaurant. It is unclear why Lee changed the ending. [1]

The film was shot entirely on a real street in the Bed-Stuy neighborhood. The street's color scheme was heavily altered by the production designer, who used a great deal of red and orange paint in order to help convey the sense of a heatwave. The ovens in the pizzeria set were actually operational, and Danny Aiello learned to knead pizza dough in preparation for his role.^{[citation needed]}

Spike Lee campaigned for Robert De Niro as Sal the pizzeria owner, but De Niro had to decline due to prior commitments. The character of Smiley was not in the original script; he was created by Roger Guenveur Smith, who was pestering Spike Lee for a role in the film.^{[citation needed]} In contrast to the serious nature of the film, three of the cast members were stand-up comedians -- Martin Lawrence, Steve White, and the late Robin Harris.

[edit] Controversies

Sal and Mookie in the aftermath of the riot

The film was released to protests from many reviewers, including Joe Klein in New York magazine; it was openly stated in several newspapers that the film could incite black audiences to riot.^[1] In the event, no such riots occurred, and Lee criticized white reviewers for assuming that black audiences were incapable of restraining themselves while watching fiction.

The central question at the end of the film is whether Mookie 'does the right thing' when he throws the garbage can through the window, thus inciting the riot that destroys Sal's pizzeria. The question is directly raised by the contradictory quotations that end the film, one advocating non-violence, the other advocating violent self-defense in response to oppression. Lee himself has stated that this question is only one that bothers white viewers. He believes that the key point is that Mookie was angry at the death of Radio Raheem, and that viewers who consider the riot unjustified are implicitly valuing property over the life of a black man.^[2] Mookie tells Sal to "Motherfuck a window. Radio Raheem is dead".

In June 2006, Entertainment Weekly magazine placed Do the Right Thing at #22 on its list of "The 25 Most Controversial Movies Ever".

[edit] Political allusions

The film contains several allusions to recent race-related violent acts.

In the scene in which Mookie shows frustration with his sister for getting too close to Sal, "Tawana told the truth!" is spray painted on the bricks in the rear of this shot, referring to the 1987 Tawana Brawley rape incident.

[edit] Awards & nominations

1990 Academy Awards

Best Actor in a Supporting Role — Danny Aiello (nominated)
Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen — Spike Lee (nominated)

1989 Cannes Film Festival

Golden Palm — Spike Lee (nominated)

1990 Chicago Film Critics Association Awards

Best Director — Spike Lee (won)
Best Picture (won)
Best Supporting Actor — Danny Aiello (won)

1990 Golden Globes

Best Director (Motion Picture) — Spike Lee (nominated)
Best Motion Picture - Drama (nominated)
Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture — Danny Aiello (nominated)
Best Screenplay (Motion Picture) — Spike Lee (nominated)

1991 NAACP Image Awards

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Motion Picture — Ruby Dee (won)
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture — Ossie Davis (won)

1989 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards

Best Director — Spike Lee (won)
Best Music — Bill Lee (won)
Best Picture (won)
Best Supporting Actor — Danny Aiello (won)

1989 New York Film Critics Circle Awards

Best Cinematographer — Ernest R. Dickerson (won)

National Film Preservation Board

National Film Registry (1999)

MTV Movie Awards

The Bucket of Excellence (lifetime achievement award, 2006)

[edit] Connections with other Lee films

In the surreal final scene of School Daze, Dap Dunlap (Laurence Fishburne) pleads with the other characters (and the audience) to "Wake Up!" This exhortation is repeated by Mister Señor Love Daddy (Samuel L. Jackson) at the beginning of Do the Right Thing. The whole 'Wake Up' scenario would go on to appear in numerous ways in Spike Lee's films such as Jungle Fever.
The child character (Eddie) to whom Da Mayor gives money to buy beer and whom he saves later on, wears a shirt with the inscription 'Da Butt.' 'Da Butt' was a song performed by E.U that became popular after the band performed it in the party scene in Spike Lee's School Daze
The Air Jordan sneaker scuff scene was originally going to be in She's Gotta Have It, where a complete stranger steps on Mars Blackmon's black and red Jordans.
Rick Aiello and Miguel Sandoval portray Long and Ponte, two police officers who eventually arrest Buggin' Out and accidentally kill Radio Raheem in a choke-hold. Long and Ponte reappear to harass Wesley Snipes' character Flipper in Jungle Fever. Rick Aiello would go on to play a police officer in the final scene in 1995 movie, Clockers which was directed by Spike Lee.
In his 2006 movie Inside Man, Lee references Do the Right Thing by using pizza boxes that read "Sal's" on the lids.

[edit] In popular culture

The comedic scenes involving the trio of middle-aged black men chatting on the street corner inspired animator Mike Judge to create the television show King of the Hill. He recalls, "I loved the moments of the old guys sitting out there, talking about the Korean grocer. I thought somebody should make a movie like that, but just about my suburban neighborhood." [2]

The The Boondocks (TV series) episode "The Block Is Hot" parodies Do the Right Thing.
Strong Bad Email 4 branches references it when Strong Bad says, "or throw a trashcan through a plate glass window".
A limited edition pair of the Air Jordan III will be made in a special colorway to resemble the films movie poster.
In the Episode "Miserable" (S1E2) of The Critic, Mookie (wearing a Malcolm X hat) yells "Yo, Sal, I got something for you man!" and throws a garbage can into Sal's window. Sal rushes out as if he were upset but quickly changes to open arms saying "Aw Mookie! You found my trashcan!" and both chuckle in affection and embrace each other in a hug.
In an episode of Family Guy Peter says "brothers and sisters fighting is as natural as a white man’s dialogue in a Spike Lee movie," leading to a cutaway to a character ordering a pizza and then focuses behind to the counter to a character who vaguely looks like Danny Aiello drooling, clawing and snarling at the customer.

[edit] Notes

^ Klein, Joe. "Spiked?" New York 26 June 1989: 14-15.
^ 'Spike Lee's Last Word', special feature on the Criterion Collection DVD (2000)

[edit] References

Spike Lee's Last Word. Documentary on the Criterion Collection DVD of Do the Right Thing. 2000.
Spike Lee et al. Commentary on the Criterion Collection DVD of Do the Right Thing. 2000.