Do the Right Thing

We recently watched the movie "Do the Right Thing". A movie that takes place in New York on a block. We first see the voice of the air Senior Love Daddy (Samuel Jackson). We then see our main character of the story Mookie (Spike Lee) going to his job run by an Italian family. During the hottest day of the year, Mookie's friend Buggin Out (Giancarlo Esposito) complain about the wall of Fame having no black people on it. He is then kicked out of the pizzeria. We see a whole plethora  of characters each with their own somewhat racist stereotype attached to them.

This film says a lot about race and racism in America. One example is how african americans were treated by white authority figures such as the cops in the movie that don't care if  the African Americans get hurt. Back around the 1980's if an African American owned a nice car police would automatically think he/she has stolen it. Another form of racism is the accents that the Korean grocery store owners have and when Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn) constantly says "English, do you speak it." This shows how the stereotype of all asian english speakers being almost impossible to understand because of their accent.

During the movie we see the progression and life of Mookie. During the entire movie Mookie is constantly insulted by the older brother/employee of the pizzeria Pito (John Turturro). Even at one point they break the 4th wall to say racial slurs to each other. Mookies life is full of insults wether coming from Pito or his girlfriend/ mother of his child Tina (Rosie Perez) for not being a good father by working all the time. Spike Lee seems to make a point in saying Mookie is the one storing all this racial hate, which then turns into a riot. During the movie I started to agree with Roger Ebert in his saying that there are no heroes or villains in this film.

This movie really shows the racial discrimination in obviously comedic manner until towards the end. Wether it be the mob-like italians, the self absorbed african american hating white cop, or the complaining african american elderly group. This film shows how problems like Sal's could occur during the time of this film.