Do the Right Thing

1.) Relate to Class:  In class we discussed how in the movie the colors used rejected what was going on in the movie.  In the film it was very hot out and there were a lot of very saturated reds used.  The three men that sat under an umbrella across form a convenience store sat in from of a bright red wall.  Many of the colors used were reflective of the heat.  At night when the mob destroyed the pizza place, there were less red filters used.  The red filters were then replaced by the red of the fire of the restaurant being burned down.  We also spoke of the fact that none of the characters were heroes in the end.  By the end of the movie every character had showed their bad side.  Mookie only cared about money and despite him claiming that all hi did was work, he really did not work very hard at all.  Radio blasted music everywhere, and Mookie's friends walked around all day harassing people and talking down to people.  Mother Sister even belittled to the drunk they called Mayor.  Mayor was looked down on the most as a drunk and he was the only character who did not hurt anyone in the film.  He saved the boy and the owners from the riot and tried to always teach people to do the right thing.  Mookie seemed to be a good character up until he was constantly slacking off and then threw the trash can at the window.  Even after all that he still demanded he get paid for his “work.”

 

2.) Related Article:  ( http://beck.library.emory.edu/southernchanges/article.php?id=sc11-4_018 )  In the article it discusses how some white people are made to pay for things they had nothing to do with.  It spoke of a fire fighter fighting a law that would give white firefighters a belated opportunity to challenge the city’s affirmative action plan.  He said “i feel like I’m paying the price for something I had nothing to do with.”  This sums up the movie in the writers eyes.  Sal had nothing to do with the killing and was punished for the crime by having his store destroyed.  The author believes that this applies to modern times.  Some people are being held accountable for something they had nothing to do with.  The author summarizes by saying that white people do most voting, participate in police forces, are fire fighters, and did not create the ghettos or the underclass that many blacks are apart of and don’t deserve to be victims.  He finishes the article by absolutely agreeing with the character Mookie that we all must pay a price one way or another.

3.) Apply Article to Film:  I think the article is correct about the film and somewhat to society today.  Many people pay the price for something they had no part of.  Men and women willingly join the army and know that they may have to go to war and face combat, but when they die it is always the fault of the person who sent them there.  When there are riots the stores being looted have nothing to do with what people are rioting about.  Teachers and students are shot in schools who may have never failed a student or bullied him or her.  Charles Manson killed innocent people that had to do with the entertainment industry, but never met him or affected his life at all, and for what?  At the end of the film you see yourself saying why? Why did they destroy this man’s business?  Has it changed anything about the “racism” they were fighting, or the murder of Radio Rahim?  The author basically says that the people who pay usually aren’t at fault for what they are being punished for and Do the Right Thing exposes that.  

 4.) Analysis:  I liked the film and I did not mind that there were no heroes in the movie.  I think that the film would not be the same, and would not have the same message if there was a hero.  The entire point of the film was that there was no hero, nobody was helping each other, nobody saw the big picture.  I think it exposed a problem in society that still exist  today.  People fight for causes that won’t make a difference (having a black American on the wall of Italian American heroes), then they sucker people into following them and hurt innocent people that didn’t need to be hurt.  Everyone thinks they did the right thing and that, at least in this case, the police are the enemies.  At the end of everything everyone still hates each other and nothing has changed.  This cycle has probably happened since the beginning of time. It happens because people either don’t exercise their mind enough and think of “meaningful” things to do, or they don’t think deeply about things enough.  In the movie the man that wanted the picture on the wall didn’t think that having a black man on the wall does not really make any sense.  All he saw was a lot of white people, no black people, considered it racism in his mid and then started to fight.  The end product was injury, death, and more hate, stemming from a cause that probably would have made no difference to anything.  This type of peripheral thinking bothers me and I think this film completely exposes it but in a slightly subtle way. I could see people watching this movie and finding a hero or thinking the riot was totally justified.  I did not really think the acting was too great, and I don’t think Spike Lee even raised his eyebrows once in order to portray any emotion, but the film was very good.