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Do The Right Thing Analysis

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Do The Right Thing by Spike Lee carries such a prodigiously factual, present-day social aspects that continue to affect our society. It’s brilliant and boundlessly re-watchable -- it’s not at all a straightforward ethics play like so many films on race. People act as badly to one another in the film as in real life, and the film shows that racial conflict head on, in all its ugliness. The film’s proceedings and sweltering temperature reflect the race-and-class-inflected anger that saturated late-1980s New York City, manifesting in episodes such as the Howard Beach and Central Park Jogger incidents and the Tawana Brawley case. Do the Right Thing invokes Brawley via a graffito that proclaims, “Tawana told the truth!” rioters chant the words “Howard Beach” during the climax. The understanding that the film captured the city’s polarized atmosphere was immediate.
One stimulating point I noticed is when we see Mookie (Spike Lee) counting his money, this is actually one of the happiest times of him that we see. This comes up time and time again, when he is working, he insists that Sal pays him his money early, because …show more content…
The beginning credits start with a song by Public Enemy “Fight the Power”, with people dancing and mimicking a fight sequence, this shows the rage that many people have, but the closing sequence, the quotes from Malcom X and MLK Jr. lead one to ask themselves is rage really the right path, and will it help solve the problem at all. This is the question that I asked myself, and I believe that Spike Lee’s movie did achieved this wonderfully.
It was a gripping human drama with an amazing ensemble cast, from veterans like Ossie Davis and the late Ruby Dee to first-timers like Martin Lawrence and Rosie Perez. Also in the cast are Danny Aiello, John Turturro, Giancarlo Esposito, Samuel L. Jackson, Bill Nunn, Robin Harris, and Lee

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