This year, I proudly expanded my film project to more than just American films. But when I did this, it became embarrassingly obvious that there were American stories and perspectives that I still hadn’t really made room for. Most plainly, I failed at screening a predominantly African American story. Moving forward, I'm going to make an effort to correct this. With the interest and press behind last year’s “BlacKkKlansman”, my choice on where to start became simple.
“Do the Right Thing” begins as a character study, introducing you to the residents of a Brooklyn neighborhood on a triple-digit, sweltering day. Anchored by pizza delivery man Mookie, we witness a melting pot (or more aptly, in the heat, a pressure cooker) community with Italians, Koreans, Hispanics, White (police officers), and a diverse, black majority. The heat, disrespect, and a series of small uncompromising actions escalate over the course of the story until a fateful, climactic evening that ends with a black man dead, a pizzeria destroyed, and a civility shattered.
I thought that “Do the Right Thing” was a tremendously well told story. First of all, the production design and the way the film was shot goes a long way to convey a sense of heat and escalating tension. Bright colors, blinding light, and characters addressing the camera all add to this. Speaking of which, there are some unique, complex, and tragic characters. You have protagonists and antagonists, but it’s hard to paint any one character as uniformly good or bad. It’s just a bunch of real people with real motivations who, sadly, fail to 'do the right thing'. This comes into perspective when you realize that all conflict may have been avoided if a pizza man just put more cheese on a slice.
At the end of the movie, Lee compares quotes from Martin Luther King and Malcom X, the former highlighting the stupidity of violence to promote social change and the latter on the intelligence of violence for self defense. The two quotes feel at odds with one another and yet are both true. This movie does a great job of living in this space and attempting to play in that thin line between promoting the self and protecting the self. And while it doesn’t offer an answer, the film provides some guidance and even a path forward. 30 years later the film remains painfully relevant and worth a watch.