Do the Right Thing (1989)

Do the Right Thing is just as important and poignant today as it was in 1989. Obviously, nothing has changed. Race relations are still tense and police brutality is still rampant. This didn't all of a sudden come out of nowhere and Barack Obama was not a cure-all. Spike Lee sends a powerful message to America.

It's a scorcher. The coloring of the film is tinted a hot red. Everyone is feeling agitated and you feel it too thanks to the reds and oranges. You know that someone is about to erupt. But let's start from the beginning with Rosie Perez dancing the opening credits to an aggressively bold Fight the Power by Public Enemy. Her moves are sharp, sensual, expressive, and absolutely magnetic. It does not glorify violence. But it does beautify it--beauty and fighting are not mutually exclusive.  Violence can be justified, it can be the titular right thing. It's a little more Malcolm than Martin.

Samuel L. Jackson is the radio host who acts as a narrator of sorts. We set the scene in Bed-Stuy on a street shared by African Americans, Puerto Ricans, a Korean grocery and an Italian pizzeria. This itself is beautiful. Not everyone necessarily gets along, but Brooklyn is such a uniquely American locale that all these different cultures could have the opportunity even to clash here. There is the very famous scene of the character staring down the barrel of the camera yelling racial slurs and insults. Even though they are pitted against each other, they are written in such a rich and complete way that the audience can empathize with all of them. We get it. We understand where they're coming from.

Spike Lee is a student of film. There is a very obvious allusion to Night of the Hunter directed by Charles Laughton. Radio Raheem wears LOVE and HATE knuckles and recites Robert Mitchum's monologue. Radio Raheem is perhaps the most symbolic character--his knuckles, his boom box (symbolic of his culture which he wears for all to hear unabashedly), and the ultimate fall of a strongman.

And I'd be remiss if I didn't address the ending. Does Mookie do the right thing? The privileged may see incitement of a riot. But that is wrong. Mookie starts an uprising. Think of the 2015 Baltimore uprising. An oppressed people rising up in self defense a la Malcolm X. Oppression: Why do the majority African American and Puerto Rican population not own any of the businesses on their street? They point out the Koreans are new immigrants and yet they somehow opened their own business. It's not personal. And we see in the final scene that Sal understands that. Sal feels betrayed, but he reconciles with Mookie. The movie is so powerful because it's so real. And it's so real because it is drawn from real society experience.