Do the Right Thing (1989)

Do the Right Thing (1989)

In African-American writer/director Spike Lee's third (and breakout) independent feature film - it followed after his first two films: She's Gotta Have It (1986) , and School Daze (1988). This end of the decade milestone, much-discussed film was about racial and social strife over a 24 hour-day during a hot August summer's Saturday on one block of Brooklyn, NY - forecasting a tense time bomb waiting to go off. It was an even-handed, complex, disturbing, angry and unapologetic social protest film about racism, racial pride, intolerance and oppression, miscommunication, class struggle and violence. In part, the non-judgmental, objectively-viewed docu-drama illustrated how many different individuals, impulsively or rationally, did not end up doing "the right thing." The film mostly functioned as a Rorschach test for viewers, reflecting each person's own attitudes or reactions.

The incendiary film told about racial tensions and bigotry that eventually erupted into a riot on a sweltering summer day in the multi-ethnic Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. It was presented with vibrantly bright colors, realistic and goofily-named characters and dialogue, a multi-ethnic cast, a supplementary "Greek chorus" DJ, numerous elderly black residents on the street commenting on the day's events, and energetic editing and quasi-documentary, cocked camera angles. Director Spike Lee also appeared in this film as the pizzeria's delivery boy Mookie, the community's gossip provider and messenger. With a reported 240 instances of the 4-letter F word and other inflammatory racial insults, the film turned off some audiences.

The controversial and bothersome R-rated film was apparently based upon a real-life incident in the neighborhood of Howard Beach (Queens NY area) on a weekend night in December of 1986, where three local white teens brutally accosted three black youths outside a pizzeria, and one of the blacks who fled the scene was struck dead by a car. Although it was feared by film critics that the film would cause and incite similar responses from black urban-dwellers, this proved to be a misrepresentation of the facts by the film's detractors that dubbed the film "irresponsible."

This controversial independent film received two Academy Award nominations (with no wins): Best Original Screenplay (Spike Lee), and Best Supporting Actor (Danny Aiello). On a budget of 6ドル.5 million, Lee's film grossed 27ドル.5 million (domestic) and 37ドル.3 million (worldwide). Following the film's success, Lee went on to make the big-budget studio film Malcolm X (1992), starring Denzel Washington as the controversial, assassinated civil rights leader - a role for which he received his first Best Actor nomination. Lee's landmark black-oriented films inspired a new generation of African-American film-makers, including John Singleton (Boyz 'N the Hood (1991)).

The film's tagline was:

"It's the hottest day of the summer. You can do nothing, you can do something, or you can...DO THE RIGHT THING"

• during the opening credits, Public Enemy performed the film's hard-edged anthem and title rap song Fight the Power, accompanied by a heavily-stylized dance sequence; one of the characters, Tina (Rosie Perez in her feature film debut) danced (and shadow-boxed with gloves) in front of dilapidated brownstone buildings with front stoops (depicted in a reddish-orange, red-hot atmospheric hue)

(lyrics for first verse) "1989 - the number another summer Sound of the funky drummer Music hittin' your heart cause I know you got soul Listen if you're missin' y'all Swingin' while I'm singin' Givin' whatcha gettin' Knowin' what I know While the Black bands sweatin' And the rhythm rhymes rollin' Got to give us what we want Gotta give us what we need Our freedom of speech is freedom or death We got to fight the powers that be. Fight the power..."

• in the film's early Saturday morning opening, velvet-voiced DJ Mister Senor Love Daddy (Samuel L. Jackson) vehemently woke up the Bed-Stuy neighborhood at 8 AM with his "We Love" radio sounds of FM-108 provided with the day's forecast, from a local radio station situated in an apartment building's storefront window:
  • "This is Mister Senor Love Daddy, your voice of choice. The world's only 12-hour strongman on the air, here on We Love Radio, 108 FM, the last on your dial, but first in your hearts, and that's the truth, Ruth... Doing the yin and the yang, the hip and the hop, the stupid, fresh thing, the flippity-flop. I have today's forecast for you. Hot! The color for today is black. That's right, black. So you can absorb some of these rays and save that heat for winter. So you wanna get on out there and wear that black and be involved! Also, today's temperature's gonna rise up over 100 degrees. So that's a Jheri curl alert."
• [Note: the DJ served as the film's 'Greek chorus' overseeing and distantly ruling over the residents of the area. It was significant that the first words of the film that he repeatedly uttered were: "Wake up. Wake up, wake up, wake up. Up you wake, up you wake, up you wake, up you wake" - Spike Lee's own exhortation to his film audience.]
• in the opening scenes of this slice-of-life film, a number of characters who were residents in the neighborhood were briefly introduced; a mentally-challenged black man named Smiley (Roger Guenveur Smith) with a speech impediment was first seen in front of a church; he was selling copies of photographs of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X posing together: ("Now they are dead, but we still have to fight against apartheid")

• 25 year-old African-American pizzeria delivery boy Mookie (director Spike Lee) awakened on the Saturday morning before having to go to work; he was living with and semi-supported by his sister Jade (Joie Lee)

• the central focal point of the film was a white-operated and owned Italian "Famous Pizzeria" restaurant run by overweight Salvatore "Sal" Frangione (Oscar-nominated Danny Aiello) for 25 years, Mookie's boss; Sal's two sons: the older one - 22 year-old profanity-spewing, racist and hot-headed Pino (John Turturro) and friendly easy-going 20 year-old Vito (Richard Edson), both helped their father out at the pizzeria; the disgruntled Pino expressed his disdain to his father about working there: ("I hate this frigging place. I detest it like a sickness"); Sal proudly defended his "respectable" business of many years to his ornery son
• while Mookie was walking on his way to work down the block, from her window perch, Mother Sister (Ruby Dee) advised him on the hot day: "Don't work too hard today...Mother Sister always watches!"; Mookie was revealed to be a bit directionless, lazy, often tardy, and irresponsible (he would often take extended breaks and detours during his work day)
• two other elderly residents in the community included Da Mayor (Ossie Davis), considered an 'elder statesman' who was often drunk and wandering through the neighborhood; he offered to sweep the front of Sal's store for a dollar; the object of his desired flirtatious affections was Mother Sister (Davis' real-life wife) who for 18 years had been advising, observing, and cruelly scoffing at him from her open window; he detested her bothersome "evil eye" criticisms: ("Mother Sister, you been talking about me for 18 years")

• another prominent character was "Radio Raheem" (Bill Nunn) - who was always accompanied by his gigantic, deafening portable boom box playing Public Enemy and their hip-hop anthem Fight the Power
• across Stuyvesant Ave. from the pizzeria was the Korean-owned Fruit and Vegetable Delight store owned by an immigrant couple: Sonny (Steve Park) and his wife Kim (Ginny Yang) and child (Sherwin Park), who only spoke broken English
• Mookie's girlfriend Tina (Rosie Perez), a feisty and demanding Hispanic single mother, was living with her mother while caring for Mookie's young toddler son Hector (Travell Lee Toulson); she complained about her frustrating life: "Your father makes me sick, too. Everybody makes me sick. S--t. Your father ain't no real father. He's a bum"
• there were also three elderly black men: ML, Coconut Sid, and Sweet Dick Willie (Paul Benjamin, Frankie Faison and Robin Harris) who sat under an umbrella on the street corner while crudely (and humorously) faulting and commenting about everyone around them and current events (i.e., Mike Tyson, climate change, the unlikely success of the Koreans and their grocery store, etc.), while ignoring their own lack of ambition and aimlessness

• later in the day, tensions began to escalate because of a demanding complaint in the pizzeria by a militant activist neighborhood patron named Buggin' Out (Giancarlo Esposito); after ordering, he complained to Sal about the skimpy amount of cheese on a 1ドル.50 slice of pizza; he also criticized Sal's Italian "Wall of Fame", first asking Mookie and then Sal - "Hey Sal, how come you got no brothas on the wall here?" - he noticed how it was lacking pictures of 'brothers' (or black celebrities, such as Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela or Michael Jordan); there were only photos of famous white Italian-Americans
• Sal rejected his request and ejected him from the pizza joint after telling him:
  • "You want brothers on the wall? Get your own place. You can do what you want with it. You can put your brothers and uncles and nieces and nephews, your stepfather, stepmother, whoever you want. See? But this is my pizzeria. American-Italians on the wall only."
• Sal was reminded by Buggin' Out that he had a point, since very few Italian-Americans ever ate there: ("Rarely do I see any American-Italians eating in here. All I see is black folks. So since we spend much money here, we do have some say")
• outside on the sidewalk, Mookie scolded troublemaker Buggin' Out for possibly jeopardizing his job by calling for a boycott, and pressured him to stay away for a week: ("I gotta work here, man. You're f--king my s--t up, man!"); shortly later, as Mookie was making his next pizza delivery, Da Mayor urged him to ambiguously "Always do the right thing"
• because of the heat, two black teens Cee (Martin Lawrence) and Punchy (Leonard Thomas) opened up a fire hydrant, and directed the gushing water (via empty beer cans) in strong streams at others on the block to cool them off
• they aggravated a short-tempered Italian-American driver named Charlie (Frank Vincent) in his 1967 Cadillac DeVille convertible; they doused his vintage car with water after he had specifically shouted at them and threatened them to not spray him or his open-topped "antique" vehicle; Charlie alerted two beat cops Officer Marty Ponte (Miguel Sandoval) and Officer Gary Long (Rick Aiello) to apprehend the offending "punks" (who had already fled), but bystanders remained quiet: (Da Mayor: "Those that'll tell don't know, and those that know won't tell"); the driver was urged to leave the neighborhood before the locals stripped his car "clean"
• during his next run, Mookie delivered lunch to the DJ, who allowed him (while he was eating his chicken parmesan hero) to deliver an on-air song-record dedication - he chose to praise Tina, his girlfriend; on the street nearby, Buggin' Out became upset and berated Clifton (John Savage), one of the block's long-time white residents, for scuffing up his brand-new, white, 100ドル dollar Air Jordan sneakers, but then backed down; Clifton defended his residency in one of the brownstones in the black neighborhood and how he was born in Brooklyn

• the frequently drunk Da Mayor tried to get a 10 year old neighbor boy Eddie Lovell (Richard Habersham) to purchase a quart of Miller Lite beer for him; he was then forced to explain to disrespectful black Ahmad (Steve White) ("You're an old, drunk zero, man") why he was viewed as a perpetual "bum"; Mayor told how he had been helplessly unable to support his wife and five hungry children in the past and remained disconsolate: ("You don't know me, my pain, my hurt, my feelings. You don't know s--t!...Don't call me bum. Don't call me a drunk....Don't call me nothin'. It's disrespectful. I know your mamas and your papas raised you better")
• back at the pizzeria, Mookie briefly spoke on the phone with Tina (while tying up the pizzeria's phone line), who was fed up with Mookie's lack of responsibility in their relationship ("I want you to try and make this relationship work. If not, I'd rather not be bothered with your ass")
• Mookie then tried to point out Pino's racist hypocrisy because all of his celebrity 'heroes' were blacks, including Magic Johnson, Eddie Murphy and Prince; Pino defensively argued himself into a contradiction:
  • "It's different. Magic, Eddie, Prince are not n-----s. I mean, they're not black, I mean. Let me explain myself. They're not really black. I mean, they're black, but they're not really black. They're more than black. It's different."
• their conversation led into a montage sequence that was composed of a profane stream of ethnic and racial slur-expletives and insults against various groups or individuals (including Italian-American singers, blacks who migrated from Africa, Koreans who owned grocery stores, Puerto Ricans, and NY Mayor Koch) - with each of the individuals speaking directly to the camera and breaking the 4th wall:
  • Mookie: "You dago, wop, guinea, garlic-breath, pizza-slingin', spaghetti-bendin', Vic Damone, Perry Como, Luciano Pavarotti, solo mio, non-singin' motherf--ker."
  • Sal's son Pino (John Turturro): "You gold-teeth, gold-chain-wearin', fried-chicken-and-biscuit-eatin' monkey, ape, baboon, big thigh, fast-runnin', high-jumpin', spear-chuckin', 360-degree-basketball-dunkin', tizzun, spade, mulignan. Take your f--kin' pizza-piece, and go the f--k back to Africa"
  • Latino Stevie (Luis Ramos): "You little slanty-eyed, me-no-speaky-American, own-every-fruit-and-vegetable-stand-in-New-York, bulls--t, Reverend Sun Myung Moon, Summer Olympic '88, Korean, kick-boxin' son of a bitch"
  • Police Officer Long (Rick Aiello): "You Goya-bean-eatin', 15-in-a-car, 30-in-an-apartment, pointy shoes, red-wearin', Menudo, mira-mira, Puerto Rican cocksucker. Yeah, you!"
  • Korean store owner-immigrant Sonny (Steve Park): "It's cheap. I got good price for you, Mayor Kochie, 'How I'm doin'?' chocolate-egg-cream-drinking, bagel-and-lox, B'nai B'rith Jew asshole"
• out on the street as Mookie passed by to make a delivery, Radio Raheem showed off his two giant-sized, gold four-fingered knuckle rings with the words LOVE and HATE; in one of the film's most memorable sequences, he delivered a story about the two opposing emotions (a street-smart version of the same monologue referencing the film The Night of the Hunter (1950) ); as he interlocked his two hands, he described how life was a constant struggle between the two emotions of LOVE and HATE:
  • "Let me tell you the story of right hand, left hand. It's a tale of good and evil. HATE! It was with this hand that Cain iced his brother. LOVE! These five fingers, they go straight to the soul of man. The right hand, the hand of LOVE. The story of life is this - Static. (He interlocked his hands) One hand is always fighting the other hand, and the left hand is kicking much ass. I mean, it looks like the right hand, LOVE, is finished. But hold on, stop the presses. The right hand's comin' back. Yeah. He got the left hand on the ropes now. That's right. Yeah. Ooh, it's a devastating right and HATE is hurt. He's down! Ooh, ooh. Left hand, HATE, KO'd by LOVE."
• Radio Raheem entered the pizzeria and ordered two slices, but Sal refused to serve him unless he turned off his loud boom-box; after Raheem obeyed and then asked for extra cheese, Sal informed him: "Extra cheese is 2ドル.00 dollars"
• meanwhile, at the radio station, the radio host-DJ gave a "roll call" to legendary jazz, blues, and hip-hop black musicians by mentioning all of their names and thanking them: ("We wanna thank y’all for making our lives just a little brighter here on WE LOVE Radio")
• in the pizzeria, Sal responded to Pino who suggested selling and moving the business to their own neighborhood due to local racial prejudices; he also expressed his rabid racist feelings:
  • "I'm sick of n-----s. It's like I come to work, it's Planet of the Apes. I don't like being around them. They're animals... They don't want us here. We should stay in our own neighborhood, stay in Bensonhurst, and the n-----s should stay in theirs."
• Sal expressed his loyalty to his customers after 25 years in business, and was proud of the relationships he had established with the mostly-black neighborhood:
  • "I never had no trouble with these people. I sat in this window. I watched these little kids get old. And I seen the old people get older. Yeah, sure, some of them don't like us, but most of them do. I mean, for Christ's sake, Pino, they grew up on my food. On my food. I'm very proud of that....Sal's Famous Pizzeria is here to stay."
• meanwhile, Buggin' Out was continuing to spread word in the neighborhood about organizing a boycott in order to retaliate against Sal's white-owned business; Buggin' Out threatened to stage a neighborhood boycott of "[Sal's] fat pasta ass"; Sal yelled back:
  • "You're gonna boycott me? You haven't got the balls to boycott me....Here, here's your boycott, up your ass."

• both Mookie and Jade ignored Buggin' Out's demands for a boycott; Jade urged him to be more positive and productive: ("You know, if you really tried hard, Buggin Out, you could direct your energies in a more useful way, you know?")
• across the street, Raheem attempted to buy "D" batteries for his boom box, but he became exasperated when the two Korean owners couldn't understand English; also, Da Mayor saved young Eddie (chasing after a Mister Softee ice-cream truck) from being hit by the speeding truck; shortly later, Mother Sister praised Da Mayor for his brave act but added: "This changes nothing between you and me. You did a good thing and Mother Sister just wanted to thank you for it"
• back at Sal's, Mookie protectively reprimanded Jade for falling for Sal's obvious favoritism, and dragged her into an alleyway: ("Don't come to Sal's no more...The way Sal looks at you, about the way he talks at you...Look, all Sal wants to do is hide the salami"); Jade objected to Mookie lecturing her and treating her like a 'big brother' when she was the one who was supporting her irresponsible brother:
  • "You can hardly pay your rent and you're gonna tell me what to do?...I'm tired of supporting a grown man, okay? I want to know when you're gonna pack your bags and go, okay, Mookie?"
• Mookie was called upon to deliver a pizza to Tina's place; during his visit with her, she was frustrated because he forgot to bring ice-cream as he had earlier promised, and wanted to have quickie sex (the "nasty") in her hot apartment bedroom - and then afterwards quickly leave; she complained:
  • "If you think I'm gonna let you get some, put your clothes on, and leave here, and I won't see your black ass for another week, you must be buggin'?"
• Mookie suggested instead: "Let's do somethin' else then" - he had her stand on the bed and strip naked: ("Take your clothes off"), while he went to the refrigerator to retrieve two trays of ice cubes ("Freeze, don't move, I'll be right back, okay?"); in the kitchen, Mookie briefly spoke to his son Hector in the arms of Tina's mother
• back in the bedroom with the ice-cubes from the trays, Mookie methodically rubbed them over her naked body (forehead, lips, neck, kneecaps, elbows, thighs, and breasts) in full-closeup view, while espousing:
  • "Thank god for the lips...Thank god for the neck ...Thank god for kneecaps...Thank god for elbows...Thank god for thighs...Thank god for the right nipple. Thank god for the left nipple. Ah, she likes, she likes, she likes."

• before he left her, Tina responded: "Feels good" and he responded: "You like, she likes, she likes"; he promised to return later that evening after work
• back at the pizzeria although the shop had closed for the night, Ahmad, Cee, Punchy, and Ella were allowed to enter and order four slices of take-out; Buggin' Out (with Raheem) also entered and again began demanding that the Wall of Fame include Black celebrities: ("We want some black people on that motherf--kin' Wall of Fame now!...We're closing you guinea bastards for good! For good, motherf--ker! Until you get some black people on that motherf--king Wall of Fame!"); Sal counter-demanded that Raheem turn down the volume on his blaring boom-box: ("Turn that jungle music off! We ain't in Africa!"), and then added some inflammatory racial slurs
• to back up his words, Sal also wielded a baseball-bat to destroy the boom box: ("I just killed your f--kin' radio"); a brawl broke out and extended into the street, creating a massive altercation; a tense series of events led to violence, further racial divide, and police brutality
• the two police officers Ponte and Long and other squad cars arrived to break up the fighting and to restrain and apprehend both Buggin' Out and Raheem; the latter died from Long's brutal nightstick choke-hold (an example of the use of excessive force with a police baton); Buggin' Out was shoved into the back of a police car, and Raheem's limp dead body was also driven away
• afterwards, witnesses blamed his unnecessary death on Sal, and recalled other instances of police brutality: ("They did it again, just like Michael Stewart. Murder. Eleanor Bumpers. Murder! Damn man, it ain't safe in our own f--king neighborhood"); Da Mayor attempted to calm everyone's nerves and emotions, and defended Sal:
  • "If we don't stop this and stop it now, we gonna do something we're gonna regret for the rest of our lives. Sal and his boys had nothing to do with what the cops did....Leave him alone."
• however, Mookie incited a riot by hurling a trash-can through Sal's storefront window while yelling the word "HATE"; the crowd of angry blacks entered and vandalized the store; Smiley also set the pizzeria on fire (with fiery flames licking the 'Wall of Fame'); Mother Sister yelled: "Burn it down!" Mookie's misdirected intent was to demonstrate protest against Raheem's murder, not to direct the neighborhood's anger toward the pizzeria
• fortunately, the mob was dissuaded by Sweet Dick Willie from burning down Sonny's Korean market across the street: ("Leave the Korean alone, man. He's all right"); the fire department arrived to douse the flames, and aimed their high-pressure fire hoses at the rioters and onlookers to disperse the crowd, causing more chaos and further arrests; as the building smoldered, Smiley posted one of his MLK-Malcolm pictures on the burned-down "Wall of Fame"
• the following day while surveying the ruins of the pizzeria, the DJ greeted his listeners at the start of another heat-wave day, asking: "I saw it, but I didn't believe it. I didn't believe it, what I saw. Are we going to live together? Together, are we going to live?"
• Mookie woke up in bed with Tina, who again reminded him how irresponsible he was ("'Cause I'm tired of this s--t, all right? You walk out that door, that's it, all right?"); he was only determined to get his back pay; he argued with Sal (sitting morosely in the front of his destroyed store) who questioned why he had destroyed his business: ("You don't work here no more... Your money couldn't begin to pay for the window you broke"); Mookie replied: "Motherf--k a window, Radio Raheem is dead"; Sal blamed Buggin' Out for starting the altercation and Raheem's death: ("He's dead because of his buddy")
• distraught by the loss of his business, Sal claimed he wasn't in it for the insurance money: "This ain't about money. I couldn't give a f--k about money. You see this f--kin' place? I built this f--kin' place! With my bare f--kin' hands! Every light socket, every piece of tile. Me! With these f--kin' hands!"; then, he reluctantly paid Mookie twice his final weekly paycheck - by angrily throwing five wads of bills at him; then he shouted: "You got 500ドル. You're a rich f--kin' man now, you happy?...You're wealthy, Mookie. You're a real f--kin' Rockefeller! You got your f--kin' pay, now leave me alone, huh?"
• on the radio, DJ Mister Senor Love Daddy announced that Mayor Koch had formed a "blue-ribbon panel" to investigate the "disturbance"; he also dedicated his next song in memory of Raheem: ("The next record goes out to Radio Raheem, we love you, brother")
• the film ended with the display of two semi-contradictory quotations about violence and non-violence (from Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X), reflecting the two doctrinal strains of belief and approaches: MLK's quote that supported peaceful civil disobedience (representing the LOVE fist), and Malcolm X's quote (representing the HATE fist) that advocated "intelligent" and violent militancy and self-defense
• the concluding picture of the two black icons standing next to each other (the same as Smiley's hawked photos), smiling and shaking hands (with their fists), appeared to be emblematic of the complementary need for both points of view

• Spike Lee's film was dedicated to the families of six black victims (due to police and mob action)