Do the Right Thing


Do the Right Thing is a 1989 American comedy-drama film produced, written, and directed by Spike Lee. It stars Lee, Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Richard Edson, Giancarlo Esposito, Bill Nunn, John Turturro, and Samuel L. Jackson, and is the feature film debut of Martin Lawrence and Rosie Perez. The story explores a Brooklyn neighborhood's simmering racial tension, which culminates in violence on a hot summer day.
The film was a critical and commercial success and received numerous accolades, including Academy Award nominations for Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor for Aiello's portrayal of Sal the pizzeria owner. It is often listed among the greatest films of all time. In 1999, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress, in its first year of eligibility, and was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Plot

Mookie is a 25-year-old pizza delivery man living in Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, with his sister Jade. He and his girlfriend Tina have a toddler son named Hector. Mookie works at a local pizzeria owned by Sal, an Italian-American who has been in the neighborhood for 25 years. Sal's eldest son Pino is racist, and does not get along with Mookie. Because of this, Pino is at odds with both his father, who refuses to leave the majority African-American neighborhood, and his younger brother Vito, who is friendly with Mookie.
Many distinctive residents are introduced, including Da Mayor, a friendly drunk; Mother Sister, who watches the neighborhood from her brownstone; Radio Raheem, who blasts Public Enemy on his boombox wherever he goes; and Smiley, a mentally disabled man who meanders around the neighborhood trying to sell hand-colored pictures of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.
While at Sal's, Mookie's friend Buggin' Out, known for trouble-making and b-boying, questions Sal about his "Wall of Fame", a wall decorated with photos of famous Italian-Americans. Buggin' Out demands that Sal put up pictures of black celebrities since Sal's pizzeria is in a black neighborhood. Sal replies that it is his business, and that he can have whoever he wants on the wall. Buggin' Out attempts to start a protest over the Wall of Fame.
During the day, local teenagers open a fire hydrant and douse the street, before police officers intervene. Mookie and Pino begin arguing over race. Mookie confronts Pino about his negative attitudes towards African Americans, although the latter's favorite celebrities are black. Various characters express racial insults: Mookie against Italians, Pino against African Americans, Latino Stevie against Koreans, white police officer Gary Long against Puerto Ricans, and Korean store owner Sonny against Jews. Pino expresses his contempt for African Americans to Sal, but Sal insists that he will not leave the neighborhood.
That night, Buggin' Out, Radio Raheem, and Smiley march into Sal's and demand that Sal change the Wall of Fame. Raheem's boombox is blaring and Sal demands that he turn it off, but he refuses. Buggin' Out calls Sal and sons "guineas", and threatens to close down the pizzeria until they change the Wall of Fame. Frustrated and angry, Sal calls Buggin' Out a "nigger" and destroys Raheem's boombox with a baseball bat. Raheem attacks Sal, leading to a fight that spills out into the street and attracts a crowd. The police arrive, break up the fight, and apprehend Raheem and Buggin' Out. Despite the pleas of onlookers, one officer refuses to release his chokehold on Raheem, killing him. Realizing that Raheem has been killed in front of witnesses, the officers place his body in the back of a squad car and drive off.
The onlookers, enraged about Radio Raheem's death, blame Sal and his sons. Mookie grabs a trash can and throws it through the window of Sal's pizzeria, sparking the crowd to rush into the restaurant and destroy it. Smiley sets the building on fire, and Da Mayor pulls Sal, Pino, and Vito out of the mob's way. Firemen and riot patrols arrive to put out the fire and disperse the crowd. After police issue a warning, the firefighters turn their hoses on the rioters, leading to more fighting and arrests. Mookie and Jade sit on the curb, watching in disbelief. Smiley wanders back into the smoldering building and hangs one of his pictures on what is left of Sal's Wall of Fame.
The next day, after an argument with Tina, Mookie returns to Sal. He feels that Mookie had betrayed him, but Mookie demands his weekly pay. The two men argue and cautiously reconcile, and Sal finally pays Mookie. Mister Señor Love Daddy, a local DJ, dedicates a song to Radio Raheem.
The film ends with two quotations that express different views about violence, one by Martin Luther King and one by Malcolm X. It fades to a photograph of the two leaders shaking hands. Prior to the credits, Lee dedicates the film to the families of six victims of police brutality or racial violence: Eleanor Bumpurs, Michael Griffith, Arthur Miller, Jr., Edmund Perry, Yvonne Smallwood, and Michael Stewart.

Cast

Lee first got the idea for the film after watching the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode "Shopping for Death," in which the main characters discuss their theory that hot weather increases violent tendencies. He was also inspired by the 1986 Howard Beach racial incident, in which an African-American man was killed; and also the shooting of Eleanor Bumpurs by police. Lee wrote the screenplay in two weeks.
The original script of Do the Right Thing ended with a stronger reconciliation between Mookie and Sal than Lee used in the film. In this version, Sal's comments to Mookie are similar to Da Mayor's earlier comments in the film and hint at some common ground, and perhaps Sal's understanding of why Mookie tried to destroy his restaurant. Lee did not explain why he changed the ending.

Casting

Lee campaigned for Robert De Niro to play Sal the pizzeria owner, but De Niro had to decline due to prior commitments. Aiello eventually played Sal and his son Rick played Gary Long, the police officer who kills Radio Raheem. The character of Smiley was not in the original script; he was created by Roger Guenveur Smith, who was pestering Lee for a role in the film.
Four of the cast members were stand-up comedians: Martin Lawrence, Steve Park, Steve White, and Robin Harris. Lee originally wanted Nunn to play the role of Mister Señor Love Daddy, but later recast him as Radio Raheem. The acting couple Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee were friends of Lee's father Bill; they were cast as Mother Sister and Da Mayor. Perez was cast as Mookie's love interest Tina after Lee saw her dancing at a Los Angeles dance club. Perez decided to take the part because her sister lived four blocks from the set. She had never been in a film before and became upset during the filming of Radio Raheem's death scene.

Filming

The film was shot entirely on Stuyvesant Avenue between Quincy Street and Lexington Avenue in the Bedford–Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. The street's color scheme was altered by the production designer, who used a great deal of red and orange paint to convey the sense of a heatwave. The Korean grocery store and Sal's pizzeria were built from scratch on two empty lots. The pizzeria was fully functional and the actors cooked pizzas in the ovens. During filming, the neighborhood's crack dealers threatened the film crew for disturbing their business there. Lee hired Fruit of Islam members to provide security. Jackson later revealed that he spent much of his time on set sleeping as he has no scenes outside.

Reception

Critical reception

Film critics acclaimed Do the Right Thing. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 92%, based on 90 reviews, with an average rating of 9.16/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Smart, vibrant and urgent without being didactic, Do the Right Thing is one of Spike Lee's most fully realized efforts – and one of the most important films of the 1980s." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 93 out of 100, based on 26 critics, indicating "universal acclaim", and placing it as the 68th-highest film of all-time on the site.
Both Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert ranked the film as the best of 1989, and later each ranked it as one of the top 10 films of the decade. Ebert later added the film to his list of The Great Movies. According to online film resource They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?, Do the Right Thing is the most acclaimed film of 1989. New York Times film critic Wesley Morris has called Do the Right Thing his favorite film.

Controversies

After release, many reviewers protested its content. Some columnists opined that the film could incite black audiences to riot. Lee criticized white reviewers in turn for suggesting that black audiences were incapable of restraining themselves while watching a fictional motion picture. In a 2014 interview Lee said, "That still bugs the shit out of me," calling the remarks "outrageous, egregious and, I think, racist." He said, "I don't remember people saying people were going to come out of theaters killing people after they watched Arnold Schwarzenegger films."
An open question near the end of the film is whether Mookie "does the right thing" when he throws the garbage can through the window, inciting the riot that destroys Sal's pizzeria. Some critics have interpreted Mookie's action as an action that saves Sal's life, by redirecting the crowd's anger away from Sal to his property, and others say that it was an "irresponsible encouragement to enact violence". The quotations by two major black leaders used at the end the film provide no answers: one advocates nonviolence, the other advocates armed self-defense in response to oppression.
Spike Lee has remarked that only white viewers ask him if Mookie did the right thing; black viewers do not ask the question. Lee believes the key point is that Mookie was angry at the wrongful death of Radio Raheem. Viewers who question the riot are explicitly failing to see the difference between damage to property and the death of a black man.
Lee has been criticized for his representation of women. For example, bell hooks said that he wrote black women in the same objectifying way that white male filmmakers write the characters of white women. Rosie Perez, who was in an acting role for the first time as Tina in Do the Right Thing, said later that she was very uncomfortable with doing the nude scene in the film:
In June 2006, Entertainment Weekly magazine placed Do the Right Thing at No. 22 on its list of The 25 Most Controversial Movies Ever.

Awards and nominations

American Film Institute lists
Do the Right Thing was released on VHS after its theatrical run, and on DVD by The Criterion Collection on February 20, 2001. It was released on Blu-ray on June 30, 2009 for the 20th anniversary. A special edition Blu-ray with a 4K restoration of the film was released by The Criterion Collection on July 23, 2019 for 30th anniversary.

Soundtrack

The film's score was released in early July 1989 while the soundtrack was released in late June 1989 on Columbia Records and Motown Records, respectively. The soundtrack was successful, reaching the number eleven spot on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, and peaking at sixty-eight on the Billboard 200.
On the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks chart, the Perri track "Feel So Good" reached the fifty-first spot, while Public Enemy's "Fight the Power" reached number twenty, and Guy's "My Fantasy" went all the way to the top spot. "My Fantasy" also reached number six on the Hot Dance Music/Maxi-Singles Sales chart, and sixty-two on Billboard's Hot 100. "Fight the Power" also charted high on the Hot Dance Music chart, peaking at number three, and topped the Hot Rap Singles chart.

Track listing

In popular culture

In 1990, the film was parodied in a sketch on In Living Color. Many television series have parodied the trash can scene, including The Boondocks , and Bob's Burgers.
In Lee's 2006 film, Inside Man, the police provide Sal's pizza to the hostages.
The scene where Buggin' Out confronts the white Celtics fan about scuffing his Air Jordans is parodied in the music video for the 2008 Nelly song Stepped on My J'z.
In 2016, Air Jordan released a special Radio Raheem sneaker based on the colors of the shirt that he wears in the film.
In 2014, the 25th anniversary of the film Barack and Michelle Obama praised the film, and said they went to see it together on their first date. This was later referenced in the 2016 film Southside With You where Barack discusses Mookie's motives with a white colleague after seeing the film.
In the second season of Netflix series She's Gotta Have It, based on the film of the same name, Rosie Perez returns to portray Tina once more and it is revealed that not only is she the mother of Mars Blackmon, but that Mookie is Blackmon's biological father.

Related films

Mookie makes another appearance in the 2012 film Red Hook Summer, where he is shown delivering pizzas. According to Lee, Sal took the insurance money from his burned pizzeria and reopened the restaurant in Red Hook. He then rehired Mookie, agreeing to include black celebrities on his Wall of Fame.