Essay On Do The Right Thing

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Spike Lee's 1989 film “Do the Right Thing” had an interesting path towards realization. The film was released amidst fears that the movie would cause riots across the country, due to Spike Lee's decision to directly confront sensitive issues such as police brutality and racial tension. The movie was released without any outbursts of violence, which led Spike Lee to criticize the white community for not believing that a black audience could watch a fictional film and remain civil. When asked if Mookie did the “right thing” or not, Spike Lee replied that black viewers never ask him this question, only white viewers. Lee also added that white viewers will generally summarize the movie as a tale of the destruction of a local business, while black viewers…show more content…
She stomped to the back of the restaurant and screamed out, “I can't stand these ******* NIGGERS!” Although she had shown me nothing but kindness and courtesy until that point, in an instant, she became an enemy in my mind. She had crossed the invisible barrier that exists between different races and cultures, and there could be no turning back. This is the same barrier that Sal crosses in the film when he breaks Radio Raheem's boombox and calls him a nigger. This barrier is then swiftly destroyed with the death of Radio Raheem at the hands of the police, soon followed by the destruction of Sal's Pizzeria. Mookie and Sal represent the last vestige of sanity in the neighborhood. They are the safety net that hold the rest of the neighborhood's frustrations at bay. When they finally break, everything else breaks around them. This building of tension and its transformation into chaos backed me into an emotional corner. When Mookie shatters the window at Sal's and screams, “Hate,” there exists a moment where Lee's film seems to ask me, “Whose side are you on?” The neighborhood has successfully been wedged apart by frustration and bigotry, and I felt like I had to pick a

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