Do the Right Thing :K.Reed

When Do the Right Thing came out in 1989, Spike Lee, author and director, was hoping to show a very powerful message to Americans. “Wake up! Wake up. Up you wake!” Senor Love Daddy tells us in the first lines of the movie. Not only is this for the first of the morning on the radio, but also for people watching as well as the characters in the movie. For this movie, the ideology would be explicit because as defined by Giannetti in Understanding Movies, these are, “Thematically oriented movies aim to teach and persuade as much as to entertain.” In this movie we see a problem in a community and how they try to solve it, which really just makes everything worse. As Professor Permenter notes in her commentary, “This film is framed with Love Daddy telling people to get along, cool down, and just to try and love each other. At the beginning and at the end.” Love Daddy sends to message throughout the whole movie while the violence and hate is there to entertain.

Spike Lee along with cinematographer, Ernest Dickerson, did a fabulous job with the shots and mise en scene. Used in the film often were extreme angles, such as low angles, which were used sometimes when they felt some character was speaking some truth or wisdom. Oblique angles were also used very often throughout the film to, “…make us realize something is off; sense of discomfort” (Professors commentary). And that’s just it. Watching the movie for the first time I was confused because the shot was tilted. In the film, the mise en scene you see often is red, white, and blue representing American, wanting us to feel as one nation and have peace.

Radio Raheem, who plays the song, “Fight the Power,” all day everyday. This lyric could not be truer for society. Fight the power of racism and hate in the world. There are so many hidden words, phrases throughout the film that we should listen for. In Emerson’s review, he says, “There are no uncompromised heroes, no clear-cut villains here…” Sal isn’t a hero because he loses his temper very easily and isn’t nice about everything, but he also isn’t a villain because he never did anything wrong in the first place; he is just running his business and making something of his name and some kids around the neighborhood simply didn’t like some things he did. Radio Raheem isn’t a hero because he simply brought trouble and started things with Sal just because he wouldn’t let him play music, but he isn’t a villain because he loved his music and just wanted to be able to play it. In Ebert’s review, he said, “The neighborhood is black, but two of the businesses aren't.” Near the end of the fighting scene and the burning of Sal’s, they all go to the Korean’s but they are trying to get them to stay away. He then says we are the same. The town people continue to say, “No we are black. You are not black.” But the Korean wasn’t looking at it like that. This I think was another message hidden because we are all the same no matter the skin color.

Although this movie came out 26 years ago, the message can still be heard and should be within our society. Everyone has lost the sense of peace in the world and has gone straight to violence to solve their problems. So, Wake up America! We need to find more love in the world rather than hate.