The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015. Remaining movies: 71 Days to go: 48
Movie #369: Do the Right Thing
Rest in peace, Radio Raheem.
Almost 26 years since Do the Right Thing was released in theaters and at times it almost seems like nothing much has changed. You watch the news and see racial tensions and stereotypes that still plague us, that simmer right below the surface all the time, just waiting for a spark to set them off, just like they do in Spike Lee’s masterpiece, his signature film. I wonder now — just as I did back then — if there’s ever going to be an answer to all the hatred and rage, and I honestly don’t know. What I do know, however, is that Do the Right Thing is still as significant as bold and as powerful as it ever was.
The movie is an intimate, knowing portrait of the New York City neighborhood of Bed-Stuy, and in a way it’s easy to see how much Lee loves it and celebrates its culture. But the film itself is about the anger and intolerance in all of us, as it documents the clashing personalities and rising tensions on this sizzling hot summer day across a couple of city blocks. Lee himself plays Mookie, the main character, who is kind of a layabout good-for-nothing according to most of the neighborhood folks — especially his sister Jade (played by Lee’s own sister Joie) and girlfriend Tina (Rosie Perez). He delivers pizza for Sal (Danny Aiello), giving him a lot of time to socialize and mingle with people on the street. These include old timers Da Mayor (Ossie Davis) and Mother Sister (Ruby Dee), middle-aged complainers Coconut Sid (Frankie Faison) and Sweet Dick Willie (Robin Harris), and young trouble makers like the activist Buggin’ Out (Giancarlo Esposito) and the aforementioned Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn), who will meet an untimely end. The neighborhood is primarily black, but when Sal opened his pizzeria it used to be Italian, and as the complainers have noted, Koreans and Puerto Ricans are moving in on their territory. Everyone is part of the problem, including the cops, and nobody is able to stop these clashing prejudices from eventually erupting into a deadly and destructive riot.
The movie is a profoundly important one, I think. One that everyone should see. But one of my most distinct memories of it — more distinct, even, than seeing it in the theater that first time — was when ABC aired it on TV. I just remember what an insanely bad idea this was, and how poorly thought out, because while Do the Right Thing makes an incredibly powerful and essential cultural statement, it’s full of profanity and racial slurs and all sorts of things ABC was never going to get to show on television. It was so stupid to me — not that ABC wanted to show the film, but that it would have to be so drastically censored. One of the points of the film are the crass and vulgar ways people speak about one another when tempers rise, and if you mute those for broadcast — or worse, record over them with softball alternatives — it dilutes the message to meaninglessness. I understand that some words are not appropriate for young children, and that some people are offended by profanity, but the explicitness is as essential to Do the Right Thing as Do the Right Thing is to the social consciousness. Sadly, however, we still live in a world in which a movie can chop someone’s head off and be rated PG-13, but if someone says “fuck” in a family drama more than once, it’s an automatic R.
I guess what I’m saying is, context is everything. And a movie is more than just a bunch of bad words, just like a riot is more than just a riot.
Viable Option 