Does Spike Lee "Do Right" by His Audience?

Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing is everything you don't want a movie to be. It's brash. It's loud. It gets up in your face and makes you uncomfortable. It is a blunt work of art that doesn't tip-toe around its subject matter.

That's why it's important.

Spike Lee is a very deliberate director, and Do The Right Thing is in many ways his most influential film - his magnum opus, in which attention to detail is evident in every neon, sun-soaked frame. Set in a lower-class neighborhood during a blistering heat wave, Do The Right Thing gradually builds tension amongst the members of its racially diverse cast. It delicately layers snide remarks, ethnic slurs, and sweltering temperatures to overheat an already volatile melting pot. Vesuvius would be jealous of the eruption that is the film's climax.

To cut to the chase, the film is a question of what white America values as a society. Spike Lee presents this moral inquiry in an unexpected fashion - he deliberately crafts his story so that the answer is not as obvious as one might expect.

The young black man whose life is taken by police brutality - the belligerent Radio Raheem - is not a likable character. I would even go so far as to say that we are programmed as an audience to dislike him. He brandishes an over-sized radio that loudly plays the music of his choosing: Public Enemy's "Fight the Power." He is inconsiderate of others, and from what can be seen of his interactions with others, he is not especially well-liked in the community. Furthermore, he nearly strangles Sal in their final confrontation over the absence of African Americans on the Wall of Fame in Sal's pizzeria. Ultimately, Radio Raheem must be restrained by the policemen who break up the brawl - policemen who take it upon themselves to strangle this young man until he is good and dead. It is this act that provokes the outraged crowd - filled with people who did not particularly care for Radio Raheem - to take action, burning Sal's Famous Pizzeria to the ground.

Although it can be argued that Sal did not warrant the destruction of his beloved pizzeria - a point with which I whole-heartedly agree - it is Spike Lee's intention that we do not clearly see what is important. We spend our energy caring about the loss of property, forgetting about the intrinsic value of human life. After all, what's the death of one more black youth? In the eyes of white America, he's essentially worthless anyway. I'm sorry that I can't put it more tactfully, but that's ultimately what Lee's point boils down to - our inability to value human life.


For what it's worth, this film has made me re-evaluate racism not as a salient force, but as something more subdued. We must acknowledge our hidden biases instead of sweeping them under the carpet, before they have the opportunity to escalate. And this begins with an appreciation of human life and the intrinsic worth and integrity of every human being.

And maybe that's why this movie is so hard to stomach - because it sheds an unflattering light on its audience.