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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 between its African-American residents and the Italian-American owners of a local pizzeria, culminating in tragedy and violence on a hot summer day.

Do the Right Thing
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Spike Lee
Written by	Spike Lee
Produced by	Spike Lee
Starring	Danny Aiello Ossie Davis Ruby Dee Richard Edson Giancarlo Esposito Spike Lee Bill Nunn John Turturro John Savage
Cinematography	Ernest Dickerson
Edited by	Barry Alexander Brown
Music by	Bill Lee
Production company	40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release dates	May 19, 1989 (1989-05-19) (Cannes) June 30, 1989 (1989-06-30) (United States)
Running time	120 minutes[1]
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$6 million[2]
Box office	$37.3 million[3]

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.[4][5][6][7][8] In 1999, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress, and was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.[9][10]

Plot

Twenty-five-year-old Mookie lives in Bedford–Stuyvesant with his sister Jade, has a toddler son named Hector with his girlfriend Tina, and works as a delivery man at a local pizzeria that has been owned and operated for 25 years by Sal, an Italian-American who lives in Bensonhurst. Sal's racist eldest son Pino is antagonistic towards Mookie, clashing with both his father, who refuses to move his business out of the majority African-American neighborhood, and his younger brother Vito, who is friendly with Mookie.

Many distinctive residents are introduced, including friendly drunk Da Mayor; Mother Sister, who watches the neighborhood from her brownstone; Radio Raheem, who blasts Public Enemy's "Fight the Power" 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.

At Sal's, Mookie's friend Buggin' Out questions Sal about his "Wall of Fame", decorated with photos of famous Italian-Americans, and demands that Sal put up pictures of Black celebrities since the 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 boycotting the pizzeria.

During the day, local teenagers open a fire hydrant and douse the other neighbors to beat the heat wave before officers Mark Ponte and Gary Long intervene. After a phone call, Mookie and Pino debate race. Mookie confronts Pino about his contempt towards African-Americans, although Pino's favorite celebrities are Black. Various characters express racial insults: Mookie against Italians, Pino against African-Americans, Latino Stevie against Koreans, white officer Gary Long against Puerto Ricans, and Korean store owner Sonny against Jews. Pino expresses his hatred for African-Americans to Sal, who insists on staying in the neighborhood.

That night, Buggin' Out, Radio Raheem, and Smiley march into Sal's and demand that Sal change the Wall of Fame. Sal demands that Radio Raheem turn his boombox off, but he refuses. Buggin' Out calls Sal and his sons "Guinea bastards" and threatens to shutter the pizzeria until they change the Wall of Fame. An angered Sal calls Buggin' Out a "nigger" and destroys Raheem's boombox with a bat. Raheem attacks Sal, igniting a fight that spills out into the street and attracts a crowd. While Raheem is strangling Sal, the police arrive, including Officer Long and Ponte from earlier in the movie, who break up the fight, and apprehend Raheem and Buggin' Out. As the officers attempt to restrain an enraged Raheem, suddenly Long throws Raheem in a chokehold with his nightstick. Despite the pleas of his partner Ponte and onlookers to stop, Long instead tightens his chokehold on Raheem, killing him. Realizing their error, the officers place his body in the back of a police car and drive off.

The onlookers, devastated and enraged about Radio Raheem's death, blame Sal and his sons. Da Mayor tries to convince the crowd that Sal did not cause his death but the crowd remains stationary. In a brief fit of anger and grief, Mookie grabs a trash can and throws it through the window of Sal's pizzeria, sparking the crowd to rush into and destroy the pizzeria. Smiley sets the building on fire, and Da Mayor pulls Sal and his sons away from the mob, which then turns towards Sonny's store, preparing to destroy it too. However, a panicked Sonny eventually dissuades the group. The police return to the site, along with firemen and riot patrols to extinguish the fire and disperse the crowd. After they issue a warning, the firefighters turn their hoses on the rioters, leading to more fighting and arrests, while Mookie and Jade watch in shock from the curb. Smiley wanders back into the smoldering building and hangs one of his pictures on the remnants of Sal's Wall of Fame.

The next day, after arguing 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. Local DJ Mister Señor Love Daddy dedicates a song to Radio Raheem.

Before the credits, two quotations expressing different views about violence, one by Martin Luther King and one by Malcolm X, appear, followed by a photograph of both leaders shaking hands. Lee then dedicates the film to the families of six victims of brutality or racial violence: Eleanor Bumpurs, Michael Griffith, Arthur Miller Jr., Edmund Perry, Yvonne Smallwood, and Michael Stewart.

Cast

Production

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.[11] Lee wrote the screenplay in two weeks.[12]

The original script of Do the Right Thing ended with a stronger reconciliation between Mookie and Sal than Lee used in the film.[13] 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 has not explicitly explained why he changed the ending but his contemporaneous notes compiled in the film's companion book indicate Lisa Jones expressed Sal's reaction as "too nice" as originally written.[14]

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. Roger Guenveur Smith, who was pestering Lee for a role in the film, created the character of Smiley, who was not in the original script.[15]

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, who were friends of Lee's father Bill, were cast as Da Mayor and Mother Sister.[11] 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.[11]

Filming

The film was shot entirely on Stuyvesant Avenue between Quincy Street and Lexington Avenue in the Bedford–Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. Production designer Wynn Thomas altered the street's color scheme, using 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.[11] Jackson later revealed that he spent much of his time on set sleeping as he has no scenes outside.[11]

Reception

Critical reception

At the time of the film's release, 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 (No. 6 for Siskel and No. 4 for Ebert).[16] Siskel described the film as "a spiritual documentary that shows racial joy, hatred and confusion at every turn",[17] while Ebert lauded it for coming "closer to reflecting the current state of race relations in America than any other movie of our time."[18] Ebert later added the film to his list of The Great Movies.[19] In a retrospective review in 2019, Kambole Campbell of the British magazine Little White Lies noted the film's lasting relevance and called it "a bold expression of love and frustration and care and anger that is so vivid and expressive it feels like it exists in the here and now."[20] New York Times film critic Wesley Morris has called Do the Right Thing his favorite film.[21]

Some critics were less favorable in their reviews. Dave Kehr of the Chicago Tribune gave the film two stars out of four; while calling the film "amiable", he resented it for employing white guilt and "seeing violence as a liberating symbol rather than a debasing reality."[22] Ralph Novak, writing for People, panned the film as incoherent and having an unclear message and no likable characters: "If Lee is saying that racism is profoundly painful, frustrating and confusing, no one will argue. But this film states the case without offering any insight."[23]

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 91%, based on 105 reviews, with an average rating of 9.20/10. 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."[24] 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.[25] According to online film resource They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?, Do the Right Thing is the most acclaimed film of 1989.[26]

Controversies

After release, many reviewers protested its content. Some columnists opined that the film could incite Black audiences to riot.[27] Lee criticized white reviewers in turn for suggesting that Black audiences were incapable of restraining themselves while watching a fictional motion picture.[28] 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."[29]

An open question near the end of the film is whether Mookie "does the right thing" by throwing the garbage can through the window, inciting the riot that destroys Sal's pizzeria. Some critics have interpreted Mookie's action as one that saves Sal's life by redirecting the crowd's anger away from Sal to his property, while others say that it was an "irresponsible encouragement to enact violence".[30] The quotations by two major Black leaders used at the end of the film provide no answers: one advocates nonviolence, the other advocates armed self-defense in response to oppression.[30]

Spike Lee has remarked that only white viewers ask him if Mookie did the right thing; Black viewers do not ask him the question.[31] Lee believes the key point is that Mookie was angry at the wrongful death of Radio Raheem, stating that viewers who question the riot are explicitly failing to see the difference between property damage and the death of a Black man.[28]

Lee has been criticized for his treatment of women in his films. bell hooks said that he wrote Black women in the same objectifying way that white male filmmakers write the characters of white women.[32] Rosie Perez, who made her acting debut as Tina in the film, later said that she was very uncomfortable with doing the nude scene in the film:

"My first experience [with doing nude scenes] was Do the Right Thing. And I had a big problem with it, mainly because I was afraid of what my family would think — that’s what was really bothering me. It wasn’t really about taking off my clothes. But I also didn’t feel good about it because the atmosphere wasn’t correct. And when Spike Lee puts ice cubes on my nipples, the reason you don’t see my head is because I’m crying. I was like, I don’t want to do this."[33]

In June 2006, Entertainment Weekly magazine placed Do the Right Thing at No. 22 on its list of The 25 Most Controversial Movies Ever.[34]

In the 2021 Cannes Film Festival award ceremony, Chaz Ebert, the wife of the late film critic Roger Ebert, noted that her husband had been appalled that the film had not received any awards from the Cannes jury in 1989, and had even threatened to boycott the festival as a result.[35] Spike Lee noted that the U.S. press at the time thought the film "would start race riots all across America". Drawing a loud applause from attending press, he pointed to the continued relevance of the film's story, more than three decades on, saying:

"You would think and hope that 30-something motherf***ing years later that Black people would have stopped being hunted down like animals."[36]

Awards and nominations

List of awards and nominations
Award	Date of ceremony	Category	Recipients and nominees	Result
Academy Awards	March 26, 1990[37]	Best Supporting Actor	Danny Aiello	Nominated
		Best Original Screenplay	Spike Lee
Belgian Syndicate of Cinema Critics	1990	Grand Prix
Boston Society of Film Critics	1990	Best Supporting Actor	Danny Aiello	Won
Cannes Film Festival[38]	May 23, 1989	Palme d'Or	Spike Lee	Nominated
Chicago Film Critics Association	1990	Best Picture		Won
		Best Director	Spike Lee
		Best Supporting Actor	Danny Aiello
Golden Globe Awards	January 20, 1990	Best Motion Picture – Drama		Nominated
		Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture	Danny Aiello
		Best Director – Motion Picture	Spike Lee
		Best Screenplay – Motion Picture
Los Angeles Film Critics Association	December 16, 1989	Best Film		Won
		Best Supporting Actor	Danny Aiello
		Best Director	Spike Lee
		Best Screenplay		2nd place
		Best Music	Bill Lee	Won
MTV Movie Awards	June 6, 2006	Silver Bucket of Excellence
NAACP Image Awards	December 11, 1989	Outstanding Actress	Ruby Dee
		Outstanding Supporting Actor	Ossie Davis
National Society of Film Critics Awards	January 8, 1990	Best Director	Spike Lee	3rd place
New York Film Critics Circle	January 14, 1990	Best Film		5th place
		Best Screenplay	Spike Lee	4th place
		Best Cinematography	Ernest Dickerson	Won
The 20/20 Awards	2010	Best Picture		Nominated
		Best Director	Spike Lee	Won
		Best Supporting Actor	Danny Aiello	Nominated
			John Turturro
		Best Original Screenplay	Spike Lee
		Best Film Editing	Barry Alexander Brown	Won
		Best Original Song	"Fight the Power" Music and Lyrics by Chuck D, Hank Shocklee, Eric Sadler, and Keith Shocklee

American Film Institute lists

• AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs:
  • "Fight the Power" – No. 40
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) – No. 96

Home media

Do the Right Thing was released on VHS after its theatrical run, and on DVD by The Criterion Collection on February 20, 2001.[39] 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 the film's 30th anniversary.[40]

Soundtrack

The film's score (composed and partially performed by jazz musician Bill Lee, father of Spike Lee) 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.[41]

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.[42][43]

Do the Right Thing: Original Motion Picture Score
Film score by Bill Lee
Released	1989
Recorded	December 12, 1988 – December 16, 1988
Genre	Film score
Length	35:36
Label	Columbia
Producer	Spike Lee (exec.)

Track listing

Do the Right Thing: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Soundtrack album by Various artists
Released	June 23, 1989[44]
Genre	Soundtrack
Length	53:14
Label	Motown Records
Producer	Gregory "Sugar Bear" Elliott (exec.), Ted Hopkins (exec.), Mark Kibble (exec.), Spike Lee (exec.), Johnny Mercer (exec.)
Singles from Do the Right Thing: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
"Fight the Power" Released: July 4, 1989[44]

In popular culture

In 1990, the film was parodied in a sketch on In Living Color.[45] Many television series have parodied the trash can scene, including The Critic, The Boondocks and Bob's Burgers.[46]

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".[47]

In 2016, Air Jordan released a special Radio Raheem sneaker.[48]

In 2014, the film's 25th anniversary, Barack and Michelle Obama praised the film, and said they went to see it together on their first date.[49][50][51] 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.

The "love/hate" speech given by Radio Raheem is an ode to a similar monologue in the thriller film The Night of the Hunter.

Related films

Officers Gary Long & Mark Ponte return in Jungle Fever (1991). In Lee's 2006 film, Inside Man, the police provide Sal's pizza to the hostages.[52]

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.[53]

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 (Anthony Ramos), but that Mookie is Blackmon's biological father.

See also

• List of hood films

References

Bibliography

• Aftab, Kaleem. Spike Lee: That's My Story and I'm Sticking to It. England: Faber and Faber Limited, 2005. ISBN 0-393-06153-1.
• Spike Lee's Last Word. Documentary on the Criterion Collection DVD of Do the Right Thing. 2000.
• Spike Lee et al. Commentary on the Criterion Collection DVD of Do the Right Thing. 2000.

Further reading

• Spike Lee; Lisa Jones (1989). Do the right thing: a Spike Lee joint. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-0-671-68265-1. Retrieved September 25, 2010.
• Mark A. Reid (1997). Spike Lee's Do the right thing. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-55954-6. Retrieved September 25, 2010.

External links

• Do the Right Thing essay by David Sterritt at National Film Registry
• Do the Right Thing essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 ISBN 0826429777, pages 798-800 America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry
• Do the Right Thing at IMDb
• Do the Right Thing at AllMovie
• Do the Right Thing at Box Office Mojo
• Do the Right Thing at Metacritic
• Do the Right Thing at Rotten Tomatoes
• Do the Right Thing at the TCM Movie Database
• Do the Right Thing an essay by Roger Ebert at the Criterion Collection

На других языках

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[de] Do the Right Thing

Do the Right Thing ist ein US-amerikanischer Spielfilm von Spike Lee aus dem Jahr 1989. Die Tragikomödie, produziert von Lee, der auch das Drehbuch schrieb und eine der Hauptrollen übernahm, feierte ihre Premiere im Mai 1989 auf den Filmfestspielen von Cannes. Der US-Kinostart folgte am 30. Juni 1989, in den bundesdeutschen Kinos war der Film ab dem 13. Juli 1989 zu sehen.[1] Der Film wird von Kritikern als Teil des New Black Cinema angesehen.[2]

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- [en] Do the Right Thing

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[es] Do the Right Thing

Do the Right Thing (en España, Haz lo que debas; en Argentina y en Chile, Haz lo correcto) es una película estadounidense de 1989, escrita, dirigida y producida por Spike Lee, protagonizada por el propio director y por Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Richard Edson, Giancarlo Esposito, Bill Nunn y John Turturro, en los papeles principales.

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[ru] Делай как надо!

«Делай как надо!» (англ. Do the Right Thing) (1989) — драма режиссёра Спайка Ли, выступившего также в качестве продюсера, сценариста и сыгравшего главную роль. В фильме также снимались Дэнни Айелло, Джанкарло Эспозито, Джон Туртурро и Сэмюэл Л. Джексон. Картина стала дебютом для Рози Перес и Мартина Лоуренса.

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