know you can’t stand the heat

I believe that the heat throughout the movie is more than just a part of the plot. I think it has a much deeper meaning once you think about it. One of the main themes in Do the Right Thing is race. Still to this day race is looked at as a hot topic and most discussions had about race generally turn out to be pretty heated. I think this is one general reason why Spike Lee chose heat instead of rain or fog. Also the movie starts off hot, but it consistently gets to be hotter throughout the day. During the night when it starts to cool off just a little, the climax of the movie happens. This huge dispute that had been brewing in the sun all day finally goes down and the main spot of the movie goes up in flames. Fire is basically as hot as you can get when it comes to temperature and during the fire the race theme is being emphasized greatly through the riot and dispute. The movie was filled with conflicts between every character in the film. When in conflict, you get a little hot and your temper rises much like the temperature in the movie. These conflicts oddly enough were not only between different races, but also within the same and within the same families or between friends. The general feeling of the movie was anger. It seemed as if when one conflict ended another one began. Each of these separate conflicts added fuel to the tragic fire that occurs at the end of the film. I felt when watching it like it was real and although it was raw I felt as if I had a better idea of the true battle most went through and are still going through relating to race. I know that I would hate to not have air conditioning on the hottest day of the year but this heat was a crucial part to the plot and message of Do the Right Thing. I feel it is one of the most important and deep factors in the movie and if Spike Lee had chosen rain as the factor because it was sad and at the end of the day flooded out Sal’s Famous Pizzeria– you clearly see it wouldn’t have been the same. Robert Ebert wrote on his web page on May 27, 2001, “Spike Lee had done an almost impossible thing. He’d made a movie about race in America that empathized with all the participants. He didn’t draw lines or take sides but simply looked with sadness at one racial flashpoint that stood for many others. This is what made this movie so influential, and why many people hold this movie close to them on a personal level. The  movie makes you see it from all angles and if done in any other way, this film wouldn’t be what it is today.

-Tiffany

The Right Thing 2.0

I have to say, I was surprised at the movie Do the Right Thing. It kind of reminded me of the film Crash, where the people you thought would be the heroes were the evil people and vice versa. In the first half of Do the Right Thing, Radio Raheem and Buggin’ Out seemed to be strange at most, not violent. Raheem even listened to Sal when he told Raheem to turn the radio off. Even Buggin’ Out wanted a peaceful resolution to the seemingly trivial problem. Sal, at least to me, came off as a typical New York Italian, a loud mouth jerk. But Sal did seem to care about his customers and employee, as well as the community. He knew customers on a first name basis and gave Da Mayor jobs. Buggin’ Out on the other hand never seemed to care what others thought, for example, when he got stepped on by the biker. Instead of forgiving the man, he wanted to fight him and started a heated argument about why the white man was even in this neighborhood, suggesting that only African Americans could live there, promoting racial segregation. The movie really surprised me because it was not so much about race as it was about how violence can affect discrimination and how discrimination can fuel hatred. The movie never makes it clear who did the right thing; some people seemed to be doing the right thing at one point and the wrong thing at the others. Like how Mookie led Buggin’ Out out of the Pizzeria, yet he started the destruction of it when Raheem was killed. The only right people seemed to be the Da Mayor and Mother Sister. Even so, Da Mayor was always trying to do the right thing, but was scorned by the locals for drinking, a small flaw in my opinion for saving a boy and protecting a family from being torn apart by an angry mob. The movie has many cultural implications, including Malcolm x, martin Luther King (the peaceful, even future conflicts such as the LA riots and the Rodney King crisis.

-Stefan Francesconi

Analyzing the color and words

Upon really watching the film “Do the Right Thing” which was written, directed, and acted in by Spike Lee I learn that there is much more than just the plot. The writer does everything for a reason, like the color schemes and the climate of the outdoors. In this particular movie, Spike Lee used colors such as orange, red and blue to represent the different feelings. At the very beginning of the movie, we saw a couple of the actors dancing in a particular color and the background matched their outfit. Mookie’s sister was sporting the color blue, and Mookie’s girlfriend Tina was sporting the color red. Later on in the movie it was apparent that Tina was full of anger towards a lot of different things, and red was used to represent this anger amongst others throughout the movie. Mookie’s sister was the neutral person throughout this whole movie and the blue was used as a symbol of “calmness”.

            When in the storage room at Sal’s Famous Pizzeria, the two son’s of Sal’s got into an argument about trusting African Americans or not. What was unique about this scene was that the storage room had a red tint to it, and the brother that was against the African Americans was wearing a white wife-beater, and the brother that was defending the African Americans was wearing a black wife-beater.

            Along with color, the motif of Love versus Hate was played out on almost every level throughout the movie. We were explained out right what Love versus Hate meant when Mookie saw Radio Radheem in the street and he talked to him. It seems that with no matter what the situation Love and Hate play a role because you can’t have one without the other. Radio Radheem had the words “LOVE” and “HATE” as rings, one word on each hand. He explained that you can’t have love without hate in the way that when you’re in a fight you use both hands (love and hate) but never at the same time, one always dominates over the other at a particular point in time.

            It seems like the only person in the whole movie that did the right thing was Mookie’s sister, which was relevant to the fact that in the beginning of the movie she was dancing in the “calm” color. Everyone was racist or didn’t do the right thing at some point of the movie except for her because she didn’t understand why she couldn’t have a simple conversation with Sal without Mookie going crazy. It was like she was the only person that was color blind throughout the movie, which I think that I Spike Lee made her character that way that it would be perfect, or maybe it would make it too obvious that she didn’t see the color of someone’s skin as a factor on whether she liked them or not.

 

A. Aungst

A Time to Kill

In life, we encounter different types of people.  Those who are caught up in their fantasies and can’t seem to live anything but them.  They assume that what they imagine is reality, and continue to live by it.  Others are realistic:  they see things as they are, and deal with the reality of things – as harsh as it may be at times – for what it really is.  For those realists, film has become a method for them to obtain surrealism.  Realists know that the majority of films, unless historical or documentary films are fictional, so occasionally they allow themselves to be consumed by it.  Just because one leads their life in such a straight forward manner, doesn’t mean they don’t obtain the right to escape it.

When watching many films, we find ourselves thinking “How nice that would be if only it occurred in my life!”  For instance, stereotypically, women are consumed by love stories, men are taken by the action films and children are addicted to the cartoon films.  In all of these types of films, we wish that the events occurring would occur in our dull and daily routine lives, to add a little spice. 

One of those movies, previously mentioned, that isn’t a documentary, or a historical film, yet still holds its essence and truthfulness is “A Time to Kill” (1996).  This film, starring some very well known artist, is a story of a father trying to avenge for the rape of his young daughter.  This father, being black, finds it even more difficult to be respected because of his racial status.  Of course, all possibilities – according to the Caucasian society – that his daughter has been raped by a white man are dismissed, and when proof finally does arise, the rape is again disregarded because she is “Black”.  This film shows the horrible truth which occurred not so long ago.  However, this film isn’t all too despairing, because the African American father, played by Samuel L. Jackson, is supported by a White lawyer and his White assistant.  Although racially different, the three work together in order to obtain justice for the father and his family.  This film is a bittersweet mixture of racial discrimination, racism and hope for beating all odds that are against you.  If you are looking for a powerful movie, there is no other place to find it but through “A Time to Kill”.  From an entertainment perspective, this movie is almost faultless. It offers an engaging plot, an heart-warming story, and the characters present us with a complex interconnected web of relationships that makes us believe what we are seeing is real.  (http://www.ram.org/ramblings/movies/a_time_to_kill.html)

this next link is the link for the movie’s trailer:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTl_aMhFvT4

Magalie Amine

a movie with meaning…

All movies are made to have some kind of meaning, whether it be love and hate or life and death.  In my eyes movies can be looked at in many ways, some commericals to me can be considered a movie or any time of advertisment for that fact.  When looking at a billboard picture while your driving, something is catching your eyes and telling you a story.  For examply the billboard ad that use to be on I-75 for A&F, not only was it saying that the guy on there was hot, but it was also saying sex sells.  The guy was half naked with rock hard abs, im pretty sure they got more then enough attention for that ad.  The same thing with movies, in english class we just watched a movie titled Do The Right Thing.  In my eyes the purpose of the movie was to show love and hate between differenct races, and how the smallest of things has the greatest effect on some people.  Throughout the entire movie, the weather that day was over 100 degrees, with that kind of heat im pretty sure you wont be seeing the nicest side of people.  Like when some white guy stepped on someones new shoes and left a scuff mark, the guy was pretty upset.  And im pretty sure the heat that day played a major role.  Or how at the end of the movie when the pizzeria is burned down and radio raheim’s music is still playing.  I think that was played for a reason to show that he will always be there, despite the hatred amonst everyone there that night.  Movies are what you make of them, what i consider a good movie others may look at it and say that was retarted or the stupidest movie ever.  For example one of my favorite movies is The Notebook, i can watch that movie over and over because to me it’ll never get old.  The reason i love that movie is because what its getting across and the message its sending, time will provail.  And if something was meant to be it will find its way.  The next time you go watch a movie, dont drool over the hot guys with no shirts, but instead take in what the movie is trying to get across.

 Anna

What is Doing “The Right Thing”?

Of course the Movie “Do The Right Thing” was about about positive empowerment and addressing racism, but how exactly can define “doing the right thing”? Everyone doesn’t see right the same way. In the movie Buggin-out initially thought that boy-coting the pizzeria would be “right”. Even Radio Raheem felt it was just “right” to walk around everywhere with a radio playing “Fight the Power”. They did these things without consideration of what it meant to others. Spike Lee has made many films that often ask “What is right?” Another example of this is “She Hate Me” which is a movie about a man who lost his job for trying to “tell” on the corporation he was working for and due to lack of income resorted to having sex with well-paid lesbians to get them pregnant for money. Sometimes you have to ask what is wrong before you ask what’s right. In this movie the man was right for “snitching” and received his justice for it, but he was wrong for not appreciating his “seed” and soon faced up to the responsibilities of that also. Spike Lee is a visionary who often provide his audience with epiphanies on issues that many of us often ignore or have no light of.

” DO The Right Thing” along with other well-known Spike Lee Movies are often over looked for great expressions of symbolism. Spike Lee expressed black pride through many small aspects such as clothing, settings, and words. Whether is was mention of comparisons between athletes or use of black inventions Spike Lee has found many ways to creatively display racial pride even in the Italians in “DO The Right Thing”. In “She Hate Me” there were many scenes to promote the male ego, for example in the scene of the sperm fighting one another to get to the egg and how sub-consciously male do have a desire to reproduce and not just have sex. Spike Lee intellegence behind revealing modern issues should be marvelled at. Instead in support of his major theme his has not been recognized with an oscar in belief it is because he’s black.

Vonny

RED Updated

In Spike Lee’s film, Do the Right Thing, many colors are shown throughout the movie, but the one color that really stuck out to me was the color red. The color red has many meanings behind it, including power, warmth, and anger. From the beginning of the movie the color red appears, in either the buildings or the clothes the color red is always there. The very first thing that we recognize is that it is a very hot day and the color red symbolizes that. The warmth that will take place on that day is also symbolized by the color red. From the early morning, to the late night, the heat is an all day thing. The movie take place on one of the hottest day of the year, this in a way could mean that the racial tension could be the highest it’s ever been on that day. The heat makes people act very different and seems to make people become very angry and hostile towards each other. Throughout the whole movie, anger and hostility is displayed. From the beginning of the movie, the racial tension is there but it isn’t as high as it is at the end of the movie. Radio Rahem is murdered and this gets the black community very upset, they know that it did not have to happen like this and they want their voice to be heard. By the end of the movie the racial tension is so high, a riot breaks out and destroys a family owned restaurant. Red is also associated with the fire in the riot. The fire shows what can happen if a situation gets out of hand. The fire in a way represents the feeling that day of everybody. Nobody seemed to be in very good mood, everyone seemed very anger and just mad at every single little thing. The day after the riot, the radio forecast for that day is again very hot. This is basically saying that the racial tension is going to stay very high and not cool down, just like the day. Just because a new day started doesn’t mean the racial tension is going to go down.

Kristin Sclater

The double-truth, Ruth

When I came in and this movie was going on, the first word I heard was “ni****” (do I have to censor that?). “Oh great,” I’m thinking to myself, “another movie that’s gonna try and make me feel like a bad person because of other people being racist.” Racism is one of those things I really hate being lectured on (along with economics, eating healthy, and how whatever it is I’m doing somehow causes cancer), and I was about 10 seconds from going straight to sleep. I was pleasantly surprised though, as “Do the Right Thing” showcased a more lighthearted and humorous view of everyday race relations in a typical African-American-dominated neighborhood. For example, I had to really try not to cry laughing at the racial slurs montage. In fact, the hilarious stereotypes and datedness (is that even a word?) of the movie itself just added to the humor. However, that whole mood soon changed, as the movie quickly went from funny to being almost unbearably tense. Though it didn’t really even have a plot, the movie’s reliance on the characters and setting to get the point across until the end really seemed to work well. In the end, the fact that two seemingly “accessory” characters, Radio Raheem and Buggin Out, really defined the movie was rather surprising to me. Either way, it showcased that violence only leads to more violence, and is kind of a visual representation of Dr. Martin Luther King’s Ghandi-inspired “eye for an eye leaves everyone blind” speech (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_eye_for_an_eye). In fact, the reference to it at the end really helped tie everything together. Amidst a whole slew of metaphors and symbolism, the movie actually went straight to the point when it comes to racial tension and didn’t try and sidestep the real point. It was more about how racism breeds violence and hatred among communities than actual racism itself. As far as the symbolism and junk goes, I didn’t really pay attention to that. I’m not good at trying to decode symbolism, so I just don’t even go there. The only thing that really bothered me about this movie was how the police and firefighters were portrayed as bigoted racists who got some sort of sick gratification out of killing Radio Raheem, spraying down the rioting crowd with hoses, and the like. In any case, the movie was very powerful and did a great job of getting the point of racial violence across.

Mike Stoll

Sports and Race in Do the Right Thing

I noticed some small details in the movie that I thought were interesting. First I noticed that Mookie was wearing a Brooklyn Dodgers’ Jackie Robinson jersey. To me this showed a lot of pride because Jackie Robinson was the first black player in Major League Baseball. That showed historical and racial reference and I thought it was important. In another scene, Vito asked Mookie if he had seen the game and the conversation switched to the two arguing about who was a better pitcher. Vito suggested that Roger Clemens was better and Mookie suggested that Dwight Gooden was a better pitcher. Both of whom were and are still considered great pitchers. Roger Clemens was a white pitcher who was a respected pitcher. Dwight Gooden was black and a feared pitcher (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_Gooden). To me this argument symbolized another clash between whites and blacks and how Spike lee’s theme of race kept reappearing in the movie. Another scene that included sports was when Mookie was asking Pino who his favorite basketball player was and he said Magic Johnson who is a black athlete. I thought this was ironic being that Pino seemed to dislike blacks. This was also another way Lee showed black and white in the film. In Another scene Buggin’ Out gets bumped in the back by a white man carrying a bicycle. The man scuffs Buggin’ Out’s Air Jordan shoe. Buggin’ Out gets infuriated by this and confronts the man. The man is wearing a Boston Celtics Larry Bird t-shirt. In the late 80’s Michael Jordan and Larry Bird were rival basketball players that competed and were often argued over which player was better (Jordan For sure!). The white man wearing the Larry Bird shirt to me represented Larry Bird and Buggin’ Out represent Michael Jordan. Buggin’ Out tells the white man to go back to Massachusetts in reference to the shirt that he is wearing. I took this as another one of Lee’s black and white themes. Lee had a reoccurring theme of race and how sports were involved in competition between the two races.

Tone Shamon

ello. do the right thing

This blog, is one that i don’t have a huge opinion on, I mean i can only comment on what i believe and what i have lived through. I do not feel that what i say about this topic can be viewed as FALSE but we all do have our own oppions, i did not live during the time when color was an issue * BAM* maybe i am living during a time when color is an issue… LINK http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Hills/8908/racists.htm I have heard that racism is coming back from the jena 6 topic to anything else, it seems to me that color can always play a role in anything bad that happens in the world. I thought the movie was really good at the beggining but it did not interest me much in end, I could not relate to the ending… I thought it was stupid, it jsut doesnt seem to me that i the police just killed radio raheem… it just seems very dumb to me, maybe because i did’nt live during the time this movie portrayed, but i think it sucks that he died because the bug dude wanted some pictures of black people on the wall of fame. In the end of the movie that the one studderly guy did get to put the picture up on the wall of fame but not after riot, death, and fighting occured. I mean i know its nice to have pictures up on the wall of all but if that was a pizza shop owened by a black person its not nessacary that theere would be any white people on his wall of fame… it was the choice of the owner to put up so called white people. BUT even though the black people didnt apporove neither did I, i mean it wasnt that it was WHITE people it seemed like it was ITALIAN people… i did not notice any White people that didnt have an accent on the wall of fame… i would never walk into a restarunt with my music blarring sure it was showing FIGHT THE POWER, but still you can’t exactly do that… if someone is providing me a service i would follow there rules but if it was my business i would hope people would follow my rules. Also, it seemed like many people loved sal’s pizza but as soon as there was an issue it was all his fault. i think people should just be happy, “FORGET THE PAST, REMEMBER THE LESSON” – ME…. I feel like history repeats it self even if thought but thats another topic….

bye i cant spell.

Dennis weiss. bye