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Do The Right Thing Lee

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Angel Reyes
Music 351
Red ID-816493113

Racial Tensions Expressed Through Music
The film, “Do the Right Thing”, released on 1989 was written and directed by Spike Lee, an influential movie entertainer. This movie takes place in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, New York, a saturated city of minority social groups. During this time, African Americans, Caucasians, and other racial groups were inclined to play a major roles in segregation and violence. This movie is a perfect example of how a typical person living in the suburbs would live, capturing both social and psychological conflicts of the time.
Throughout the movie, different type of music genres are played with certain scenes and certain characters. The song that had the greatest impact in the movie was the song, “Fight the Power”, by Public Enemy. Public Enemy was a hip hop group that was asked by Spike Lee to compose a song directly for the movie, “Do the Right Thing”. The song, “Fight the Power”, was played throughout the movie, and it was played every-time the character, Radio Raheem would walk around with his boom box playing the song at high volumes. …show more content…

During a scene when Mookie goes into Mister Señor Love Daddy’s studio to drop off his pizza, he say “...With extra cheese and extra sauce...” saying the word ‘sauce’ sounding like salsa. That’s when it transitions to a Hispanic group who have a boom box playing salsa music. I found this to be irony because as soon as he said ‘sauce’, salsa music started playing in the background. Radio Raheem than comes with his boob box playing the same song, “Fight the Power”, resulting in a battle between who’s boom box is louder. Radio Raheem ends up having the loudest boom box, and I found this significantly important because he was playing the same song, “Fight the Power”, portraying that African American music had a higher impact on society than any other type of

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