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Racism In Do The Right Thing

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Although Do the Right Thing, directed by Spike Lee, was filmed in 1989, it is still relevant today. Even 29 years later, we experience the hardships they went through back then. Lee makes this movie relevant today by showing acts of racism, police brutality, and rioting. Throughout this movie, Lee presents many cases of racism. It all starts with Sal and his sons in their family owned pizzeria. Sal’s son doesn’t like Mookie because he is African American. Furthermore, Mookie’s friends come into Sal’s pizzeria and Radio Raheem questions why there are no African Americans on his “Wall of Fame.” Sal tells Radio Raheem that it is his shop and he can do as he pleases. Radio Raheem gets upset and brings his boom box into the shop blaring “Fight the Power.” After Sal asks multiple times for it to be turned off, he calls the music “jungle music” and refers to them as “niggers.” …show more content…

The fight continued and was brought outside attracting a crowd. The police show up shortly after and attempt to stop the fight that now included Sal’s sons and Radio Raheem’s friends. The police grab Radio Raheem off Sal and put him in a chokehold. When one police officer notices that Radio Raheem is losing his breathe he demands that he let go but he does not resulting in the death of Radio Raheem. Furious, the crowd and friends of Radio Raheem attack the police and firefighters which leads to the crowd getting hosed down and multiple

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Thus, starting a riot that leads to a terrible ending. The tension at the end of the film then highlights the irony of the title Do The Right Thing. People are expected

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This movie is about a neighborhood in Brooklyn and it is one of the hottest days they have had. Mookie is believer boy for Sal’s Pizzeria. The day starts off with everyone getting along with one another, but it soon turns into a very bad day. The one customer, Buggin Out, complains to Sal that there are no blacks up on his Wall of Fame. Another one of his customers, Radio Raheem, comes in and has his radio blasting.

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Title Sequence Analysis: Do The Right Thing Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing starts off right out of the gate with a soft and soothing saxophone playing in the background on a black screen. This delicate instrument only plays for merely half a minute then as the screen begins to open from the blackness viewers are pumped up by Public Enemy’s top hit, “Fight The Power.” This energetic song blares through the neighborhood of a Brooklyn, NY street with various silhouette poses from Rosie Perez flashing simultaneously.

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The fight starts when Sal triggers the riot by breaking an extension of Raheem, the boombox. This moment symbolizes a loss of control within the neighborhood. Considering Raheem is the face of the community, and the person that metaphorically holds it together, breaking a piece of him breaks apart the community. Although he isn’t without flaws, given that he continued blasting music in the pizza shop even when Sal repeatedly asked him to turn it down, Raheem represents that while the people of Bed Stuy aren’t perfect, they’re human. The generally reticent Radio Raheem is ultimately the one who sparks the riot that leads to the film’s chaotic conclusion, and his inevitable death given the circumstances.

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The movie Do the Right Thing, composed, coordinated and created by Spike Lee, concentrates on a solitary day of the lives of racially differing individuals who live and work in a lower-class neighborhood in Brooklyn New York. Notwithstanding, this common day happens on one of the most sizzling days of summer. The movie fixates on how social class, race and the ethical choices that the characters make directly affect the way individuals communicate with each other. Furthermore, in this essay I will analyses Spike Lee’s use of mise-en-scene, cinematography, editing, and sound. Mise-en-scene is utilized as a part of a couple of scenes of Do The Right Thing to feature their significance to the plot.

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America is a country which has a long and storied history with systemic racism towards black people and people of color, beginning in its infancy with slavery before later evolving into Jim Crow laws and beyond. These systemic racial injustices have persisted into the modern era, manifesting themselves in a variety of ever more obfuscated forms. One of these forms is police brutality, wherein police officers exert excessive and undue violence against civilians, often ending in death. In his 1989 film Do the Right Thing, Spike Lee examines the relationships between people of different races, and how living in a country almost defined by its systemic racism has affected the relationships between these people. Additionally, and also more germane,

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In music and literature male characters show their enthusiastic response to women through narrative voices. For example, one piece where a narrator expresses their enthusiastic response is “Michelle”, a song performed by Sir Paul McCartney at the White House. The narrator spends his time telling a woman that he loves her although she does not speak English. Similarly another significant piece that expresses an enthusiastic response is Romeo & Juliet, a play by William Shakespeare where the male character Romeo expresses his enthusiastic response over Juliet by talking about how beautiful she is. By understanding these two pieces they can explain how men enthusiastically express their emotion to women by speaking about how much they admire

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The little forms of injustice add up and create so much division and erode any sort of relationship between the groups. The actions of Sal and Pino will help contribute to the devastating destruction of their Pizzeria and the death of Radio Raheem. In addition to the subtle forms of racial bias, the movie also delves into prominent and obvious forms of racial bias that truly change the community as a whole. After a fight breaks out between Radio Raheem and Sal, the police come to try to break up the fight but not before long Radio Raheem dies from a choking injury inflicted by one of the cops (Lee). The death of Radio Raheem is a powerful example of how racial bias can turn deadly.

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I think what he did here is not the right thing. He came after the shop was closed, played the song really loud and refused to shut it off when Sal told him to. One can’t force a person to do things that they don’t want in their own shop. If Radio Raheem wants black pictures he should ask him more politely, instead of initiating a fight. This incident is what resulted in his death, which is not Sal’s fault but the cops’ fault for killing him; if not for the cops, Sal might have died instead.

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1355 Words | 6 Pages

The film Do the Right Thing, composed, coordinated and delivered by Spike Lee, concentrates on a solitary day of the lives of racially different individuals who live and work in a lower class neighborhood in Brooklyn New York. Be that as it may, this conventional day happens on one of the most sweltering days of the mid year. The film focuses on how social class, race and the ethical choices that the characters make directly affect the way individuals interface with each other. It begins with the film's characters awakening to begin their day and peaks with an area revolt after cops too much limit and kill a youthful dark man named Radio Raheem for battling a more seasoned Italian American eatery proprietor named Sal in his pizzeria, and afterward

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He then describes a physical altercation between his friend and another black man from the poor south bronx region that he describes as “a big guy, a dude wearing a do-rag who’d

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