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Review Of Spike Lee's Film 'Do The Right Thing'

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In Spike Lee’s film Do The Right Thing, the complexities of race, love, and anger are displayed for all to see. The film challenges the viewers to decide what exactly is the right thing to do when faced with hatred. The film draws its philosophical ideas from two iconic figures, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. These two figures’ ideas are the structure of the film's philosophical significance, MLK being the face of love and Malcolm X being the face of anger. This essay aims to discuss the importance of these iconic figures’ messages to the film and whether or not there is a significant philosophical contribution by addressing the bold, moderate, modest, or null hypothesis. Do The Right Thing explores the philosophy of love and anger through the lens of a diverse cast, each representing different perspectives on race relations …show more content…

“By centering extreme heat in a film about racial tension, Lee indicates just how intricately connected these themes of justice are.” (Albrechtsen 2022). Do The Right Thing perfectly depicts heat in a comprehensible way, which heightens the significance of the message and its philosophical implications. In assessing the philosophical contribution of Do The Right Thing, it is evident that the film’s exploration of love, anger, and racism is bold in its portrayal of societal race relations. The bold thesis can be defined as, “... a film’s contribution to philosophy, if genuine, must be irreplaceable or irreducible to other forms of communication.” (Cox & Levine, 2012, p. 8). Due to the film discussing the idea of love and anger when confronted with hatred in a unique and creative way makes its philosophical significance bold. While the philosophical ideas of MLK and Malcolm X make up the central idea of the film, there are certain aspects that can only be delivered through the art of

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Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, two authors, two activists who advocated different strategies to achieve a shared end, have since their deaths, transcended the local, pragmatic potency of their respective narratives of African-American resistance (Garrow, 1991). The film 's use of the metonymic figures “King” and “X” as well as the ethically divergent meta-narratives of which they are the cultural signifiers suffuses its dramatic structure with the ideological tension generated by the trope of “double-consciousness” (Garrow, 1991). The vehicle by which Do the Right Thing represents the black community reminding itself, so to speak, of the presence of these figures is the ubiquitous Smiley, a young man with cerebral palsy who earns money selling photographs of African-American heroes to his Bedford-Stuyvesant neighbors. The film calls attention to one image in particular: the famous photograph of King and Malcolm X shaking hands and smiling during their first and only meeting.

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This journal article belabours the point that is also a common theme in “The Autobiography of Malcolm X”: Malcolm’s changing views on civil rights. Again as a result of his tumultuous childhood because of the “white man”, Malcolm generalizes all white people as essentially haters of blacks because of the negative experiences he’s had with them and the tragic ways they treated him. But, as he grows older and matures, Malcolm has the eye-opening experience of seeing people of all colors worship next to each other. This is an interaction between blacks and whites that creates a positive environment as an outcome.

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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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The film was one of the few to have ever reached that height having aired the views of the blacks. As a leader, his views clashed with those of the white even though he garnered support from other whites who joined his cause; it can be attributed to Lee’s perspective on the black struggle in America (Ebert, 1992). Unlike his father’s icons who believed in Marcus Garvey’s approach that the blacks belonged in Africa, X took a similar yet more refined and practical stance. Lee first had to endure a troubled start as the film had to reflect at the problems of telling black stories in the all-white-dominated Hollywood. On top of that, Lee had the task of dramatizing the limitation and life of X to the speculation in

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