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Stereotypes In Do The Right Thing

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Do the Right Thing Essay Spike Lee’s film Do the Right Thing portrayed the struggle between young Blacks and the problems that they face. They are put in situations where whatever they choose to do could be considered wrong by people that aren’t Black, hence the title Do the Right Thing. How do they know what the right thing to do is? Has the violent culture in their neighborhoods and their relationship with police officers given them limited choices? Do the Right Thing brings about many questions, while also leaving it up to the diverse audience to decide what they feel the right thing is. The movie also brings about the animosity that is forced between different ethnicities and races because of the way the culture in America has been …show more content…

Do they succumb to the stereotype they’ve been thrust into? Do they act with violence or hate? These questions are running through the character’s heads, and they really make the audience question themselves. In the movie, Buggin’ Out tells Mookie, “Stay Black.” (Lee, 1989) For these boys, what does it mean for them to be Black? At the time of this movie, there were a lot of other films that were portraying Black youth as a certain stereotype. In the article “Musing New Hoods”, Spike Lee is quoted as saying, “… ‘all black people people lived in ghettos, did crack and rapped...’” (Ramsey, 2002, pg. 11) In Do the Right Thing, the characters challenge this stereotype and show the audience what it’s really like to be Black kid. Not every Black kid raps. Not every Black kid does drugs. And finally not every Black kid is a troublemaker. Spike Lee knew that many of the people that would go to his movies wouldn’t be Black, and he successfully showed the audience an accurate representation. This representation was revolutionary because it made you as an audience member question how you think and feel about Black youth. Maybe you’ve become biased by recent films and music. Maybe this movie can change your mind about what you

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