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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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When compared to a movie like Do The Right Thing by Spike Lee, Goddard uses the actors-looking-at-the-camera shot in a way that not only sometimes draws your attention to the fact you’re watching a movie, but it also puts the audience into the movie as a character in a way. For example, when Patricia looks into the camera both times that were mentioned above, you do (or atleast I do) feel like her eyes address the audience members. Meanwhile, in DTRT by Spike Lee there is a hilarious scene where Mookie, Pino, Gary Long, and the latino dude all look into the camera and spout those stereotypes and racial slurs, however they’re not directed at the audience, but serve as a first person POV shot, as if the subject they’re talking about were actually

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Speaking realistically, most policeman would either take the whole business or arrest blacks for illegal business. What can be learned from the movie is how blacks sort of dealt with the racial discrimination and used their own talents to make a living. Every one back then wanted to make a

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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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Malcolm X regarding change, once said “Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery”. As Malcolm X is trying to convey, there comes a point where violence becomes a better method of encouraging change than a peaceful rebellion. This theme is evident in Oscar Zeta Acosta’s novel, The Revolt of the Cockroach People, and Spike Lee 's film, Do the Right Thing. In Acosta’s novel, Buffalo Zeta Brown, the protagonist, becomes the main leader of the Chicano movement in east LA. Not only was Brown’s function the groups ' lawyer, but he also helped to organize the protests and marches, becoming a part of the group.

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The opening scene of Do The Right Thing, gives the audience a brief glimpse of several eccentric characters actions on the morning of a hot summer day in New York City. Although each shot appears unrelated, each of the characters exhibited will play a significant role in uniting or dividing the neighborhood they all inhabit during a riot which emmerges in the climax of the film. At its core, Do The Right Thing, directed by Spike Lee, is a film which explores race relations, following the lives and actions of several characters as a growing conflict emerges between the Italian-American and African-American residents of the community. Lee effectively builds tension throughout the film by following conventional narrative elements in some cases,

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According to the biography on Spike Lee, Fight The Power: Spike Lee’s Impact On Black Cinema, “it becomes clear that he uses his own experiences of living in an integrated neighbourhood in New York to help express the hidden, if not conflicting, messages on the ideals of racism ‘between African Americans and their non-black New York City neighbours’” (The Film General Website), which makes his films more accurate. His experiences have helped him give an honest representation of the black community. An example is his 1988 film School Daze. School Daze is a musical drama that deals challenge issues of racism, for example, skin tone bias within the black community.

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to the disdainful and vainglorious individual that incited the ultimate showdown betweenRadio Raheem and Sal. The book Framing Blackness by Ed Guerrero, depicts “Do the Right Thing” as agreat movie, important for making everyday racism the object of attention for a littlewhile. However, it criticizes the film in a way that I wasn’t expecting. It seems to havecontempt for the piece in the sense that the author believes that Spike Lee was doing thesame thing with sensitive issues that Hollywood has always done.

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Although the movie does seem to want to get a point across about racism being relevant even in mainly black neighborhoods, it mostly furthers society’s institutionalized racist thoughts towards the black

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Do the Right Thing is a brilliant cinematic depiction of what life is like in Brooklyn, New York in a neighborhood flooded with pluralism. As tensions and temperatures rise we see an unraveling of events which spiral into a tragedy. This film has without a doubt withstood the test of time; hence, remaining significant and relevant to our culture today. The movie opens with Mookie, a young African American, who works at Sal’s Famous Pizzeria. Sal’s pizzeria is owned by Sal and his two sons Vito and Pino.

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Black children go through a process like no other child of any other race does. From birth they are taught about what society thinks their place is and how institutions are going to treat them in the future. As a child they experience events of racism and discrimination, but they do not really know why it 's happening or why racial tensions are so bad in the US society. Growing into an adolescent or teenager they understand what racism is, but yet to know the extent to which institutional racism is going to affect their lives. As adults, the stage of resistance begins.

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Many stereotypes of African culture have emerged due to western literature and media and first hand accounts of explorers. Things Fall Apart offers a view into the truth and reality of African cultures, which are often misconceptualized by these stereotypes. Acebe shows how African society functions well without assistance from foreign travelers. In Things Fall Apart, Achebe counters the imperialist stereotypes of Africa by keeping certain words in the Igbo language, as opposed to translating them into English, to fight back against the spreading western culture and to embrace their own way of life. He also counters the imperialist stereotypes of Africa by using Igbo proverbs to show how their culture values many of the same things that western

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They may have family members or friends that live in a more urban or “hood” area who influence their lives. They may be stereotyped by their peers at school and in their neighborhood to be a certain way because they are black. The paper will discuss all of these factors and find out what

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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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What I mean is a African American may view this film as a means to diminish their culture, a white person may believe this film makes them look evil and a police officer may believe this film makes officers look like they are above the law or feel like they should be above the law. These differences can cause conflict when

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There are several stereotypes that are associated with women in Law Enforcement There are many reasons I chose the stereotype that is associated with the profession I chose to pursue once I receive my Bachelors Degree in Criminal Justice. Being a woman that wants to work in Law enforcement has affected me in different ways. It has also had an impact on my life. It acts as a barrier when thinking critically and it is important to think critically when it comes to different stereotypes so that you won’t get off track.

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