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Essay on The Film Do The Right Thing Written and Directed By Spike Lee Makes A Judgment About Violence
Set during one twenty-four-hour period on the hottest day of the summer, DO THE RIGHT THING is a comedy that turns tragic when the predominantly black residents of a Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood come into heated racial conflict with the white owners of a local pizza parlor. Producer/director/writer/star Spike Lee garnered widespread critical attention with his open-ended and controversial treatment of the subject of racism.
"Do the Right Thing", produced, directed, and written by the black independent filmmaker Spike Lee, arrived in theaters on June 30, 1989, amid an avalanche of publicity and controversy.
The New York Times ran at least five articles on the film: three consecutive Sunday feature articles--including one entitled Spike Lee's Blacks: Are They Real People? And two separate reviews by Vincent Canby.
Lee appeared on the covers of NEWSWEEK, AMERICAN FILM: MAGAZINE OF THE FILM AND TELEVISION ARTS, and the conservative NATIONAL REVIEW. In his column in NEW YORK MAGAZINE, Joe Klein accused Lee of recklessly courting violent reactions from black youth, which Klein believed could jeopardize David Dinkins' race for mayor of New York City, to which Lee replied with a scathing full-page letter entitled SAY IT AIN'T SO, JOE.
Before NEWSWEEK chose Lee for their cover, they made the almost unprecedented decision to run two reviews of the film, a positive one by David Ansen and a negative one by Jack Kroll. Both THE OPRAH WINFREY SHOW and NIGHTLINE devoted entire shows to the film's potential sociopolitical impact.
The controversy focused on Lee's open-ended treatment of racism in DO THE RIGHT THING, with many critics stating that the film advocates violence as a means of confronting the problem. When white liberal filmmakers have tackled racism, they have cautiously banked their themes with noble pieties.
From the very beginning of DO THE RIGHT THING, when the opening....
