Talk:Do the Right Thing

Controversial film

Was "Do the right thing" controversial? eh? Project2501a 18:55, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Very. When it was released there were reports of riots showing the film in some areas, and it was boycotted by several anti-defamation leagues.--Fallout boy 08:53, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

That's not true. There were fears that it might cause riots. In the event it didn't. The Singing Badger 14:58, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Re: plot summary.

Did extensive rewrite, especially after someone said that Smiley (the mentall retarded guy) was white. He might be lightskinned, but he's not white! --FuriousFreddy 01:39, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Obsessed with money

I had to remove the remark that Mookie was "obsessed with money" because he wants to get paid. I want to get paid. Does that make me obsessed with money? There's just not enough evidence in the movie to point to money as a primary motivation for any of the actions Mookie takes, except for going to work in the first place. -- Anon

I actually think Lee himself has described the character that way, though I don't have any references off-hand. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.74.57.100 (talk) 17:52, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

"Four-fingered ring"

Is a "four-fingered" ring what's commonly known as a knuckleduster? -- Anon

Not quite. Similar, but somewhat different, I'd say. --FuriousFreddy 00:53, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Speaking of which (and obviously I just need to go watch the movie for myself, but), is LOVE/HATE an homage to Night of the Hunter, and if so, should it be mentioned in the article somewhere? --Quuxplusone 01:17, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I watched a DVD commentary that featured Spike Lee saying that the LOVE/HATE rings as well as Raheem's speech to Mookie about them are tributes to Night of the Hunter. The commentary was originally on a laserdisc release and had Chuck D on it. But you are 4 years in the past, and I don't wanna add it. Modinyr (talk) 06:20, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Citation Needed

"Lee himself has stated that this question is only one that bothers white viewers. He believes that the key point is that Mookie was angry at the death of Radio Raheem, and that viewers who consider the riot unjustified are implicitly valuing property over the life of a black man."

I haven't found anything where Spike Lee says that. Can someone put in a citation?

Roger Ebert makes the above implication that the writer attributes to Lee in his essay on the film for the Criterion Collection. Ebert writes, "Among the many devastating effects of Lee’s film, certainly the most subtle and effective is the way it leads some viewers (not racist, but thoughtless or inattentive or imbued with the unexamined values of our society) to realize that they have valued a pizzeria over a human life." [1] The Criterion web site positions this essay directly beneath a signature of Spike Lee in a way that might lead one to believe Spike Lee had written the article (one would have to ignore the self-references to Spike Lee within the article, but anyway..) It seems plausible that someone confused the two. But someone suggests Lee himself says it in the same DVD, which is something I cannot verify. -- Anon

A citation is surely needed. The death of Radio Raheem at the hands of the police is horrific, but the destruction of the pizzaria is properly tragic and so elicits a greater reaction. Lee's respect for the idiom of tragedy as a mistake magnified is shown by Sal's having destroyed Raheem's boombox in an earlier scene. MaherCoen (talk) 09:57, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

He says it in an interview on the Criterion Collection DVD. I'll add a citation. Cop 663 (talk) 14:17, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh wait, it's already cited!! Pay attention, people... Cop 663 (talk) 14:19, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Incorrect description of Sal

The character Sal is indeed racist, just like Pino. The difference is the aggressive nature of how each character expresses it. Sal's racism is shown when he loses his temper (similar to how whites become more liberal regarding minorities when they're drunk). Pino's racism is blatant. This is the point Spike Lee makes during the final quarter of the film. I've edited the article to reflect this. Panda

I think there are many diffrent ways to interpret what Sal yells here. The fact that he yells racial slurs when he is enraged does not necessarily mean that he is a racist. I think anyone can agree that he was put under an incredible amount of stress here. I think that he struggles with racal prejudice as much as anyone else does, but I think that when you look at what he says when he is at his most contemplative (discussing with Pino the decades he has spent in the neighborhood), it's hard to call him a racist. I also take issue with the notion that people were valuing property over life in this movie. In effect, the pizzeria is Sal and his sons' life. Sal makes this clear in his discussion with Pino. The crowd is destroying three people's lives as retaliation for the actions of a third party—namely, the police officer who murdered Radio. — noktulo 23:09, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure whether you were the one that edited the article (as i review it seems the article is now a mirror of your above response), but I believe we need an administrator to lock this page. A grown man should be able to control himself regardless of how 'incredible' their stress is. It is unacceptable and unprofessional to threaten even an irate customer with battery (baseball bat Sal). I think it's universally agreed that Buggin Out and Radio both disrespected Sal's establishment. 'The crowd is destroying three people's lives' can be interpreted as extremely unsympathetic view of life. As Mookie stated in the film, Sal's insurance would cover his material losses. He will move his business to another neighborhood since his and Pino's actions along with those of the police tarnished his relationship with the community. However, Radio Raheem's life cannot be recaptured.

Also, the following paragraph has strange wording:

Sal, after being harassed by youth looking for a reason to start a fight, loses his temper near the climax and begins shouting racial slurs in retaliation for the racial slurs against him, and winds up destroying the radio box that was blasting music so loudly that no one could hear one another. His younger son Vito is not racist at all and has a unique bond with Mookie.

Panda

I I don't think it's particularly fair to Sal to say that he should have been able to control himself, when Radio also showed a huge lack of self-control in starting the fight. Sal wasn't responsible for Radio's death, either. Obviously there are bigger forces at work than just Sal and his sons vs. Radio, Buggin' Out, and the rest of the neighborhood. Clearly it's a travesty, and a result of racism, that the police killed Radio over a fight, and the crowd was certainly justified in wanting to smash SOMETHING, but taking their anger out on the pizzeria basically because it was the only white-owned business on the block wasn't fair to Sal and didn't solve anything. The white cops will still be around, there's nothing stopping another white business from opening up, and Sal, Vito, and especially Pino probably have a much worse view of the neighborhood and non-whites in general. ebolamunkee 03:09, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

"In lieu of"?

This sentence:

"Radio Raheem's boombox is blaring, as always, Public Enemy's "Fight the Power," at the highest volume possible in lieu of their protest."

makes no sense. Maybe it should be "in view of"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.224.116.24 (talk) 04:08, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Deleted sections

I deleted the Scenes and Famous Quotes sections on the page due to the fact that outside of not having any references, neither section is really required on a film page on Wikipedia. WikiGuy86 (talk) 22:50, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Picture of ML King and Malcolm X

There may be more than one picture, but the one that is seen most clearly (near the end of the film) is most definitely NOT the LOC image linked from the article. This can be easily ascertained by recalling that the film shows both men openly laughing. elpincha (talk) 04:34, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

"Greatest films of all time"

Do we really need nine refs in the lede for the claim that this is considered one of the greatest films of all time? As far as I am aware, references are not required in the lede at all, as long as any claim made there is supported by references in the body of the article. Nine references for that one claim is excessive. ---The Old Jacobite_{The '45} 12:49, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Greekfest Riots

Someone added a mention of the greekfest riot. The article NEVER said the rioted because of the movie. It merely says the song Fight the Power was in the movie. In fact it doesn't even claim the song was behind the riot. Turtire (talk) 20:00, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Should a section be made for "In Popular Culture"

I'm not aware of all the references to DTRT but at the very least there's one in Futurama S02E18 as a bin throws itself through the window of Sal's Pizzeria during riots. There are probably other references out there though. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DVDV28 (talk • contribs) 06:33, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

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Critique

Lee's misguided foray into the plight of urban, black America:

If Spike Lee set out to depict the black community in all of it's negative stereotypes, he surely created a masterpiece in "Do The Right Thing". Lee portrays Mookie as a distinctly sub-par, lazy, irresponsible employee (person?), who only has a job because of Sal's enormous generosity and goodwill towards the community. Just prior to the movie's climactic altercation, Sal tells Mookie he's like a son to him; a show of respect and love that Mookie repays by helping to incite the riot that destroys Sal's business. The only reason the violent altercation was allowed to commence that evening was because of Sal's unending generosity to the community (he reopened the shop after closing, to serve a group of disrespectful and ungrateful neighborhood customers). Lost in Lee's attempt at contrasting the value of human life and personal property is the fact that Raheem was the one entering Sal's business and being disrespectful. Raheem is the one who resorted to physical violence against Sal due to Sal's destruction of Raheem's personal property.

Lee attempts to misguide audience-goers into viewing Raheem's death as a tragic injustice of white vs black, another example of unchecked police brutality. But what of the fact that police were trying to subdue a violent, agitated Raheem who was attempting to choke a local business owner to death; a fallout from the altercation Raheem instigated? Is Lee also trying to imply that violent retaliation to any white owned property is justified when a contingent of angry black men, which turned into a violent mob, intimidates and tries to murder a local white business owner over a perceived slight, because the outcome went wrong (due to his own actions) for one of the black men? The victim in this movie is Sal; a victim of extortion, intimidation, arson and assault & attempted murder. This is his reward for being an exceedingly kind man, source of good pizza and providing a place for people in the community to gather for 20 years.

There is plenty to say about the state of the black community, the despair, the inequality, the oppression, racism, prejudice and discrimination that keeps them from achieving equal success. But in "Do The Right Thing", Lee seems to reinforce how the black community only inflicts harm onto themselves. Lee's movie appears to convey the idea that the black community can act unreasonably but expect reasonable treatment in return. Neither the words of Malcolm X nor Martin Luther King Jr., even remotely reflect the actions that transpired at the end of Lee's film. The addition of their quotes seemed like a lazy way to incorporate a salient message amidst the accountability Lee fails to attribute to the black members of the community for the events of that fateful evening. 70.181.198.81 (talk) 19:08, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Bias in summary

“Mookie confronts Pino about his contempt towards African-Americans, although Pino's favourite celebrities are Black.” Does the film suggest that Pino’s hatred of Black people and his admiration of Black celebrities are truly comparable notions? Can the framing of this encounter be changed to more accurately reflect Lee's commentary on white supremacy? Emjwatson (talk) 03:45, 6 June 2022 (UTC)