Analysis of Spike Lees Do the Right Thing Essay - 1420 Words

Director and actor Spike Lee presents his truth about race relations in his movie Do the Right Thing. The film exhibits the spectacle of black discrimination and racial altercations. Through serious, angry, and loud sounds, Lee stays true to the ethnicity of his characters, all of which reflect their own individualism. Lee uses insulting diction and intense scenes to show how severe racism can lead to violence. The biases reflected through Do the Right Thing model those of today which has kept society in a constant feud for so long. In Oprah Winfreys dynamic episode, The Color of Fear, Mr. Mun Wah projects his strong opinion when he states, . . . that racism is still going on today, that weve got to stop to hear the anguish†¦show more content†¦In the scene described by the previous paragraph, racial stereotyping far surpassed the feeling of discomfort that many people do not want to deal with. A milder scene of a white man trying to pass through a black neighborhood demon strates racial problems also. The egotistical attitude of the white man calling the black kids Mo and Joe Black ignited the teens to hose down and ruin the car. Mr. Mun Wah comments, I think racism isnt just about giving out racial epithets. I think its about what we dont say and what we dont see.(The Color of Fear, 3,4) Every ethnic group had their own name for each other. The three unemployed black men sitting on the corner had their own offensive name for the Koreans across the street, and the Koreans referred to the policeman with their own twist of insults. Even today the racial jokes, either out of jealousy or anger, continue to be told. Lee showed how something so insignificant could plummet into a deep problem. Lee also taught his audience that the stereotypes in his movie are all said in a habitual manner. The characters, like people of today, use common slurs out of habit. James Baldwin states his view on the subject, I imagine that one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense once hate is gone, that they will be forced to deal with the pain. Perhaps people stereotype to block away the nuisances they so clearly think they can live without. In order to stopShow MoreRelated Analysis of the Spike Lees Movie Do the Right Thing Essay533 Words   |  3 Pages Analysis of the Spike Lees Movie Do the Right Thing For my shot analysis I chose a shot from the Spike Lee Movie Do the Right Thing. This is the second shot following the climactic riot scene. It features Da’ Mayor and Mother Sister reacting to the hellacious events of the previous night. The block was just devastated by a melee that broke out because the police killed Radio Raheem after he and Sal got in an altercation that was triggered by the volume of Radio Raheem’s boom box. Though at aRead MoreEssay about When the Levees Broke Rhetorical Analysis1621 Words   |  7 PagesChase Caldwell Professor Gwaltney English 1102 14 March 2013 When The Levees Broke Rhetorical Analysis Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana on the morning of August 29, 2005. The storm produced sustained winds of up 125 mph when it hit that morning. On that same day Katrina caused 53 different levee breaches in greater New Orleans, spilling the waters of Lake Pontchartrain into the city and flooding an overwhelming majority of New Orleans. The floodwaters destroyed countless homesRead MoreMovie Analysis : Do The Right1304 Words   |  6 Pagesof the most unique forms of media because it has the ability to make a fictional story socially powerful. The simplest of elements in a film are able to change how the audience interprets a scene and give it a deeper meaning. In Spike Lee’s 1989 film, Do the Right Thing, many small elements come together to impact individual scenes as a whole. This controversial film illustrates a single day of rising events in a black neighborhood. It shows the frustration of the African-American population in howRead MoreSpike Lee: Do the Right Thing Essay1011 Words   |  5 PagesJames Callahan COM 2010 4-22-11 Midterm Analysis Revise Cinematography helps Spike Lee to Do the Right Thing In Spike Lee’s film Do the Right Thing, we dive head first into a world of racial and social ills. The movie is set in the African American and Puerto Rican neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, on the hottest day of the year. We follow a young man named Mookie, who lives with his sister Jade, and works as a pizza delivery guy for a local pizzeria owed by Sal. Sal’s â€Å"WallRead MoreEssay about Developing My Critical Thinking Skills997 Words   |  4 Pagesup in a bad place part-way through the semester. Thats when you offered an extra-credit assignment that required an analysis on Do The Right Thing. This e-mail is to express my deep gratitude for giving me any credit at all. I recently revisited the movie-- and my analysis -- and it was actually appalling at how poorly developed my analysis was. Instead of analyzing why Spike Lee would portray his characters in a specific way, I decided to analyze why I didnt like them, neglecting to realizeRead MoreDo The Right Thing?1388 Words   |  6 Pagesâ€Å"Do the Right Thing† The creative yet simplistic aggression in the movie â€Å"Do the Right Thing† lends itself a strength that is necessary in tackling controversial issues such as racial prejudice. Spike Lee, a known genius in the art of film directing, eloquently shaped the story so that the audience is able to see the dynamics of a multi-racial community without holding any bars. Lee advocated for a society that is more open to constructive conversations about social embargos. This movie was aRead MoreProtection of White Superiority in Americas Justice System Essays1672 Words   |  7 PagesHowever, as demonstrated in Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow and Spike Lee’s film Do The Right Thing, the United States’ criminal justice system is a modern form of racial control. Although criminal laws are textually and facially impartial in regards to race, they are implemented in a way that is biased and discriminatory towards African Americans. Using Michael Foucaultà ¢â‚¬â„¢s ideas on surveillance to guide our analysis, we can clearly see that the United States’ criminal justice system is aRead MoreDo The Right Thing : Racial Conflict1870 Words   |  8 Pagestrying to challenge the ignorant basis of racial conflict. Spike Lee’s film, Do the Right Thing, connects with this concept of racial conflict that is so foreign to my past. Through the application of my social and political views, I will demonstrate how Spike Lee’s film is difficult for me to relate to and, in my opinion, conveys a misleading message. Granted, I come from a place much different than that which is portrayed in Do the Right Thing, my beliefs and experiences have developed an interestingRead MoreDo The Right Thing: The Epidemic of Racial Stereotyping in the Media2095 Words   |  8 Pagesï » ¿DO THE RIGHT THING; Spike Lee Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. The story represents festering racial strains between a group of African-Americans and the middle-aged, Italian-American patriarch of a local pizzeria call the Sals Famous Pizzeria. As the scorching hot summer day is about to end, a fight blows up between local colored youths led by Radio Raheem and Sal. Pushed to the edge by Raheems radio flares, Sal explodes into a venomous rage sated with racial tirade, which closes with hisRead MoreIB Classroom Analysis1474 Words   |  6 Pagesstudents, have down time during class. His examples pull from recent films to older movies across ethnicities reflected in the student demographic. His examples have been very diverse from a student film about â€Å"Black Lives Matter† to Spike Lee’s â€Å"Do the right thing†. He’s also shown indigenous films from New Zealand and French expressionism since we arrived at the class. Mr. West runs a choice based classroom, with open-ended param eters for students to make works without content influence from