Do the right thing

Duration: 120 mi

Year Published: 1989

Creator: SWANK

Format: 16mm

Color: Color

Sound: sound

Description: Spike Lee's fictional examination of racism was undertaken in the wake of a series racial incidents in New York, most notably the Howard Beach assault in which one black man was killed and another seriously injured by a white mob. The narrative takes place in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn on the hottest day of the year and unfolds around the web of race relations among blacks, Latinos, Italian-Americans, West Indians and Koreans that intersects in Sal's Pizzeria. Rueing the absence of black heroes on Sal's wall of notable Americans, Buggin' Out, a black nationalist, embarks on a crusade to have Sal remove Italian American luminaries and replace them with African American ones. Eventually, Buggin' Out organizes a boycott of the pizzeria that culminates in a violent confrontation between Sal and Radio Raheem, a local bully. Sal smashes Raheem's boom box and a ruckus ensues. The police are summoned to apprehend Radio and in the process, choke him to death. Mookie, Sal's deliveryman, evaluates the situation and in a moment of rage, hurls a garbage can through Sal's window. The carnival of fury that Lee unfurl's at the film's finale combines a sixties' militancy with a nineties' vision. Throughout the film, racial strife is underlined by Public Enemy's rap Fight the power. (Circulates)