Do the Right Thing (1989)
Movie Details
- Release Date: July 21, 1989
- Director: Spike Lee
- Screenplay: Spike Lee
- Cinematography: Ernest Dickerson
- Music: Bill Lee
- Budget: $6.5 million
- Box Office: $37.3 million
- Production Company: 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks
Cast
- Spike Lee as Mookie
- Danny Aiello as Sal
- Ossie Davis as Da Mayor
- Ruby Dee as Mother Sister
- Giancarlo Esposito as Buggin' Out
- Bill Nunn as Radio Raheem
- John Turturro as Pino
- Richard Edson as Vito
- Rosie Perez as Tina
- Samuel L. Jackson as Mister Señor Love Daddy
Awards & Recognition
- Academy Award Nomination: Best Original Screenplay
- National Film Registry: Selected for preservation (1999)
- AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies: #96 (2007 edition)
- Cannes Film Festival: Nominated for Palme d'Or
- Sight & Sound Poll: #25 Greatest Film of All Time (2022)
- Time Magazine: 100 Greatest Movies of All Time
Synopsis & Analysis
Synopsis
Set during a scorching summer day in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, "Do the Right Thing" follows Mookie (Spike Lee), a young Black man who works as a pizza delivery person for Sal's Famous Pizzeria. As the temperature rises both literally and figuratively, racial tensions simmer between the predominantly Black residents and Sal (Danny Aiello), the Italian-American pizzeria owner.
The conflict intensifies when Buggin' Out (Giancarlo Esposito) notices that Sal's "Wall of Fame" features only Italian-Americans despite his Black customer base. He demands representation, eventually enlisting Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn) to protest. Their confrontation with Sal culminates in a violent altercation when Radio Raheem's boombox is destroyed, leading to his death at the hands of police, a subsequent riot, and the destruction of Sal's pizzeria.
The film deliberately leaves the audience with contradictory perspectives, ending with opposing quotes from Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X about violence and self-defense, challenging viewers to form their own interpretations about what constitutes "doing the right thing."
Thematic Analysis
Heat as a Metaphor
The scorching summer day serves as both setting and metaphor, with the rising heat paralleling the escalating racial tensions. Lee masterfully uses visual cues—characters constantly wiping sweat, hydrating, and seeking shade—to reinforce how environmental pressure correlates with social pressure, until both reach a boiling point.
Racial Tensions and Tribalism
The film presents a microcosm of American race relations through the diverse characters of the neighborhood. Each racial and ethnic group maintains its identity while interacting within the shared community space. Lee employs a series of direct-to-camera racial slur monologues from different characters to confront audiences with the raw reality of prejudice while highlighting how these groups project stereotypes onto each other.
Police Brutality and Institutional Racism
Radio Raheem's death by police chokehold eerily foreshadowed countless real-life incidents in the decades to follow, making the film disturbingly prophetic. The scene deliberately echoes the 1983 killing of graffiti artist Michael Stewart and addresses the disproportionate use of force against Black Americans, a theme that remains painfully relevant today.
Property vs. Human Life
The film poses a profound question about value hierarchies: what matters more—property or human life? After Radio Raheem's death, the community's outrage manifests in the destruction of Sal's pizzeria, forcing viewers to consider the relationship between economic injustice, material possessions, and human dignity.
Ambiguity and Moral Complexity
Lee refuses to provide easy answers, instead presenting a morally complex scenario where different audience members might arrive at different conclusions about who "did the right thing." This ambiguity is crystallized in the film's conclusion, which juxtaposes Martin Luther King Jr.'s advocacy for nonviolence with Malcolm X's defense of self-protection "by any means necessary."
Key Scenes Analysis
"Fight the Power" Opening Sequence
The film opens with Rosie Perez's explosive dance to Public Enemy's "Fight the Power," establishing the film's energetic rhythm and political consciousness. The sequence functions as both a declaration of the film's intentions and a character introduction for Tina, capturing the vibrant, defiant spirit of the community while setting up the film's political framework.
Radio Raheem's Love/Hate Speech
Referencing "The Night of the Hunter" (1955), Radio Raheem delivers a philosophical monologue about the eternal battle between love and hate, complete with brass knuckles adorned with these words. This scene functions as both character development and thematic foreshadowing, establishing the film's central conflict while elevating Radio Raheem from a potential stereotype to a figure of unexpected depth and symbolic weight.
The Wall of Fame Confrontation
Buggin' Out's confrontation with Sal over the lack of Black faces on his "Wall of Fame" exemplifies how seemingly minor conflicts can embody larger power dynamics. The scene astutely captures how space, representation, and economic exchange intersect with race relations, setting in motion the film's central conflict about whose culture deserves recognition in shared community spaces.
Radio Raheem's Death
The chokehold killing of Radio Raheem by police officers remains one of cinema's most devastating depictions of police brutality. Lee films this scene with unflinching clarity, combining close-ups of Radio Raheem's struggling face with wide shots that place the killing in full community view. The scene's power derives from its restraint—Lee lets the horror of the moment speak for itself without stylistic flourishes, creating a moment of documentary-like realism within the film's otherwise stylized approach.
Mookie Throwing the Trash Can
The film's most debated moment occurs when Mookie throws a trash can through Sal's window, triggering the riot. This pivotal action has generated endless interpretation: Is it an act of senseless destruction? A calculated diversion to redirect mob anger from Sal himself to his property? A justified expression of rage? Lee deliberately leaves this moral calculation ambiguous, forcing viewers to confront their own values about protest, property, and appropriate responses to injustice.
Visual Style & Technical Analysis
Cinematography
Ernest Dickerson's vibrant cinematography employs a distinctive color palette dominated by reds, oranges, and yellows to visualize the oppressive heat and simmering tensions. The film uses a variety of techniques including Dutch angles to create disorientation, tracking shots that glide through the neighborhood establishing its geography, and Lee's signature "floating" character shots where actors appear to slide through space on dollies, creating a dreamlike quality that contrasts with the film's realism.
Breaking the Fourth Wall
Lee frequently employs direct address to the camera, particularly during the sequence of racial epithet monologues. This technique implicates the audience directly in the narrative, refusing to allow viewers the comfort of passive observation and demanding engagement with the film's difficult questions.
Sound Design & Music
The film's soundscape is anchored by Public Enemy's "Fight the Power," which functions as both diegetic music (played by Radio Raheem) and symbolic anthem. Bill Lee's original score counterpoints this with jazz-influenced compositions that provide emotional texture. The sound design meticulously captures the neighborhood's audio environment—open fire hydrants, street conversations, and radio broadcasts—creating a rich sonic portrait of urban community life.
Visual Motifs
Heat is visualized through constant images of ice melting, characters in minimal clothing, and the shimmering effect of heat waves rising from asphalt. The film also uses recurrent imagery of photographs and portraiture—from Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X to Sal's Wall of Fame—to explore themes of representation and historical memory.
Cultural Context & Impact
Historical Context
Released during the racially charged climate of late 1980s New York, "Do the Right Thing" arrived in the aftermath of several high-profile racial incidents including the Howard Beach incident (1986), the Tawana Brawley case (1987), and the murder of Yusef Hawkins (1989). The film both reflected and anticipated real-world racial tensions, making it an uncommonly prescient work.
Critical reaction to the film was itself telling of America's racial divide—some white critics infamously predicted that the film would incite riots (which never materialized), revealing their own fears and assumptions about Black audiences. Lee directly challenged this reaction, noting that warnings about potential violence exposed an underlying racism in critical reception.
Critical Reception
While now recognized as a masterpiece, the film's initial reception was polarized. It was controversially denied major Academy Awards recognition despite universal acclaim for its artistic achievement. This slight became part of the larger conversation about Hollywood's historical undervaluation of Black filmmaking.
Particularly notable was the film's omission from the Best Picture category at the 1990 Academy Awards, where "Driving Miss Daisy" took the top prize—a contrast that many commentators cited as emblematic of Hollywood's preference for more comforting narratives about race relations. Lee has frequently cited this as evidence of the industry's reluctance to engage with challenging perspectives on American racial dynamics.
Legacy & Ongoing Relevance
Over thirty years after its release, "Do the Right Thing" has proven disturbingly timeless in its depiction of police violence against Black Americans. The film's scenes of Radio Raheem's death tragically foreshadowed numerous real-life incidents, most notably the 2014 killing of Eric Garner and the 2020 murder of George Floyd, both of which involved police chokeholds and echoed the film's imagery with eerie precision.
The film established Spike Lee as one of America's essential filmmakers and introduced a distinctive visual style that would influence generations of directors. Its unflinching engagement with racial conflict established a template for socially conscious cinema that doesn't sacrifice artistic innovation for political messaging.
Perhaps most importantly, "Do the Right Thing" remains a vibrant cultural touchstone precisely because it refuses simplistic messaging, instead inviting viewers into an ongoing conversation about race, community, violence, and justice—a conversation that America continues to navigate decades later.
Director Profile: Spike Lee
Shelton "Spike" Lee emerged in the 1980s as one of America's most distinctive and provocative filmmaking voices. Born in Atlanta and raised in Brooklyn, Lee's connection to the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood depicted in "Do the Right Thing" is deeply personal. After studying at Morehouse College and NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, Lee established his production company, 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, which has been instrumental in creating space for Black storytelling in American cinema.
"Do the Right Thing" represents a pivotal moment in Lee's career, transitioning from the promising indie filmmaker behind "She's Gotta Have It" (1986) and "School Daze" (1988) to an essential American auteur. The film showcases Lee's signature stylistic elements: vibrant visual composition, fourth-wall breaking, exploration of complex racial dynamics, and the integration of music as a narrative element.
The personal nature of the film is evident not only in Lee's casting himself as the protagonist Mookie but also in his casting of family members, including his sister Joie and father Bill Lee (who composed the score). The film exemplifies Lee's commitment to creating nuanced portrayals of Black communities that resist easy categorization or stereotyping.
Lee's body of work, spanning over three decades, consistently engages with American racial history and politics. From "Malcolm X" (1992) to "BlacKkKlansman" (2018), for which he finally won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, Lee has remained one of America's most politically engaged and artistically vibrant filmmakers, with "Do the Right Thing" standing as perhaps his most enduring achievement.
Behind the Scenes
Production
Lee wrote the screenplay for "Do the Right Thing" in just two weeks during a period of intense creativity. The production was shot entirely on Stuyvesant Avenue between Quincy Street and Lexington Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. The block was transformed by production designer Wynn Thomas, who painted buildings in bright colors to enhance the film's visual palette and heighten the sense of oppressive heat.
The shooting schedule deliberately followed the chronology of the script, beginning with morning scenes and ending with the riot sequence. This approach helped the actors build the emotional tension naturally as the production progressed through the narrative's increasing intensity.
To create the film's distinctive look, cinematographer Ernest Dickerson used specialized lighting techniques and filters to enhance the appearance of heat, including placing heaters near the camera lens to create visible heat waves rising from the asphalt.
Share Your Thoughts
What do you think about "Do the Right Thing"? Do you believe Mookie did the right thing? Has the film's significance changed for you over time? Share your thoughts in the comments below or join the conversation on our social media channels.