Do the "Huh? Say What?" Thing
Saw "Do the Right Thing" again after about 18 years. Yeah, it's a good movie. Yeah, it's a little cartoony. Yeah, they play "Fight the Power" a few too many times. Yeah, the racial tensions come across. But I'm sorry, but where's the character motivation for Mookie to throw the garbage can through the window? He's siding with Sal not 3-5 minutes beforet the riot and not only that, but also Mookie is the <i>peacekeeper</I> through the whole movie! What gives? It kinda reeked of a moment of: "oh shit, I gotta finish the movie somehow." Yet Spike Lee is asking us did Mookie do the right thing? It would have made much more logical sense to have Smiley throw the can through the window.
I would stick my neck out and say that he did the wrong thing - but that is me as an outsider looking in.
How can anyone not in that situation say what they would ultimately do?
Sweet Dick Willie to Buggin Out:
"<i>You wanna boycott someone? You ought to start with the goddamn barber that fucked up your head.</i>"
I haven't seen <i>Do The Right Thing</i> in a while, but, if you want to tangle with "what is the filmmaker's message", well...
----
Mookie plays the peacemaker. He tries and tries to make peace. He sees the stupidity on both sides. He feels constrained by his obligations to both side. He wants to do right by all, and finds out you can't please everyone. His stature in the community obligates, forces?, to decisively declare himself on one side or the other.
Finally, once you realize that words will never get you to where you want to go, then _you_must_ take action. ACTION! Maybe even... VIOLENCE!
It's MLK vs. Malcolm X, and Lee sides with X.
It's the whole point of the film!!
I think my response still stands. Mookie is sick of straddling the line. Require him to remove the "Sal's" shirt because it implicates him in some sort of property dispute with his (supposedly now after the broken window) former employer, not sure if that's a strong complaint. I don't see how it lessens his decision to do something (whether it's "Right" or "Wrong" is left to the viewer...)
In fact, it might add to the allusion of breaking free of Slavery and Jim Crow America. The Sal shirt represents the cloak of inivisibility that Black Americans toiled under... Or, it represents the "White Acting" Negro. Mookie as Uncle Tom. Mookie appeases the white owners, adopting their style of dress, finally since he can't change the institution from the inside, he must attack it from the outside.
Wow, what a great movie. Maybe we shouldn't attempt to see Art without the message...
"Notes On A Scandal" featured a similar ending -- the shit hits the fan when Cate Blanchette's character discovers pages of Judi Dench's diary <i> in the trash </i>. At that point, I stopped caring and believing -- out of the blue, I'm supposed to think that Dench's character, a devoted diarist, is going to <i> rip a page out of her diary and throw it in the trash </i>. Bullshit bullshit bullshit.
Same thing with 'Do The Right Thing' -- the peacekeeping character turns 180 degrees. There's the smart person route, which is to analyze the signifiers and try and decide on the symbolism, but c'mon. There would be no need to do that if the character was written well.
I can say that I'm not sure I'd want to watch it again--although back in the day it tied with Better Off Dead for #1 of all-time.
It's really too cringe-worthy to remember the reasons why I loved that movie so much, but it certainly affected me a lot. It gave me a knee-jerk reaction to "racism" and an understanding of Black culture so oversimplified that I just <i>didn't understand</i> my first black boyfriend, who was an angst-y suburban geek like all of the others.
I wonder if that was what Spike Lee was going for?
Mona Lisa has a sublime smile regardless of the 16th century Florentine politcal climate.
Why can't be the "peacekeeper" suddenly become fed-up with the system? I can imagine that the devotion to act as an intermediary, the passion to solve disputes, could ultimately boil over into a righteous rage that crosses the line.
Haven't we all done things that are "out of character"? Isn't it always the quiet family next door that ends up with a dismembered wife and the husband captured, 200 miles away, in socks, in the middle of the winter?
<i> But I'm sorry, but where's the character motivation for Mookie to throw the garbage can through the window? He's siding with Sal not 3-5 minutes beforet the riot and not only that, but also Mookie is the peacekeeper through the whole movie! What gives?</i>
Of course we all do things that are out of character in our lives. But in a movie, which is like two hours showcasing certain charcters' lives, it's pretty sloppy. The ending would have been better -- more believable -- if Spike had foreshadowed with the character, no?
Even if you do, I reject the idea that I cannot understand a community defined by a race not my own. (Race being a perilously imprecise term). Sure, I can't really know what it is to be a Black American, however, I think humans are capable of empathy.
Maybe the fact that I think I can understand the Black community makes me a White Devil...
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Wouldn't that necissitate another title for the film?
<i>Do The Right Thing</i> would have made even less sense of a title then.
What if one of Sal's sons beats-up Radio Raheem for having his "beats-up"? Would we then be arguing over whether or not Lee's message is "all wops are goons"?
...oh wait. Radio Raheem is dead.
Give me another few moments with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_the_Right_Thing">wikipedia</a>.
The title would then be based off of a Miller Lite swilling drunk man's non-sequitur (no disrespect intended to Ossie Davis).
These changes would dramatically alter both the controversey created upon the film's release as well as the viewer's gut reaction to the film.
<i>Do The Right Thing</i> is fine the way it is.
There are tons of amazing dramas whose titles come from tossed off lines: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, You Can't Take it With You, All My Sons, A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, The Zoo Story, to name a few.
<i>Do The Right Thing</i> isn't a question of is Mookie right or wrong? Mookie represents Mankind, capable of both peace and violence, obviously. It's not a question of what is the Right Thing™, it's a call to step back and ask "What Are We Doing"?
Who the hell cares, right? They're just poor urban blacks... why can't Mookie get a real job?
Hear, Hear.
I dont know if there was purpose in what Mookie did or not, nor do I ultimately know if it was right or wrong. It just was - that's just what escalated on a particularly hot day in NYC in a story Spike wrote.
It the same as a polling agency asking: "Who would you rather see as President? An intelligent man like Rudolph Giuliani or a stuck-up cunt like Hillary Clinton?"
its been buggin me today
(Do I need to demark that with sarcasm quotes... or am I being flippant?)
Flippant your Wig.