Foreshadowing in Do the Right Thing

As mentioned in the discussion the class had after watching the movie, there seems to be a lot of foreshadowing throughout the film. One of the more obvious predictions that everybody had made was Sal stating that he was going kill someone at the very beginning of the film. One of the other foreshadows that I picked up on was a more subtle one. When Buggin’ tries to assemble a boycot on Sal’s Famous he struggles to gain members that would join him in doing so. While this made it clear that Buggin’ did not have great leader ship skills, it became apparent when the man wearing the celtics t-shirt stepped on Buggin’s shoe. Buggin’ reacted by chasing the man down and wanting an apology or anything else. When he started yelling at the man a group of people joined Buggin’ and started egging him on and taking his side. But even when Buggin’ had all those people with him he still was not able to lead and could not do anything. This proved that Buggin’ was not a suitable leader for the boycot, and if he wanted to do it he would have to have somebody else more powerful lead him. This is where Radio comes in at the very end and leads Buggin’ into the store. In the end it’s Radio who leads Buggin’ even though Buggin’ had the idea initially.

One thought on “Foreshadowing in Do the Right Thing”

  1. I never thought of Buggin’s character like this before. There was a lot of foreshadowing throughout the film and if someone were to watch it twice they would more readily pick up on some of them and realize that the final scene was building up from the start. Buggin’ however was always the one trying to start the boycott or some kind of altercation and in the end he isn’t the one to do it. That’s a really interesting point to make when analyzing his character.

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