I am glad that Spike Lee called these authors out for what they said in the newspaper articles. It was not right of them at all to only bring up how Mookie broke a white person’s property and not mention how the NYPD killed a black man. Lee has a reason to be frustrated. It is crazy to think even 25 years later things have not changed and racism is still a major problem in some parts of the country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tawana_Brawley_rape_allegations

http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/04/justice/new-york-brawley-settlement/

I know that we mentioned Tawana briefly before watching Do the Right Thing, but I thought than an interesting piece of mise-en-scene in the film was the graffiti shown in the background of all of the scenes and how they linked the events of the film to real life new stories. The most noticeable of these was “Tawana Told the Truth!”, written in white graffiti on the red wall behind Mookie and Jade (his sister) when he asks her not to visit Sal’s pizzeria.

I’ve posted a few links to Wikipedia and news articles on the Tawana Brawley case (including where she is now), and even though the subject matter is rough, it is pretty interesting to see how it was woven into the scene. For those of you who don’t know, Tawana was a teenager in the late 1980’s who accused six white men (including a few policemen and an attorney) of sexually abusing her and leaving her in an alleyway with racial slurs written on her body. It was eventually ruled that Tawana had fabricated the stories and staged the scene (her motives were unclear, though there are various possibilities).

During the trials, Tawana’s story gained mass support from the African American community, especially in Hollywood, where actors like Bill Cosby advocated for her and tried to raise legal funds for her trial. It was an important incident of racial tension, dividing various communities across the country, and Spike Lee may have included this to showcase the real-world prevalence of racism through a “fictional” film. It also gives a small insight into Mookie’s protectiveness for Jade (a character he still sees as innocent) as he tries to warn her about Sal (whose intentions, he believes, could be similar to the alleged intentions of Tawana’s “attackers”).

Color Symbolism:

White Graffiti (stands out against the red, a symbol of innocence and purity)

Red Wall (common throughout the film, magnifies heat and anger, symbol of racial tension and violence)

I found the technique of including the viewer in the movie to be a particularly effective way to deliver his message. This is seen when the camera rushes up to each individual as if it was a child running up to talk to somebody, only to hear very exaggerated and overblown racism from each diversified minority present in the movie. This method of speaking directly to the camera, is accentuated by the lack of visual effect in the frame while each character is talking. Where other scenes showed the same settings with a lot happening in the background or a multitude of visual variety, these “call-out scenes” did not boast any of the same visual appeal. They were made so the viewer was focused on the slurs and anger directed from one character toward the others.

After reading the Foreword by Martin Scorsese in Stephen Apron’s Age of Image, Scorsese made some really powerful statements that made me look at Spike Lee’s film Do the Right Thing in a different way. Scorsese talks about how every element in a film is “counted” and more importantly how filmmakers are storytellers. Films are meant to be “read and attentively and lovingly returned to and studied.” This is exactly what Spike Lee presented to his audience. He tells us a story that deals with racial tension through music and colors. Then, at the very end, two quotes from Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X appear. Both historical civil rights leaders with two different points of view. I felt that Lee was asking us to think about which point of view way was right or wrong, just like how when reading books they put your mind to the test. Sometime people tend to just watch movies and once they are over they don’t think about them. Scorsese was absolutely right, movies are definitely meant to be studied to unfold deeper meanings and this is exactly what I did after watching Do the Right Thing. 

The song fight the power that was continuously being played through out this film. Possibly stood for more than just fight the power of the government and police officers. Could it have also been giving hints about stoping the power that racism holds as well. The reason I say this is because almost every time this song was being heard it was in a moment where racism was a part of. The main example was in Sal’s when the huge fight happened, but it also happened in the scene with the Boom Box battle where some things were said by the hispanic group after they  had lost.

I found Spike Lee’s ‘breaking of the fourth wall’ particularly effective. Having the actors speak directly at the camera puts the audience in the direct line of fire of the onslaught of verbal abuse the various characters dished out. Spike’s use of this cinematic effect is very different from what I am used to. Typically, in the shows or movies I’ve seen, the breaking of the fourth wall is used for either comedic effect or to explain something. These types of uses acknowledge that the audience is someone watching a screen. Spike Lee’s use, however, pulls the audience into the film to experience racial aggression first hand.

Something that is interesting to point out is that Radio Raheem is somewhat of a racist like Sal.  Sal, for example, only has famous white people’s pictures hanging on the wall in his restaurant because it is his property and he can do what he wants with it; while Radio Raheem on the other hand only plays “Fight the Power,” by Public Enemy, on his radio because it’s his radio and he can play whatever he wants.  This shows that Radio Raheem is a racist because he only plays one kind of music, like Sal having only pictures of white people.  As a result, there are people who react to this.  When Radio Raheem and Buggin Out go to Sal’s Pizzeria to demand that he put some pictures of black people on his wall is also when Sal tries to get Radio Raheem to turn his music off, only one of them succeeded though.  Once Sal destroys Radio Raheem’s radio it marked the downfall within the community and the destruction that was to come.  But, when Radio Raheem dies is when the real chaos happens causing everyone to go crazy and revolt against each other eventually resulting in the Sal’s Pizzeria being destroyed.  The fact that Radio Raheem is never coming back is just like Sal’s Pizzeria never being the same even though it can be rebuilt.  His death also marked the end of all trust between the community and between races.

I have to admit, I got tired of the film about 10 minutes in. I thought it was going to be just like any other movie: the plot continues for 30 minutes then the big climax happens and the rest of the film is directed towards treating the wound created at that climax. As I waited for the big moment, I realized this movie was more concerned with the daily lives of the neighborhood. The film wasn’t only concerned with the lives of these people, but the peace that they lived in. There was no significant violence, just a little bit of verbal arguing. I loved the presence of Sal’s pizzeria because, at least for the majority of the film, whites and blacks could live together. Anyway, back to my point. About an hour or so into the movie, that’s when the climax occurred. I was shocked to realize that the film concluded pretty abruptly. There was no healing or revenge. It was life. I think the movie was a “day in the life.” There was no time to get revenge or bereave over the death of a member of the community. Spike Lee depicted the life of blacks in the neighborhood and left the audience with questions: “What do we do? How do we fix this? Is this somewhat my fault for being so naive? Ignorant? Passive?” Nicely done, Spike.

During the movie I noticed that whenever Mookie’s child was shown in he was mostly sleeping. He never said a word in the film. I was wondering if he was just suppose to be used as a prop or if the director was trying to convey something to the viewer.

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.