Finally watching Do The Right Thing was a truly rewarding experience because I’d often heard it described as one of those films like Coming to America or The Wiz that every Black person needs to see at least once. Now having finally seen it, I’d go further and say that this is a film every person of color should see. What stood out most to me, beyond the film’s powerful narrative, was something I hadn’t been explicitly told about: its stunning cinematography and costume design. Bright, vivid, awesome shots throughout the entirety. What made Do The Right Thing so impressive to me was it’s recognition of intersectionality within the overarching nature of the neighborhood. Spike Lee recognizes such a variety of ethnic, gender, economic, and age groups (Da Mayor and Young Teens) gathered within this enclave in conflict with one another. I will speak on 2 instances that Spike Lee offered for us to consider and caught my attention.

Being Black and Female: When Mookie took his sister, Jade (played by Joie Lee, Spike Lee’s real-life sister) outside the pizzeria to forbid her from going there again, believing that Sal was flirting with her. When I watched the scene I felt that Jade and Sal shared a more father-daughter, paternalistic relationship but at that point considering the other instances of ambiguity from Sal’s character I could still acknowledge that he may have been sexualizing Jade. What sealed the deal for me thinking about what Lee wanted to illustrate as Sal’s true intent was realizing that the writing on the wall where Mookie and Jade held the conversation said “Tawana told the truth”. This is a reference to the real-life case of Tawana Brawley, a teenager who accused six white men of sexually assaulting her in the late 1980s.

Black People in Law Enforcement: Amidst the chaos following the murder of Radio Raheem I heard Smiley yell in the background “One of the officers was black!” concerning the role of Black individuals within systems of oppression.

Black Artists: Mookie confronted Pino about his idolization of Black artists and style but his simultaneous conflicting hatred of black people in the neighborhood. In rationalizing this behavior Pino goes so far as to say that Black artists like Prince are not really black. This made me think of the Langston Hughes essay The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69395/the-negro-artist-and-the-racial-mountain).