Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing : An Explosive Film That Continues to Spark Questions About Racism in America

"Wake up!" 

Thus ends director Spike Lee's sophomore effort, School Daze, and begins his third, Do the Right Thing, arguably a modern classic in the filmmaker's oeuvre. Anticipating the Brooklyn Crown Heights and L.A. uprisings in the two-year span since its 1989 release, Do the Right Thing is the equivalent of a cinematic Molotov cocktail, exploding all the popular American mainstream myths about racial solidarity and togetherness in the post-civil rights, Reagan-Bush era. 

While the film, which examines the long-simmering racial tensions in a close-set Brooklyn neighborhood that escalates to violence and tragedy, was roundly criticized for its violence by much of the U.S. mainstream media (and many in the European press as well), Do the Right Thing is now considered one of the best films to come out of the 1980s. Its themes on violence, racial intolerance, and police brutality still inspires heated discussions. What made this film so incendiary, and continues to make it incendiary, is not only its themes of racial intolerance and the ways in which our society, particularly those who are oppressed and marginalized, chooses to deal with it, but also for the techniques the filmmakers used, i.e., cinematography and music, to drive that message home.

As a film, Do the Right Thing is a study in how cinematography can effectively add credence to plot and character development. The film's sensual details, such as the hot, sticky, suffocating heat of a summer day, are visually stunning. Since weather plays a significant role in the film from start to finish - -it is the oppressive summer heat which stokes racial conflicts to the surface, driving the film to its tragic and violent climax - -the cinematographer's use of light and color increases its visual power.