Do The Right Thing

As today is Martin Luther King Day and the day before Barack Obama’s inauguration, it seems appropriate to be thinking about love, hate and of course race.  Spike Lee’s Oscar® nominated film chronicles a day in the life of a Bed-Stuy community in Brooklyn and what happens when hate seems to overpower love.

The drama centers on a pizza joint named Sal’s that is run by Italians and serves the African-American neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant.  Throughout the hot hot hot day we meet the neighborhood regulars who all have an opinion on race, racism and what’s right and what’s not.  When tension builds over the inclusion of certain pictures in Sal’s establishment a boycott is called for, cops enter the picture and things get violent.

Do the Right Thing stands out for its honesty and willingness to say what many won’t.  It puts the issues at hand front and center and forces you to confront them while still being a smart, snappy and entertaining film.  And while it is jam packed full of ideas, it really comes down to this simple chunk of dialogue from the film:

Da Mayor: Doctor…
Mookie: C’mon, what. What?
Da Mayor: Always do the right thing.
Mookie: That’s it?
Da Mayor: That’s it.
Mookie: I got it, I’m gone.

Watch this film to see how it pushed the envelope and then takepart and get involved with the NAACP

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