[And that's the truth, Ruth.]
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For most of Do the Right Thing,
director Spike Lee’s character Mookie
seems to be a passive protagonist --
he slacks off at his job
as a pizza delivery man
[What is this, Mookie, another one
of your patented two-hour lunch breaks?]
[I wanted to come home and take a quick shower.]
He’s not a dependable partner or father.
[You're going to run out of here,
and I ain't gonna see your black ass
for another [bleep] week.]
In fact he doesn’t seem dedicated
to anything at all.
But then Mookie suddenly takes action
at a crucial moment near the end of the film.
A fight breaks out between Mookie’s boss Sal
and his friend Radio Raheem --
and the chaos ends with the police
killing Radio Raheem in a chokehold.
[Mookie, they killed him.
They killed Radio Raheem!]
As the community stands there in shock,
Mookie picks up a trash can
and throws it through the window
of Sal’s pizzeria --
and with that action, he starts a riot
that completely destroys the place.
[You see this [bleep]ing place?
I built this [bleep]ing place!
With my bare [bleep]ing hands!]
The film's complex ending makes us think
back to the meaning of the movie’s title,
which comes from some advice Da Mayor
gives Mookie early in the film.
[Always do the right thing.]
[That's it?]
[That's it.]
[I got it.
I'm gone.]
And that leads us to the question
that most people leave this movie
wondering about:
did Mookie ultimately
do the right thing?
[Man, we aren’t even safe in our own
[bleep]ing neighborhood.]
[Never was.
Never will be.]
It's a question that’s been debated a lot.
[Why would the delivery man have thrown the trash can
through his employer's window?
He must have known that his actions
would cause the mob to riot.
It seemed totally irrational.]
But in this video we’ll do our best
to get to the bottom of what Lee is communicating here.
[What I feel I have to do as a filmmaker
is present problems so that the discussion can start.]
So before we can figure out
if Mookie did the right thing,
we have to try to understand
why Mookie does what he does.
Some viewers believe that Mookie throws the trash can
to divert the angry crowd’s attention
away from Sal and his sons.
So those viewers think Mookie's trying to ensure
the only thing damaged is property.
[You're gonna get it all from
the [bleep]ing insurance anyway, Sal.
You know the deal.]
On one level that makes sense
because Mookie and Sal have
a relatively warm relationship.
[Mookie, I wanna tell you that there's always
gonna be a place for you here,
because you've always been like a son to me.]
But the director himself has actually
weighed in on this interpretation
and clarified Mookie’s motives.
[I want to clear up something once and for all.
Mookie did not throw the garbage can through the window
to divert the mob jumping on Sal, Vito, and Pino.
Mookie threw the garbage can through the window
because he just saw one of his best friends
murdered in cold blood by NYPD.]
It’s understandable that people want to believe
Mookie is trying to protect Sal
because of what we’ve seen between the characters
before this point.
But ultimately that theory is an attempt
to find a warm and fuzzy explanation
that’s not the truth.
It’s not acknowledging that this action
is an expression of Mookie’s grief.
All this time as we thought Mookie
was being passive throughout the film,
there was actually a deep, profound anguish
building up inside him --
and now, suddenly, it comes out.
The director has said that the only people
who continue to ask him why Mookie threw the trash can
over the years are white.
[In 20 years since the film came out,
no black person has ever asked me
why Mookie threw the garbage can through the window.
Only white people ask that question.
Still today.
No black person’s ever asked me that.]
So Lee’s words imply that black people intuitively
understand Mookie’s deep frustration in this moment
as he’s helpless to stop injustice in his community.
[Mookie threw that trash can
because he was [bleep]ing angry.]
The film’s title is a clear directive,
a command telling us to --
[Always do the right thing.]
But in the end that direction is painfully ironic
because the movie shows how hard it is
to decipher what the right thing is.
It’s difficult to say if there is a “right thing”
for Mookie to do in this situation.
If he hadn’t thrown the trash can,
he would have had to just walk away
and passively accept his friend’s murder.
He lives in a place where the people
who are supposed to represent justice are murderers,
and he has no legal recourse.
The movie takes place during a heatwave.
[I have today's forecast for you.
Hot!]
And that oppressive heat symbolizes
the simmering racial tensions in this neighborhood.
[We should stay in our own neighborhood,
stay in Bensonhurst,
and the [bleep] should stay in theirs.]
And when the community sets fire to the pizzeria,
the heat has become wild, destructive flames.
For a lot of the movie, it’s not clear
where the plot is going --
but like Mookie, the film is slowly burning up,
building to a powerful crescendo.
When Mookie throws the trash can he yells:
[Hate!]
This calls back to Radio Raheem’s iconic speech
about love and hate.
[Hate!
It was with this hand
that Cain iced his brother.
Love!
These five fingers,
they go straight to the soul of man.]
That scene is actually taken from
The Night of the Hunter --
[H-A-T-E.
It was with this left hand
that old brother Cain struck the blow
that laid his brother low.]
so it shows off Spike Lee’s cinephile chops,
but the director is also putting
his own spin on this love-hate story
by applying it to the question of
how a person responds to oppression.
In the moment he’s pushed to his limit,
Mookie chooses the hate hand.
[Hate!]
But the movie doesn't end with the riot.
The morning after, Mookie goes to Sal’s
burnt out pizzeria
and asks for his week’s pay.
[Sal, I want my money.]
[Your money couldn't begin to pay
for the window you broke.]
[Mother[bleep] a window.
Radio Raheem is dead.]
Eventually Sal crumples up $500 in cash --
which is double Mookie’s salary --
and he throws the bills at Mookie one by one.
[You got $500 -- you're a rich [bleep]ing man now.
You happy?]
Sal is demeaning Mookie here --
he knows Mookie can’t afford
to turn this money down,
so he’s making him pick up the cash
off the street --
and he’s kind of rubbing it in Mookie’s face
that this money won't really do anything
for him in the long run.
[He's got 500 [bleep]ing dollars.
He's a big man!
He's a rich [bleep]ing man!]
Sal will get insurance money to rebuild,
but the truth is Mookie’s the one
who’s truly worse off now,
out of a job because of what he did.
[What are you gonna do with yourself?]
[Make that money.
Get paid.]
In spite of that, Mookie refuses to back down
or to apologize for anything.
His calm composure tells us --
he stands behind what he did.
He thinks he did do the right thing.
At the very end we see two quotes --
one from Martin Luther King Jr.,
and one from Malcolm X --
and the words essentially express
the two leaders’ different interpretations
of what “the right thing” is --
King advocates against violence
and its destructive power.
[Good people, please.
Let's all go home.
Somebody's gonna get hurt.]
[Yeah, you, boy!]
[If we don't stop this and stop it now,
we gonna do something we're gonna regret
for the rest of our lives.]
Malcolm X says to “do what is necessary”
and that violence is permissible
in some situations.
[Burn it down, burn it down.]
By putting these quotes one after the other,
Lee is suggesting that both of these leaders
have a good point, and therefore,
there can be no straightforward answer
to the question of what it means
to “do the right thing”
in a world that’s wrong.
[In certain times, both philosophies and approaches
can be appropriate.
But in this day and age, in the year of our lord 1989,
I’m leaning more toward the philosophies of Malcolm X.
And that’s why we chose that quote to end the movie with
than with the Dr. Martin Luther King quote.]
But after these quotes, Lee shows us
that picture that Smiley sells
of the two men shaking hands.
On one level it’s an optimistic image
that shows some reconciliation between the two sides,
the way that they’re two halves of a whole
seeking the same thing.
At the same time, the image reminds us
of Radio Raheem’s love and hate story,
when he intertwines the fingers of his two hands.
[The story of life is this: static.
One hand is always fighting the other hand.]
So this ending also sends a message of static --
of things not changing.
The two hands just keep fighting.
And ultimately, the end of Do The Right Thing
gives us no resolution.
[I think it would have been a lie and very dishonest
to have a kind of Steven Spielberg ending
where we’re all holding hands and singing
‘We Are The World.’]
The next morning after the riot,
there’s just more heat --
[They say it’s even gonna get hotter today.]
So the symbolism is nothing has been resolved.
Nothing has really changed.
It’s only going to get worse.
The riot scene is a very small part of the film --
most of Do the Right Thing is composed
of neighborhood vignettes,
introducing us to the people in the community.
[Hey!]
[Hi Mookie.]
[Hey Mook.]
Through these scenes, the film slowly reveals
how profoundly helpless and frustrated
these characters feel.
[I own this brownstone.]
[Who told you to buy a brownstone on my block
in my neighborhood on my side of the street?]
It’s a predominantly black community,
yet the black people have no power.
The cops are in control.
[This hydrant better not come back on again,
or there's going to be hell to pay!
Come and answer to me, God damn it.]
And small business owners like Sal
and the Korean couple
seem to be the only ones able to succeed
in the neighborhood.
[A mother[bleep]ing year off the mother[bleep]ing boat
and they already got a business in our neighborhood,
a good business.]
Lee is showing that we’re kidding ourselves
if we actually think this is a “free country”
with an even playing field.
[What the hell are you talking about,
free?
Free?
There's no free here.
What?
I'm the boss.]
The black characters rebel against the powers that be,
by acting out in small ways --
two young men spray a white man’s car with water
from the fire hydrant.
Radio Raheem makes a point of blasting
his hip hop music
[We gotta fight the powers that be]
and Buggin’ Out demands Sal put some black celebrities
on his “wall of fame.”
[Rarely do I see any American-Italians eating in here.
All I see is black folks.
So since we spend much money here,
we do have some say.]
But these kinds of actions just
release some resentment --
they can’t do anything to address
the systemic inequalities that are the big problem.
[You know, if you really tried hard, Buggin’ Out,
you could direct your energies
in a more useful way, you know?]
[Jade, you got to be down.
What, you ain't down?]
[Yeah, Buggin’ Out, I'm down,
but I'm down for something
positive in the community.]
Watching the movie for the first time
the viewer might feel that the riot
comes out of nowhere --
but on closer inspection, its clear
that all these smaller acts
of rebellion and frustration
are leading straight to that climax of the film.
So does Mookie do the right thing?
On some level it feels like Lee is saying
that there comes a point
when you just have to do something --
you can’t just keep accepting
that there’s nothing to be done.
Up until Radio Raheem’s death,
Mookie hasn’t been doing much of anything at all --
so in this heated moment he finally breaks out
of that complacency.
He can no longer stand by and tolerate
that this is the world he lives in,
without raising a protest.
There’s a tradition in cinema of directors
giving themselves a key role at a pivotal moment
in their movies.
Here Lee casts himself as the person
who incites the riot.
[It would have been too easy for the audience
for a character like Buggin’ Out
to do that because that was expected.
It also would have lessened the effect
because up to that point,
I think for a lot of the white audience
that this is one character in the film
that they can identify with.]
He’s directing the action of the scene
from inside it --
and this subtly sends the message
that the film itself is intended
as a riot of sorts --
an expression of anger and grief,
meant to provoke action,
to speak to people who feel powerless.
Do the Right Thing is dedicated to the families
of real-life victims of police brutality.
[It's murder.
They did it again,
just like Michael Stewart.]
[Murder.
Eleanor Bumpers.
Murder!]
The film had foresight --
less than three years after it was released,
the 92 L.A. riots broke out,
triggered by the acquittals of the police officers
who assaulted Rodney King.
[We had the crystal ball.
I mean I think we predicted what happened
with the L.A. riots.]
And the film’s understanding of
how the police can hurt marginalized communities
is sadly still as relevant today.
But it’s telling that the conversation
about the movie’s ending over the years
continues to focus on Mookie’s actions and the riot,
when we really should be talking more
about Radio Raheem’s murder.
[I know the cops did the wrong thing,
that’s for sure.
And what’s sad is they continue
to do the wrong thing
and nothing ever happens.
For me, that’s what the movie’s about.
About human life, and how in America black life
has become devalued.]
Many characters in the film
make questionable decisions --
but the only ones who do the objectively,
undeniably wrong thing are the cops
who kill Radio Raheem,
and anyone who’s willing
to accept that as the norm.
[There's no end in sight from this heat wave.
So today, the cash-money word
is "chill."]
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