Do the Right Thing is a 1989 American comedy-drama film produced, written, and directed by Spike
Lee, who also played the part of Mookie in the film. Other members of the cast include
Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Richard Edson, Giancarlo Esposito, Bill Nunn, John
Turturro, and Samuel L. Jackson. It is also notably the feature film debuts of Martin
Lawrence and Rosie Perez. The movie tells the story of a neighborhood's simmering racial
tension, which comes to a head and culminates in tragedy on the hottest day of summer.
The film was a commercial success and received numerous accolades and awards, including an
Academy Award nomination for Lee for Best Original Screenplay and one for Best Supporting
Actor for Aiello's portrayal of Sal the pizzeria owner. It is often listed among the greatest
films of all time. In 1999, it was deemed to be "culturally significant" by the U.S.
Library of Congress, and was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry,
one of just five films to have this honor in their first year of eligibility.
Plot Mookie is a young black man living in an African-American
neighborhood in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn with his sister Jade, who wants him out of
her apartment. He works delivering pizzas for a local pizzeria, but he lacks ambition
and he works to support his girlfriend Tina and their son Hector.
Salvatore "Sal" Frangione, the pizzeria's Italian-American owner, has been in the neighborhood
for 25 years. His older son Giuseppe, better known as Pino, "detests the place like a sickness"
and holds racial contempt for the neighborhood blacks. He attempts to make Mookie's life
miserable. Sal's younger son Vito is friends with Mookie.
The street corner is full of distinct personalities, most of whom are just trying to find a way
to deal with the hottest day in years and go about their regular day-to-day activities.
A drunk called Da Mayor is constantly trying to win the approval and affection of the neighborhood
matron, Mother Sister, who watches the neighborhood's activity from her brownstone. A young man
named Radio Raheem lives to blast Public Enemy's "Fight the Power" on his boombox wherever
he goes. He wears "love" and "hate" four-fingered rings on either hand, which he explains in
one scene symbolize the struggle between the two forces.
Smiley, a mentally disabled man, meanders around the neighborhood holding up hand-colored
pictures of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. The local radio disc-jockey, "Mister Señor
Love Daddy," rounds out the neighborhood. Three men known as "the Corner Men" act as
a sort of Greek chorus, commenting on the neighborhood and the day's events. Four teenagers--Cee,
Punchy, Ahmad and Ella--deal with the heat outside as well.
While eating a slice at Sal's, Buggin' Out questions Sal about the "Wall of Fame" and
demands he put up pictures of black celebrities on the wall, since Sal's pizzeria is in a
black neighborhood and sells pizza to black people. Sal replies that it's his store; he
is proud of his Italian heritage and doesn't need to feature anyone but Italians on his
wall. Buggin' Out starts an argument with Sal, during which Sal threatens to "bash his
head" with a baseball bat. Buggin' Out attempts to start a protest over the "Wall of Fame,"
but nobody will support his protest except Radio Raheem and Smiley.
During the day tensions rise around the neighborhood. Teenagers open a fire hydrant for respite
from the heat, flooding a passerby's car, and police officers intervene. Radio Raheem
"argues" with some Puerto Rican men simply by blaring their radios at each other. Buggin'
Out instigates an argument with Clifton, a Caucasian man who accidentally steps on his
Air Jordan shoes, and Da Mayor saves a boy from being run over by a car. Sal argues with
Radio Raheem for blasting his boombox in the pizzeria. Mookie and Pino begin arguing over
which race--blacks or Italians--is better, which leads to a series of scenes in which
the characters spew a variety of racial insults into the camera.
In the afternoon Pino and Sal talk about the neighborhood, Pino expressing his hatred and
Sal insisting that, whether Pino likes it or not, his pizzeria and his pizza are part
of the neighborhood, and he is not leaving. Then Sal watches, embarrassed, as Pino yells
at Smiley outside. Sal almost fires Mookie, but Jade comes into the shop, cooling Sal's
anger. Outside, Mookie confronts her for being too close to Sal. As they are cleaning to
close the restaurant, Mookie demands his weekly pay from Sal. Buggin' Out convinces Radio
Raheem and Smiley to join his protest and they begin insulting and threatening the yelling
neighbors. That night, four teenagers arrive and Sal
lets them in. After serving them, he closes. Suddenly, Radio Raheem, Smiley, and Buggin'
Out march into Sal's and demand that Sal change the pictures on the wall. Raheem's boombox
is blaring at the highest volume, and Sal demands that they turn the radio down or leave
the shop, but the two men refuse. They yell at each other, threatening, until Sal, in
a fit of frustration and anger, calls Raheem a "nigger," then snaps and destroys Raheem's
boombox with a baseball bat. Raheem then attacks Sal, starting a fight with all the teenage
boys, Sal, and his sons, which spills out onto the street, attracting a crowd of spectators.
As Radio Raheem is strangling Sal to death, Da Mayor yells at them to stop the fight.
The police arrive at the scene, break up the fight, and apprehend Radio Raheem and Buggin'
Out. They arrest Buggin' Out and one officer places Raheem in a chokehold, inadvertently
killing him. The officers kick an already-dead Raheem and yell at him to "quit faking". Realizing
they have killed a black man in front of an angry crowd, the officers take Raheem's body
back to the squad car, while in another squad car a police officer beats Buggin' Out with
his nightstick. The angry crowd chases the police, who leave the scene with Raheem's
body. Sal, Vito, and Pino are left alone with the angry crowd.
The onlookers, enraged about Radio Raheem's death, blame Sal and his sons and contemplate
violence against them. Da Mayor intervenes in the tense moment and tells the crowd to
go home because someone will get hurt; the crowd threatens him. Mookie grabs a trashcan
and throws it through the window of Sal's restaurant yelling "Hate!" which turns the
collective anger toward the property and away from the owners. Da Mayor pulls Sal out of
the mob's way. Vito, Pino, and Sal watch in horror as the restaurant gets destroyed.
The angry crowd, now a riotous mob, rushes into the restaurant and destroys everything,
then Smiley sets the restaurant on fire. Then the mob heads for the Korean market. Sonny,
the owner, tries to fight them off with a broom, yelling that he is one them: "I no
white! I black! You, mean, same! We same!", causing the mob to spare his store. Firefighters
arrive and begin spraying Sal's building while the crowd yells "Howard Beach" as riot patrol
holds them back. After several warnings to the crowd, the firefighters turn their hoses
on them further enraging them. Police officers begin struggling with the
mob and people are arrested. The mob attacks some of the firemen as they try to spray Sal's
building. Da Mayor gets in the middle of the ensuing chaos and pulls a screaming Mother
Sister out of the scene as Mookie and Jade watch the horror around them. Meanwhile, Smiley
wanders back into the smoldering restaurant, past Radio Raheem's burning boombox, and as
"Fight the Power" plays, he hangs a picture of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. on
what is left of Sal's "Wall of Fame." The next day, Mister Señor Love Daddy discusses
what transpired the previous night, asking, "are we ever going to live together?" After
having an argument with Tina over what it is to be a man, Mookie returns to Sal, who
feels that Mookie betrayed him by destroying the restaurant. They get into an argument,
then cautiously reconcile. Mookie demands his weekly pay he'd earlier been demanding
to receive in advance, and he gets it. Over the radio, Love Daddy dedicates a song to
Raheem over the night's events. The film ends with two quotes, respectively
from Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, before fading to a photograph of them shaking
hands. Cast
Spike Lee as Mookie Danny Aiello as Sal
Ossie Davis as Da Mayor Ruby Dee as Mother Sister
Steve Park as Sonny Bill Nunn as Radio Raheem
Richard Edson as Vito Giancarlo Esposito as Buggin' Out
John Turturro as Pino Rosie Perez as Tina
Martin Lawrence as Cee Paul Benjamin as ML
Frankie Faison as Coconut Sid Robin Harris as Sweet Dick Willie
Miguel Sandoval as Officer Mark Ponte Rick Aiello as Officer Gary Long
Joie Lee as Jade Samuel L. Jackson as Mister Señor Love Daddy
Roger Guenveur Smith as Smiley Steve White as Ahmad
Leonard L. Thomas as Punchy Christa Rivers as Ella
Luis Antonio Ramos as Stevie John Savage as Clifton
Frank Vincent as Charlie Richard Parnell Habersham as Eddie
Ginny Yang as Kim Nicholas Turturro
Production Spike Lee wrote the screenplay in two weeks.
The original script of Do the Right Thing ends with a stronger reconciliation between
Mookie and Sal. Sal's comments to Mookie mirror Da Mayor's earlier comments in the film and
hint at some common ground and perhaps Sal's understanding of why Mookie was motivated
to destroy his restaurant. It is unclear why Lee changed the ending.
The film was shot entirely on Stuyvesant Avenue between Quincy Street and Lexington Avenue
in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. The street's color scheme was heavily
altered by the production designer, who used a great deal of red and orange paint in order
to help convey the sense of a heatwave. Spike Lee campaigned for Robert De Niro as
Sal the pizzeria owner, but De Niro had to decline due to prior commitments. The character
of Smiley was not in the original script; he was created by Roger Guenveur Smith, who
was pestering Spike Lee for a role in the film. Four of the cast members were stand-up
comedians – Martin Lawrence, Steve Park, Steve White, and Robin Harris.
Controversies The film was released to protests from many
reviewers, and it was openly stated in several newspapers that the film could incite black
audiences to riot. Lee criticized white reviewers for implying that black audiences were incapable
of restraining themselves while watching a fictional motion picture.
One of many questions at the end of the film is whether Mookie "does the right thing" when
he throws the garbage can through the window, thus inciting the riot that destroys Sal's
pizzeria. Critics have seen Mookie's action both as an action that saves Sal's life, by
redirecting the crowd's anger away from Sal to his property, and as an "irresponsible
encouragement to enact violence". The question is directly raised by the contradictory quotations
that end the film, one advocating nonviolence, the other advocating violent self-defense
in response to oppression. Spike Lee has remarked that he himself has
only ever been asked by white viewers whether Mookie did the right thing; black viewers
do not ask the question. Lee believes the key point is that Mookie was angry at the
death of Radio Raheem, and that viewers who question the riot's justification are implicitly
failing to see the difference between property and the life of a black man.
In June 2006, Entertainment Weekly magazine placed Do the Right Thing at No. 22 on its
list of The 25 Most Controversial Movies Ever. Critical reception
The film holds a 96% "Certified Fresh" rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes.
On Metacritic, the film has an average of 91/100, placing it as one of the top-rated
films on the site. Both Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert ranked the
film as the best of 1989 and later ranked it as one of the top 10 films of the decade.
Awards and nominations 1990 Academy Awards
Best Actor in a Supporting Role – Danny Aiello
Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen – Spike Lee
1990 Belgian Syndicate of Cinema Critics Grand Prix
1989 Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or – Spike Lee
1990 Chicago Film Critics Association Awards Best Director – Spike Lee
Best Picture Best Supporting Actor – Danny Aiello
1990 Golden Globes Best Director – Spike Lee
Best Motion Picture – Drama Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting
Role in a Motion Picture – Danny Aiello Best Screenplay – Spike Lee
1991 NAACP Image Awards Outstanding Lead Actress in a Motion Picture –
Ruby Dee Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture –
Ossie Davis 1989 Los Angeles Film Critics Association
Awards Best Director – Spike Lee
Best Music – Bill Lee Best Picture
Best Supporting Actor – Danny Aiello 1989 New York Film Critics Circle Awards
Best Cinematographer – Ernest Dickerson 2010 – The 20/20 Awards
Best Picture – Best Director – Spike Lee
Best Supporting Actor – Danny Aiello Best Supporting Actor – John Turturro
Best Original Screenplay – Spike Lee Best Editing – Barry Alexander Brown
Best Original Song – Fight The Power – Public Enemy
AFI's 100 Years 100 Movies The American Film Institute from a poll of
more than 1,500 artists and leaders in the American film industry voted it the 96th greatest
film of all time in its 10th Anniversary Edition, 2007
Additional AFI titles include: AFI's 100 ...Cheers Nominated
AFI's 100... Thrills Nominated AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies Nominated
AFI's 100 Songs... Public Enemy Fight The Power No. 40
National Film Preservation Board National Film Registry
MTV Movie Awards The Bucket of Excellence
Soundtrack The film's score and soundtrack were both
released in July 1989 on Columbia Records and Motown Records, respectively. The soundtrack
was successful, reaching the number eleven spot on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart,
and peaking at sixty-eight on the Billboard 200. On the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks
chart, the Perri track "Feel So Good" reached the fifty-first spot, while Public Enemy's
"Fight the Power" reached number twenty, and Guy's "My Fantasy" went all the way to the
top spot. "My Fantasy" also reached number six on the Hot Dance Music/Maxi-Singles Sales
chart, and sixty-two on Billboard's Hot 100. "Fight the Power" also charted high on the
Hot Dance Music chart, peaking at number three, and topped the Hot Rap Singles chart.
Score Soundtrack
References Notes
Bibliography Aftab, Kaleem. Spike Lee: That's My Story
and I'm Sticking to It. England: Faber and Faber Limited, 2005. ISBN 0-393-06153-1.
Spike Lee's Last Word. Documentary on the Criterion Collection DVD of Do the Right Thing.
2000. Spike Lee et al. Commentary on the Criterion
Collection DVD of Do the Right Thing. 2000. Further reading
Spike Lee; Lisa Jones. Do the right thing: a Spike Lee joint. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-0-671-68265-1.
Retrieved September 25, 2010. Mark A. Reid. Spike Lee's Do the right thing.
Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-55954-6. Retrieved September 25, 2010.
External links Do the Right Thing at AllMovie
Do the Right Thing at Box Office Mojo Do the Right Thing at the Criterion Collection
Do the Right Thing at the Internet Movie Database Do the Right Thing at Metacritic
Do the Right Thing at Rotten Tomatoes Do the Right Thing at the TCM Movie Database
Script-O-Rama.com – The Do the Right Thing screenplay.