Do the Right Thing

Do the Right Thing is a classic film by Spike Lee, highlighting the presence of racial tensions in Brooklyn during the 1980s. The plot follows the lives of the Afrcan Americans, Puerto Ricans and Italian Americans who live in the neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant on one of the hottest days of the summer, and how they deal with their inherent cultural and racial differences.

I understood the cultural significance of this movie, in that the plot displayed how racism is present in everyday, normal activities and that in order to overcome the tensions that we face in society we have to address racism from an interpesonal perspective. But I didn't really like this movie and found it to be really slow and uneventful up until the last ten minutes. I have seen Spike Lee's work before (Bamboozled) and I found it to be more interesting and captivating than Do the Right Thing, and still was able to illustrate the same point. I came away from watching this movie being convicted about the pervasiveness of racism in society, how it can ruin relationships and lives, and how it needs to be addressed on an interpersonal, person-to-person level but I was just bored throughout the movie while I was coming to that conclusion. I see the film for the messages and ideals that it represents, but I don't think that I could sit through watching this film again, for the lack of an emotionally intriguing and captivating plot.