Stereotypes In Do The Right Thing By Spike Lee

Spike Lee’s 1989 film Do the Right Thing mixes racial tensions surrounding the main character Mookie, played by Spike Lee, on one of the hottest days in Brooklyn. Mookie represents a medium between his neighborhood, a primarily all black community, and his employer, a white Italian pizzeria owner. Several class concepts connect with this film’s controversial, yet blatant topic of racial prejudices, stereotypes, and discrimination. Every character in the film is racist. The characters represent many racial and ethnic perspectives including African American, Italian American, Korean, and white American. Moreover, an overwhelming amount of concepts blend together illustrating a complexity between each character made it difficult distinguishing

The characters epitomizing these stereotypes influence reactions from other characters. Additionally, the camera work and the script generate stereotypical characteristics visually influencing the person/s watching the film. The stereotypes, I recognized, in the film illustrated an African American male as aggressive, lazy, drunk, unemployed, a prejudice discriminator, irrational, and against the system. Furthermore, each stereotypical characteristic demonstrated illustrates the class concept of stereotypes. Specifically, how people selectively perceive and seek information supporting a group’s stereotypes (Rozema, 2013). Furthermore, how stereotypes, usually negative, surround a constructed minute truth; hence, a person can easily find people supporting evidence towards a stereotype (Rozema, 2013). For instance, the interaction between Buggin’ Out and a white male on the street simultaneously exemplifies aggressiveness, irrational, and materialistic qualities personify African American stereotypes. As Buggin’ Out is walking down the street, a white male accidently runs into him scuffing up his brand new Jordan sneakers. Buggin’ shouts, “You almost knocked me down. The word is "excuse me." The male responds, “Excuse me. I'm very sorry”. Unhappy with his response, Buggin’ aggressively retorts, “Not only did you knock me down, you stepped on my new white Air Jordans that I just bought and that's all you can say, "Excuse me”? Then he threats to beat the white male up. “ Who told you to step on my sneakers? Who told you to walk on my side of the block? Who told you to be in my neighborhood? “. This scene represents stereotypes of aggressive behavior and prejudice toward a white male who happened to bump into Buggin’. In my interpretation, Buggin’ assumes he ran into him purposefully and reacted violently, as a stereotypical African American male would behave. Buggin’s character characterizes a black