Do the right thing

The weather is sizzling hot and tensions are slowly coming to a boil in this Bedford-Stuyvesant Brooklyn neighborhood. Slowly but surely we see the heat melt away the barriers that were keeping anger from rising to the surface. The Blacks and the Hispanics own the streets the Koreans own the corner store and of course the Italians own the pizzeria, the Cops who happen to be all Caucasian, prowl the streets inside out, looking for anyone to harass. Toes are then stepped on and apologies are not made. Spike Lee creates the perfect set-up for a modern day in Bed-Stuyvesant. Without fail Spike Lee is transformed into an anthropologist. Spike Lee’s goal is to allow viewers to glimpse into the lives of real people and into a neighborhood they call home. After all this isn’t just some flight into an imaginary ghetto. It’s a journey into real life, real people and of course real circumstances. In the words of the local DJ Mr. Señor Love Daddy its time to, “ Waaaaake up!" and see what real life is really about.

Our main character is Mooky, a black teenager, who works in Sal’s famous pizzeria. Mooky is the pizza parlor delivery boy and he is the only one of his friends to have a job. Sal and his two sons run the pizzeria. Sal is one of the very few white Italian business owners remaining in this predominately black neighborhood. Despite obvious tensions, Sal holds his ground in the neighborhood and remains proud of the fact that these people, meaning the kids of Bed-Stuy, have grown up on his pizza. Along the way we meet other characters such as Radio Raheem who is a neighborhood kid who walks the street with an oversize radio and decorates his fingers with the symbolic ‘love’ and ‘hate’ rings. Smile, a mentally disabled individual who runs around the streets selling the one existing photograph of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. Then there is Mooky’s Puerto Rican girlfriend, who is raising their son and constantly nagging Mooky for being a deadbeat father. We also meet The Mayor, an alcoholic, elderly man who wanders the street looking for any type of chores to do in exchange for a small about of money. Lee’s choice of characters and actors seems noticeably ideal. Each character is full of life and more importantly each is an individual. Each character is created to retell a part of our society that we sometimes over look. This obviously makes Spike Lee a...

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...ee demonstrates this when the viewers start to think about who really is to blame for the chaos that erupts near the end of the film. Perhaps Lee is asking his audience to simply judge people as individuals and not as representatives of an entire race, since he would like to prove that race is a social category not a biological fact. This is apparent when the audience comes to realize that each character belonging to a certain racial group has a counterpart who is very different in his or her views. For example the Italian Sal who shows some slight racist tendencies are nowhere as ignorant as one of his sons.

In conclusion Spike Lee does show noteworthy signs of become an anthropologist. His ever quest to inform his audience that they should not judge a person from their ethnicity group and assume all actions of that person are typical traits of that race. He clearly tries to inform the viewers of race as a social category and not a biological race. Spike Lee simply wants us to open our eyes. The world is full of beautiful things and if we keep ourselves narrowminded, we end up missing a great deal. In the words of Mr. Señor Love Daddy did say it best “Waaaaaaaaaaake up!”