“Always do the right thing.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“I got it. I’m gone.”
DA MAYOR (Ossie Davis) and Mookie (Spike Lee) share this exchange in Lee’s film Do the Right Thing, which turns 30 this summer. Three decades on, Lee’s masterpiece on racism and community still stands out for its trailblazing voice. Lee, and the film that blasted him into broad public consciousness, continue to inspire powerful work by filmmakers of color, including Dear White People, Get Out, and The Hate U Give.
It’s undeniable that Do the Right Thing’s bold style and perspective are what helped it become iconic. Its depiction of the police killing of black men also remains powerful and, as it turned out, prescient. The film almost seems to have predicted events that unfolded 25 years later following the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and so many others.
However, the emotional motor of Lee’s film, what makes it really stand apart, lies in Da Mayor’s simple moral instruction—and Mookie’s dismissiveness of it.
Do the Right Thing covers a sweltering summer day in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood and the conflicts that arise between its residents. Those involved include Davis’ alcoholic elder statesman, Mookie, Mookie’s friends Buggin Out (Giancarlo Esposito) and Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn), and the pizzeria owner, Sal (Danny Aiello). Aggression simmers between characters of different races and age groups, eventually coming to a head in an explosion of violence that escalates into a riot.
Throughout Do the Right Thing’s episodic scenes, characters are given choices of how to behave, choices that recall the kind of radical compassion Paul preaches in Ephesians 4:31-32: “Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.”
This is what Da Mayor is talking about when he tells Mookie to “do the right thing.” However, in almost every situation, Lee’s characters choose to dismiss compassion. Instead, they give into instincts that generate tension, injustice, and, ultimately, the destruction of a community.
What makes Do the Right Thing so unique is that it contains no monolithic examples of racism or hatred. Lee shows us characters (white and people of color alike) who fail to see each other as complex human beings and how that failure generates bigotry.
Lee never excuses, nor directly condemns, any individual in his film. Rather, he tries to help us understand each of his characters’ perspectives. Do the Right Thing reminds us that we each contain the capacity for both valid and wrongheaded ideas. Being honest with ourselves about that means we can lean toward compassion, justice, and peace. Dismissing it can carry fatal consequences.
Abby Olcese is a freelance film critic and writer based in Missouri. You can find her on Twitter @abbyolcese.
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