Do the Right Thing: Crash Course Film Criticism #6
Mainstream American films don't often tackle race and racism head-on, and when they do, they often end up trying to find easy answers. Which makes films like Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing...
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Mainstream American films don’t often tackle race and racism head-on, and when they do, they often end up trying to find easy answers. Which makes films like Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing all the more powerful. It’s an intimate portrait of a Brooklyn neighborhood, with a vibrant, intergenerational, multi-ethnic community. But it also has an explosive climax, fueled by racial resentments, economic anxiety, and rising tensions on the hottest day of the year. Lee uses an incredible array of filmmaking techniques to make audiences think and engage. And the issues he’s wrestling with are still very much alive today, more than 25 years later. [intro music plays] Do the Right Thing burst onto screens in 1989, after electrifying audiences and polarizing cr...
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Mainstream American films don’t often tackle race and racism head-on, and when they do, they often end up trying to find easy answers. Which makes films like Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing all the more powerful. It’s an intimate portrait of a Brooklyn neighborhood, with a vibrant, intergenerational, multi-ethnic community. But it also has an explosive climax, fueled by racial resentments, economic anxiety, and rising tensions on the hottest day of the year. Lee uses an incredible array of filmmaking techniques to make audiences think and engage. And the issues he’s wrestling with are still very much alive today, more than 25 years later. [intro music plays] Do the Right Thing burst onto screens in 1989, after electrifying audiences and polarizing cr...
