One February 14th, 2024, at 12:30, I attended a lecture run by a SUNY Cortland associate professor of communication and media studies, Christopher Ortega. The lecture was titled “Analyzing Spike Lee”. Before going to this lecture, I had never actually heard of Spike Lee, but film has always been something I was interested in so I thought it would be a good opportunity to go and learn about African American film culture. What I learned was that Spike Lee wasn’t someone who became famous for his directing or creations of a great storyline, but based on the ideas he created and the thoughts he left the viewers with. Ortega spent most of the lecture talking about one of Lee’s films “Do the Right Thing”. In this film, there is a dispute over a wall of fame in a pizzeria. One character believes the wall should feature African American artists since the shop is in an African American neighborhood. The owner declines this idea, keeping the wall with only Italian artists. Now what I find so interesting is that Lee’s films didn’t just deal with issues of racism against African Americans. Even in this movie, the main character, who is African American, makes some racial insults about Italians. Insults are also thrown at Koreans and Puerto Ricans. I really enjoyed seeing this in his movies. Racism against African Americans has always been terrible and taken the front view, but I think it is also important to realize and recognize that this is happening to other races as well. One night, the character who got into an argument with the pizzeria owner goes back to the shop and another dispute starts. This one leads to violence. When the cops show up, one of the African Americans is strangling the shop owner. As the cops attempt to restrain Raheem, the African American, one officer begins to choke him. This ultimately ends with Raheem being killed and the police putting his body in the back of the police car and driving away, trying to save face. But there were many onlookers at this point so their actions were clearly seen. A riot breaks out the following day because of the death and that is where the film is left.
I took a lot away from this lecture and this film. One thing is the title. The film is called “Do The Right Thing”, but what the right thing is is never specifically said. Were the boys right for wanting black artists on the wall? Or was the owner right in wanting to show appreciation to his own culture? There are many decisions made in this movie that could be picked apart and discussed about if they were the right decision. But I think the movie as a whole speaks to the separation that the idea of race has put us in and what it can make seemingly kind and good people do. The one other thing that really stuck out to me that Ortega pointed out was that in a later film by Lee, the same two cops, played by the same actors are seen on duty, in uniform. I don’t believe they had any big part in this other film, but just showing that these two cops, who murdered and covered up the murder of an African American, are still working and didn’t have any repercussions is something in itself. Lee did this on purpose. He did this to show how corrupt cops are not penalized and don’t receive consequences for their terrible actions. They are just allowed to keep patrolling our streets with nothing stopping them from doing it again.
