AFAS HipHop cinema

Do the Right Thing Revisited

I T HAS BEEN MORE THAN A DECADE SINCE Do THE RIGHT THING was released. Yet its impact on post-soul Black cinema still resonates. Spike Lee's successfu l track record prompted Hollywood studios to invest in a host of low-budget Black films that they expected to yield high profits. House Party (New Line Cinema, 1990), Boyz N the Hood (Colum- bia Pictures, 1991 ), New jack City (Warner Brothers, 1991 ), Menace II Society (New Line Cinema, 1993), and Friday ( ew Line C inema, 1995), to mention only a few, were all di rect beneficia ries of Lee's success. An industry tha t has historically suppressed, d iminished, and caricatured Blacks had become willing to take a chance on African-American film- makers, especially when their films were financially successful.

Lee has been able to change the course of Black film by making respectable profits, although he has received meager capital investment from studios. This clearly illustrates that the results of the struggle over fi lm representation are determ ined mainly by economic facto rs, and the interests of multinational corporations, rather than by the concerns of film- makers. However, if a particular studio believes that a film project can be packaged in such a way as to guarantee large profits for investors, d is- agreements over content are negotia ble.

A brief look at recent portrayals of African-Americans before Do The Right Thing is instructi ve. In such films as Cry Freedom (Universal Pic- tures, 1987), Mississippi Burning (Orion Pictures, 1988), and Glory (Tri- Star Pictures, 1989), the Africa n-America n struggle is a subtext for Whi te heroism. For example, in Cry Freedom, a fil m that purportedly portrays the well-known Black South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko, a White journalist is the central character. Consequently, Biko's anti- aparthcid struggle is completely overshadowed.

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50 Post-Sdul Black Cinema

Conversely, in Do The Right Thing, African-Americans and their experience are rhe major focus. The sights and sounds : .: Pilack America erupt into a cataclysmic denouement produced partial!) uy circumsta nce and partially by the characters' own agency. Many studios were reluctant to invest money in Lee's project because of its inflammatory nature. Lee was finally able to secure the financing for Do The Right Thing through a negative pickup deal, which required the studio to buy the rights to dis- tribute his fi lm before it was made. Still, theater owners and film critics feared char the film would ignite the flames of racial violence. Critic David Denby had chis to say: "If Spike Lee is a commercial opportunist, he's also playing with dynamite in an urban playground. The response could get away from him." 1 Lucki ly, Universa l and many theaters chose to ignore such fears. In the final analysis, Do The Right Thing's popular reception caused many to view the film as commentary on the African-American urban experience.

This chapter chronicles Spike Lee's battle to ma intai n his artistic integrity while making Do The Right Thing. It describes his struggles with the studio and New York trade unions, and is based in part on the valuable production notebook included in the companion volume to the film. While the production notebook could potentially give a biased view of the process of making 011 The Right Thing, the value of Lee's personal firsthand accounting of the process provides details that cannot be ignored. More- over, in describing Lee's experience of shooting Do The Right Thing chis chapter indicates how African-American visual artists struggle for control of the imaginative representation of African-American li fe and experience.

THE CHECK IS IN THE MAIL

Film production begins not with the camera but with the checkbook. As with the financing of any other Hollywood film, Do The Right Thing's production budget had to be guaranteed by the studio chat would ulti- mately d istribute the finished product. Do The Right Thing presented sev- eral challenges to the standard formu la for distribution by a major studio. Unlike a typical blockbuster, it featured no famous stars. Its subject matter was unconventiona l by Hollywood standards. But it did have Spike Lee, a successful director with a proven track record. Lee's first feature, She's Gotta Have It (1986), cost just $175,000 to produce a nd earned close to $8 mill ion. School Daze (1988) came in at a cost of approximately $6 .5 million2 and had domestic box-office sa les of $14 million.

The merchandising of Do The Right Thing, as with Lee's two earlier fi lms, was co be handled by his production company, Forty Acres and A Mule Filmworks. There were the companion volumes to the earlier films - Spike Lee's Gotta Have lt and Uplift the Race: The Construction of School

Do the Right Thing Revisited 51

Daze - and widespread marketing via T-shirts, sound tracks, buttons, let- ter jackets, and baseball caps. Lee's comment, "Somebody we~ring .yo~r T~ shirt is a walking billboard,"3 explains Lee's strategy of placmg his films names and the Forty Acres logo on a variety of merchandise.

Because of its subject matter, Do The Right Thing represented a ma jor shift from Lee's two previous feature fi lms. The fi lm was not a mod- ern romance like She's Gotta Have I t, with three men vying for the affec- tions of Nola Darling. Nor was it a Black version of a college musical like School Daze (1988 ). Do The Right Thing was a sobering and somewhat frightening journey into the seething cauldron of inner-city pathology and racial tension. Were American audiences ready to visit a Black neighbor- hood and confront its inhabitants on their own terms? Lee insisted that the set be located in the heart of Bedford-Stuyvesant. He balked at the presence of New York City police, who Lee believed might turn the Bed-Stuy block into an armed camp.

As the pre-production phase bidding began, Paramount and Touch- stone were Lee's top choices for studios, with his primary choice being Ned Tannen's Paramount Pictures. Lee mused that since Paramount Communi- cations owned the Knicks, "I might get the season tickets to the games I need and deserve. Regardless, I'm looking for a home, where I can make the films I want to make w ithout outside or inside interference. "4 Even though Lee's two earlier films were made at Island and Columbia, respec- tively, he did not consider either studio for Do The Right Thing. Island Pic- tures had fallen by the wayside even before School Daze because it lacked the necessary financial resources.

In considering Columbia Pictures, Lee reported that working with David Puttnam and David Picker was ideal. When Dawn Steel took over production at Columbia, Lee writes, "we both went at it from the start. I don't like her caste, don't like her movies."5 Lee knew that more than a strained relationship was involved. "The importance of promotion was driven home when School Daze was released in February 1988. It had the misfortune to come out when Columbia was changing leadership, which resulted in the firing of the team of David Putnam and David Picker." The new team, Lee said, " left his film to die. " 6 He took personally the failure of the new studio boss Dawn Steel and Columbia Pictures to promote School Daze adequately. It was apparent he would not seek financing from Columbia. As his brief relationship with Col umbia Pictures came to an end, Lee said:

The classic nightmare of a filmmaker has happened to me; I'm caught in a regime change. Dawn Steel and her crew don't give a fuck about School Daze or any film that was made under Putnam. They can say what they wanna say, but 1 know better. Their actions prove it.7

52 Post-Soul Black Cinema

Obviously, no love was lost between Spike Lee and Dawn Steel. After the misguided marketing of School Daze, it made sense for Lee to look for a new studio. Eventually, he took control over the publicity for his film by find ing support on Black college campuses and universities, an effort that may well have saved the film from oblivion. Not only did School Daze receive a better-than-average box-office return of $14 million based on its cost of $6.5 million, Daze was one of the few profitable films distributed by Columbia Pictures under the Dawn Steel era that was produced while Picker-Putnam were at the helm of Columbia.

For Do The Right Thing, Lee first negotiated w ith Paramount Pic- tures. As a result of his experience making School Daze, his first studio film, he knew that he would demand a contractual agreement that would give him the right to approve the fina l cut, a privi lege extended to few directors . School Daze was financed via a negative pickup dea l, meaning that Columbia was required to buy the rights to distribute the film, and that money was then used to produce the film . Several films have been pro- duced in this way, and the primary benefit to the director is the right to approve the fina l cut. Of course there are alternatives. For instance, a screenplay can be sold to the studio and remain at the studio's mercy, or the studio can finance the production and the filmmaker then loses artistic control.

What transpired during negotiations over Do The Right Thing is an excellent example of the kind of tenacity and artist ic integrity filmmakers must have. Lee's initial pitch to Paramount emphasized the script a nd budget. Lee viewed it as a $10 mill ion picture, while Paramount intended to invest only $8 million with a proviso that the ending be changed. As negotiations continued, the Paramount production executives Ned Tannen, Sid Gannis, and Gary Luchesi repeatedly urged Lee to cha nge the poten- tia lly volatile ending. "They are convinced that Black people will come out of the theaters wanting to burn shit down."8 According to Lee:

Ned Tannen, the president, has big problems with the end of the pic- ture, especially Sal's line about Blacks being smarter because they don't burn down their own houses anymore . ... They want an ending that they feel won't incite a giant Black uprising.9

In addition to the battle over the script, there were questions con- cerning the amount of money the studio wou ld make if the film were to explore controversial, only marginally profitable issues. Few films are pro- duced by Hollywood majors in which a lead White male character loses to his African-American male rival. Sure, Rocky initially lost to Apollo Creed and Clubber Lang, but he went on to win the climactic fight in every Rocky (United Artists, 1976) film. Similarly, in the blaxploitatio11 1wriocl,

Do the Right T hing Revisited 53

pioneered by the films Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song and Superf/y, success came at a price. T he majority of subsequent fi lms were not about "beating the Man," "Misra Charley," or whatever you want to call him, nor were they about improving the l ives of Black folks. Usually they were about African-Americans falling deeper into despair and doing little or nothing to change their predicament.

Regardless of how one feels a bout his films, Spike Lee has helped make significant changes in the way the fi lm industry deals with African- Americans. Before Lee and the Paramount executives arrived at their fina l impasse in negotiatio ns, Bill Horborg, another Paramount executive, tried to find a resolution satisfactory to both Spike Lee and Ned Tannen. With negotiations deteriorating, Lee sent a script to Jeffrey Katzenberg at Touch- stone Pictures, the studio that origina lly wanted Lee's second fi lm, School Daze. Thirteen days before Para mount rejected the Do The Right Thing project, Katzenberg informed Lee that Touchstone was not interested in the project. Katzenberg believed the fi lm was not worth the budget Lee want- ed. After the two rejections, Lee responded, "I kinda figured that they were taking too long. Bill H orborg fought for me ti ll the end . But he's not Ned Tannen .. .. Goes to show you, take nothing for gra nted till the check is in the bank and has cleared. " 10

Paramount and Touchstone had already turned down Do The Right Thing, and it was crucia l for Lee to follow up School Daze with another film. W hile any fi lmmaker feels the need to obtain a production budget that exceeds the budget for his or her last fi lm, it is especially important for African-American fi lmmakers to succeed at this. According to Lee, "This is crucial; no recent Black filmmaker has been able to go from film to fi lm as the White boys do. " 11

By this time Spike Lee and his lawyer, Arthur Klein, had already made contact with Sam Kitt in the acquisitions department at Universal Studios. Universal agreed to finance Do The Right Thing, with a negative pickup deal, but told Lee that the budget would have to be lower than the $8 mil- lion minimum he had sought in earlier Do T he Right Thing negotiations with Paramount and Touchstone. Lee's negotiations with Universal were more concerned w ith how to stretch the money tha n with increasing the budget, but there was an upside to dealing with Universal. T he studio was willing to stand behind the script. The studio had alrea dy generated con- troversy when it released Martin Scorsese's Last Temptation of Christ (Uni- versal, 1988). Nonetheless, Universal was attracted to Lee because he had a small but successful body of films that were not only profitable but had come in under budget. Tom Pollock, head of Universal Pictures, had this to say:

54 Post-S~ml Black Cinema

We're not some crusading studio out looking for social issues. Spike is interested in che subject matter and so are we .. .. But we can't afford to make movies if we can't make money on chem. 11

On the basis of Spike Lee's first efforts at the box office, Universal felt it was making a pretty safe bet. School Daze was a box-~ffice . success despite Columbia Pictures' lack of promotional support. Lee is a filmmak- er whose name alone has the potential to sell tickets. He thus represents a traditional, tried-and-true market commod ity: the big-name director, in his own way a throwback to the likes of John Ford, Howard Hawks, and Alfred Hitchcock.

It is an unfortunate fact that Blacks who work in the U.S. fi lm indus- try have very few friends in high places. Perhaps this is also true for o.ther people of color. Nevertheless, any film studio that finances a pro1ec.t reJ~Ct­ ed by other major competitors in the industry not only takes a ma1or nsk, but also performs an admirable task. Not only was Universal willi~g to take a chance but as Lee would later discover, Tom Pollock, the chief at Universal, would give him unrelenting support.

Lee's decision to go with Universal in the wake of fa iled negotiations elsewhere was probably an easy one to make. Universal offered the money to make the film and allowed Lee to retain artist ic control, as well as some degree of financial control. The negotiations that transpired at Universal could not have been more different from those at Paramount. Lee and Klein got Universal to agree with most of their demands. Lee had the '.inal cut and a mutual agreement over the casting. These issues may seem mmor, but they can make or break a film. For example, in the making of The God- father (Paramount Pictures, 1972), Para mount executi~es ?id not want Francis Ford Coppola to cast Marlon Brando and Al Pacino 10 the roles of Vito Corleone a nd his son Michael. How wrong the studio bosses were proven to be. Even today, despite a ll of the great roles that Brando has played, people remember him as much for The Godfather as for any or.her film. Spike Lee did what he should as the director and took t~1e .responsible position. If Do The Right Thing was going to succeed or fail, it would be his doing.

PRE-PRODUCTION, FILM TRADE UNIONS, AND DOING THE RIGHT THING

Although financing for the film was secured, its production faced a series of hurdles. Here was a man with a short but admirable track record. Lee's thesis film, f oe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads (1982), won a stu- dent Academy Award for best director. H is first feature, She's Gotta Have ft, not only won the Prix de J eunesse at the Cannes Film Festiv~ l , bu.r bnsed on box-office receipts of $8 million made more than forty times "" pro

Do the Right Thing Revisited 55

duction costs of $175,000. Lee's ta lent and determination were already indisputable. Critic Nelson George, who helped to finance She's Gotta Have It, pointed out, "I invested because it was shot a lready. Spike wasn't ta lking doing, he was talking done." 13

Universal agreed to finance Lee's film for $7.5 million and to shoot in New York City, which is strongly controlled by the film trade unions. Do The Right Thing would be Lee's firs t union film, and he experienced diffi- culties with the unions. Lee wanted a nonunion shoot for the entire ten weeks of shooting. His cinematographer, Ernest Dickerson, expressed con- cern that a nonunion shoot in a union town such as New York could cause logistical problems. John Kilik, the line producer, was responsible for com- ing up with a budget that would work. In addition, Lee needed approval on a budget, so he made the decision to have John Kil ik draw up a nonunion budget of less than $7.5 million, the maximum to which he believed Universal would commit itself. The revised budget came in at $5.5 million, and Arthur Klein forwarded it to Universal. Universal suggested a cha nge of venue, which was its way of saying no more money.

Even though Universal had agreed in principle to finance the fi lm, a final budget had not been reached. W hen Lee firmly decided that Do The Right Thing would be shot in Brooklyn or not at all, he forced Universal either to accept his decision or to reject the whole project. Lee thereby entered into a second significant waiting period in which he actually thought Universal would drop Do The Right Thing. The studio proposed a budget of $6 million even though Lee insisted that it was a $7.5 million picture. At this point, he was prepared to start shopping again and con- sulted Klein about giving Orion Pictures a copy of his script. When Uni- versal finally settled on a budget, Spike was not p leased. The terms included a $6.5 million budget, a union crew, and a shooting schedule cut from ten weeks to eight. Lee wrote:

Universal is dicking me around. They won't budge from the $6.5 mil- lion budget, won't go a penny over it. It's ridiculous. White boys get real money, fuck up, lose millions of dollars, and still get chance after chance. Noc so with us. You fuck up one time, that's it. After the com- mercial successes of She's Gotta Have It and School Daze, I shouldn't have co fight for the pennies the way I'm doing now. But what else can I do? I'll make the best fi lm possible with the budget I'm given . H

Because Universal wouldn't budge from $6.5 million, Lee had no choice but to negotiate with the unions. A union shoot in New York would be problematic for several reasons. First, a sizable portion of the $6.5 mil- lion budge• would have to be earmarked for an all-union crew. Second, Lee wanted 10 hirt' more than one or two Blacks, a nearly impossible task since

56 Post-S~>Ul Black Cinema

African-American members are seriously underrepresented in the fi lm trade unions. Lee wrote:

On every fi lm, [ try to use as many Black people as possible. A major concern l had about shooting w ith an all -un ion crew was whether this would prevent me from hiring as many Blacks as l wanted. There arc few minorities in the film unions, and, historical ly, film unions have done little to encourage Blacks and women to join their ranks. is

Although Lee was not able to have a nonunion crew, he succeeded in getting the National Association of Broadcast Employees a nd Technicians a nd the International Brotherhood of Teamsters to hi re a few African- American nonunion workers fo r the shoot. Both uni ons made major con- cessio ns that included offering membership to the African-American nonunion workers who filled positions primarily in the grip and electric departments. These gestures by the unions may seem generous, but actual- ly solid business decis ions lurked behind them. A local union should do all it ca n to keep work among its own. Thus, the union's opening of its mem- bersh ip to African-Americans benefited all parties involved.

Despite Universal Pictures' insistence that Lee shoot the film some- where other tha n Brooklyn, Lee would not budge. "Universal suggested we shoot the film someplace outside New York, li ke Philadelphia or Baltimore. I'm sorry, Phi lly and Ba ltimo re are grea t cities, but they just aren't Brook- lyn." 16 After my initial read ing of Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing, the companion volume to Do The Right Thing, I thought Lee was foo lishly stubborn. H owever, I soon realized that although most major cities with significa nt African-America n populat ions may seem homogeneous on the surface, the rea li ty is that African-America n urba n folk cultures differ sig- nifica ntly from city to city. For example, fa ns in Philadelphia preferred the bubble gum rap produced by the duo Jazzy Jeff a nd the Fresh Prince and New York fa ns leaned toward the edgier sound produced by groups such as Public Enemy and Boogie Down Productions. In other words, the cul- tural productio n within the Black communi ty of Philadelphia does not produce the same culture found in New York's Brooklyn, the Bronx, a nd H arlem.

Lee was determined to shoot the film in the heart of Bed-Stuy. He sent o ut a location scout to find one block to use for filming. After two weeks had passed, Lee and the film 's production designer, Wynn T homas, chose the fi rst block the scout recommended. Lee thought the location was per- fect. It was neither too dilapidated nor too upscale. It also had two empty lots o n opposite corners that were perfect locations for Thomas to create the primary locations used in the film: Sa l's Famous Pizzeria , the Korean grocery, and the We Love Radio 108 FM storefront station. After choosing

Do the Right Thing Revisited 57

a neighborhood, Lee wanted to communicate freely with its inhabitants. Securing a block for a shoot is not usua lly that difficult. You obtain the proper permits a nd, maybe, grease a palm or two. This location shoot however, would present more complications than usual. Most films hav; multiple locations over the duration o f shooting. Do The Right Thing, however, would be shot at one location for eight weeks. Concerned that the presence of police and the use of permits during preparation of the location would perhaps anger the Afr ican-American residents, Lee took a more diplomatic approach, which Brent Owens the location manager, describes:

During pre-production we scheduled a meeting for homeowners on the block. We went over our production schedule and the improvements planned on several homes. Everyone seemed pleased that we were there. Shutting down the crack ho uses won us some points with the homeowners. T hey were much more willing to lease us their property after we did that.17

Rather than use a traditional security force, Lee, upon producer Monty Ross' suggestion, hired the Fruit of Isla m (FO i). The FOi is the security force of the Nation of Islam, originally trained by Malcolm X. Beca use the Fruit of Islam has improved the lives of many African-Ameri- cans from all walks of life, they have acquired the respect of those who live in Black inner-city communities. By hiring the Fruit of Islam Lee would have a security force better suited to Do The Right Thing's ne~ds than the New York City Police Department could provide. The Fruit of Isla m entered peacefully into Bed-Stuy, assessed the security problems and tem- porarily rid the shooting location of any unwanted elements r~ther than taking a more traditional approach and closing the location to the resi- dents. Some reporters who covered this angle criticized what they perceived to be the fa ilings of the FOL Apparently, the FOI closed down three crack houses but one moved around the corner and went back into business. Some journalists viewed this reopening as a n example of the lack of effec- tiveness of the Fruit of Isla m.

Spike Lee made great advances with Do The Right Thing. Lee served notice to Hollywood that the rules must change. He knew that at some point a major studio would give him a larger budget to work with. With each new p.roject, Lee has. been able to increase his production budget. However, his budgets remain low in comparison with average production budgets fo~ other Holly~ood fare. For instance, in 1989, the average budg- et for studio-produced films was $18 million.

Lee is struggling for economic empowerment for African-Americans and the opportunity for other African-Americans to ma ke films. To date, four of the crewmembers from Do The Right Thing, Darnell Martin,

58 Post-Soul Black Cinema

Monty Ross, Ernest Dickerson, and Preston Holmes, have prod~ced, writ- ten and/or directed their own feature films. Moreover, Lee was instrumen- tal 'in integrating the trade unions, getting them to use African-Americ.an nonunion technicians and filmmakers who would later become active union members and skilled artists.

DO THE RIGHT THING MEETS THE PRESS

I didn't want to strike a false note with that. It's a very shaky truce. None of this everybody join hands and sing We Are the World. I just don't think that's realistic at this time in America.

Spike Lee18

A survey of the articles and reviews that discuss Do The Right Thing shows the broad range of commentary that follo"".ed the pr?du,ction an.cl reception of this film. It has been nearly a decade since the film s theatrical release. And yet, the ashes from Sal's are still smoldering inside the film . industry. By examining what the press had to say about Do The Rzgh.t Thmg,.good and bad, we are given insight into the prominent role race st1ll plays in the

American film industry. The articles were written from multiple angles. For ease they can be

broken down into two types. First there are articles written by writers who recognize that racism is still one of America's most pressing prob~ems and provide honest and thought provoking commenta~y on the .films attempt to confront racism head on, and discuss Lee's skills as a filmma ker that allow him to hand le an obviously touchy subject. Other revi.ews appear oblivious to racism in America and are much more interested m attacking Lee's mental capacity and his apparent inability to compr~hend the after- math that his film would probably cause and the affect Lt may have on

audiences. . . David Denby's New York magazine review of Do T~e Right Thmg is

an example of an article whose author recognizes .the reah ty of rac1~m ?ut is clearly oblivious to the problems associated. with ~ac1sm that th1.s film attempts to illustrate. Denby begins by accusing Sp1~e. Lee of trymg to please too many crowds. While Denby recognizes Lees immense talent as a fi lmmaker and storyteller, there are inferences that Lee may lack t~e sophistication to understand the effect that his storytelling may have on his a udience. In fact, Lee, according to Denby, may no t understand. what ~e has expressed in this film. Denby describes Do T~e Right Thing .as a demonstration of the pointlessness of violence that is also a celebrat10n of violence. " 19 While Denby's accusation is easily recognized as underde~el ­ oped, it deserves discussion. H e view~ Do .The Right Thing as a c:l.eb rr11.10n of violence, and Denby is no t alone m this assessment. Other n1.11 11 ~ 1 11 · " 11

Do the Right T hing Revisited 59

journalists have expressed sim ilar conclusions. They tend to focus on the issues that were not central elements of the fi lm, d rugs and vio lence, and effectively subordinate the real issues the film presents.

Denby goes further in his analysis of Lee and his fi lm. H e concludes:

lf Spike Lee is a commercia l opportun ist, he's also play ing with dyna- mite in an urban playground. The response could get away from him.20

Of course M r. Denby might have dealt in his review with the real issues that Lee attempts to tackle in his fil m. Certa inly Mr. Denby cannot believe that the very rea l socia l, pol itica l and economic issues addressed in Lee's film do not exist; instead he chose to concoct new o nes. It appears that he has a hidden agenda he wou ld li ke to explore but on ly hints at it . What does he mean when he says, "get away from hi m" a nd "dyna mite in an urban playgrou nd?" Den by says this as if he has never seen institution- a l and vigi la nte violence perpetrated against Black people in New Yor k City. One has to wonder what rock he was hiding under following the racia lly-motivated m urders of Yusef Hawki ns, M ichael Stewart and Elanor Bumphurs that influenced the making of the film .

New York City, similar to o ther over-populated a nd under-funded urban centers, was at the time, without question, a Rodney King or two away from exploding. The ' dynamite' that Mr. Denby refers to was plant- ed long before Spike Lee made Do The Right Thing. It is almost as if Denby wanted to indict Spike Lee as the ca use of the racial tension that has long existed in New York City in particular, and America in general. But most intelligent and informed citizens know and recognize that interracial ten- sions were there long before Lee's Do The Right Thing. The only thing D o The Right Thing showed us was w hat could happen if the dynam ite were to exp lode. Of course, many fil mgoers were not prepared for such a visua l warning.

The Denby article and others have subtle racist undertones. T he ma jority of people in contemporary America know the imp lications, mean- ings and power attached to certa in words. For example, referring to a Black man as a boy is offensive. At least two ar ticles written about Do the Right Thing refer to the characters Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn ) and Buggin' Out (Giancarlo Esposito ) as boys. In a Newsday a rticle by M ona Charen, she writes " Raheem and another boy had provoked Sa l into a rage. " 21

David Denby is guilty here as well when he writes, "When some White policeman arrive and kill a Black boy, the crowd, riots, taking revenge on the nearest White property." 22 Referring to a young Black man as "boy" may seem trivia l, but again these are examples of the ongoing emasculation of Black men. T he preceding passages say more than some readers proba- bly r<·rngnizc. According to the two jou rna lists, the police ki lled a Black

60 Post-Soul Black Cinema

boy no t a man. When the Los Angeles rebellion broke o ut in 1992, the cir- cu mstances were reminiscent of the Do The Right Thing scenario . Denby, however, in terprets the vio lence in D o The Right Thing as a stylistic ges- ture:

My guess is that Spike Lee thinks that violence solves nothing, but he'd like to be counted in the Black community as an angry man, a man ready, despite his success, to smash things. The end of the movie is an o pen embrace of futil ity.23

Less than a decade later little has changed. The Quentin Tarantino films Reservoir Dogs (M iramax, 1992), Pulp Fiction (Miramax, 1994) and .Jackie Brown (Mira max, 1997) a re certainly celebrations of gratuito us vio- lence, a nd he gains critical a nd financial success writing and direct ing fi lms that ca n be considered mora lly impotent. Yet few, if a ny, critics have linked Tara nt ino a nd Lee on this issue, let alone attacked Ta rantino. Instead Tarantino has been pra ised as a genius, and his film Pulp Fiction ca n be found o n the A.F.I. list of the top 100 films of a ll-time.

Critics also assumed that Mookie (Spike Lee) and his sister Jade (Joie Lee) are the only characters on the block with jobs. Although there is little evidence to support such a position, Newsday writer Mona Charen writes, "Lee ... plays Mookie the delivery man - one of only two Black characters in the story who has a job. " 24 In response to the criticism that Lee only shows unemployed Blacks, the film takes place on a Saturday in the middle of the summer. Thus, one can assume that most people do not work on Sat- urday. Additionally, Sweet Dick Willy (Robin Harris), one of the three cor- ner men, mentions his job. Senor Love Daddy (Sam Jackson), on the other hand, is seen throughout the fi lm performing his job as a disk jockey.

The lack of drugs in Do The Right Thing is not as problematic as some reviewers suggest. Richard Corliss' comments exemplify mainstream expectations and ideas of how Ho llywood shou ld portray urban Black America. Corliss writes, "On this street there are no crack dea lers, hookers or muggers, just a 24 hour deejay Mister Seiior Love Daddy. " 25 This is a perfect exa mple of preconceived racist images and expectations influencing a misguided writer, with a desire to project White stereotypes onto a Black loca le. Does the presence of drugs have to dominate every film that is set in a Black neighborhood? This type o f mass-marketed expectation supports the belief that drug-related narratives must dominate a ny story about the Black inner-city experience. T his is just the type of logic that has made the transitio n difficult for African-A mericans into mainstream American soci- ety and the entertainment industry as well.

Lee answered the charges and criticisms in the Rolling Stone art icle " Insight to Riot," written by David Handleman. Lee stated that,

Do the Right T hing Revisited

This fi lm is not about drugs, it's about people and racism. Drugs are at every level o f society today in America. I low many of you went and saw Working Girls or Rai11 Man and asked, 'Where a re the drugs?'

1obody. But the minute we have a Black fi lm that takes place in the ghetto, people want to know where the drugs are ... because that's the wa y you think of Black people. I mean, let's be honest.16

61

The Handleman article is representative of the articles that try to make sense of racism while remaining o bjective. Handleman even notices the contrasting opinions of the journalists who covered the 1989 Cannes Film Festival. For instance, Jeann ie Will iams, a colu mnist for USA Today had this to say, " I live in New York, I don 't need th is movie in New York this summer. I don ' t know what they' re thinking!" 27 To which Roger Ebert responded, " How long has it been since you saw a film you thought would ca use people to do anything?"28 Jn their own way, the articles and their authors reflect exactl y what Lee accuses America of doing - not dealing with racism. W hen people spend more t ime discussi ng the effects of vio- lence in the movies ra ther than com menting on the socia l causes of vio- lence, critics reproduce similar errors in judgment as conta ined in the Denby, Charen a nd Kroll pieces.

Do The Right Thing was never about violence, nor was it about whether violence was right or wrong. Ir was, however, about how racism can produce frust ra tion that brings forth violent actions. Most people know that violence for the sake of violence is wrong. Even the quotations by Martin Luther King Jr. and M alcolm X juxtaposed at the film 's end sup- port th is position. Lee stated his intention:

l wanted to generate a d iscussion about racism because too many peo- ple have their head in the sand a bout racism, they feel that the prob- lem was eradicated in the 60s when Lyndon Johnson signed a few documents. 29

Lee's drama tizati on of racism a nd the portraya l of violence in Do The Right Thing is m uch more accu rate a nd responsible than most reviewers were willing to acknowledge. The past years have shown us that if things do not cha nge the violence that Lee filmed in Do The Right Thing may become commonplace. In Invisibility Blues, Michele Wa llace warns,

.. . we are surely headed for race riots much worse than t he one depict- ed in the film if there aren't some drastic changes made in our present economic and poli tica l policies, in our representations of ' race', and in our individual attitudes about race. •o

62 Post-Soul Black Cinema

Wallace indicates the problems and the rea lity, a nd provides a g rim prophecy about race rio ts of a d ifferent kind and magnitude.

In 1965, Malcolm X announced t hat the American dream has been a nightma re for African-Americans. T he years following the release of Do The Right Thing have shown us that African-Americans have begun co vio- lently awaken from the nightmare. T he socioeconomic status of Black ~mericans and their brutal t reatment by municipa l and state police agen- cies have no t changed much since the end of slavery, Reconstruction, the LA rebellion in 1992 a nd most recently the m urder of unarmed Amadou Diallo in N ew York city.

Lee's Do The Right Thing at tem pts to present the plight o f urban Blacks a nd the experience of non-Blacks owning businesses in the Black comm.unity. Further it dramatizes the reality of inter-ethnic warring. All of these issues are part of the contemporary America n psyche. David Ansen of Newsweek is well aware of the race issue and the complexit ies inherently connected. Ansen finds the following shortcomings in his comparison of W hite-directed films that deal w ith race and Lee's Do The Right Thing,

No matter how fine their intentions, they tend to speak in inflated, self righteous tones, and they always come down to Holl ywood's favorite dia lectic, bad guys versus good guys. They allow the audience to sit comfortably on the side of the angels.31

In contrast, Lee's fi lm has no good -guy versus bad-guy d ia lectic work- ing because the characters are more complex tha n essentia list bina ry oppo- sites of good and bad, or dual mora lity. Sa l, for example, is beaming w ith pride about kids growing up in the neighborhood on his pizza, only min- utes before his fi ght with Radio Raheem. Acknowledging Lee's rea listic character types, Clarence Page, a senior editor at the Chicago Tribune, adds, "Lee shows admirable balance as he explores the a mbivalent, con- tradictory feelings Whi tes have about Blacks, feelings that can run from warm love to cold contempt and, perhaps most dangerous, benign indif- ference. " 32 The benign indifference, as Clarence Page calls it, probably is a most destructive and dangerous sentiment. It more than likely played a role in how the fi lm reviewers perceived racism as an important issue treated in Do The Right Thing. Ironically, while Sal tells Pino why the pizzeria w ill remain in the Black Bed-Scuy neighborhood, Sal refuses to place African- American personalities on the Wall of Fame in his Black Bed-Stuy pizza pa rlor, even tho ugh his Black Bed-Stuy patrons p rovide his Italian-Ameri- can fam ily with food , cloth ing a nd shelter.

Do The Right Thing was a serendipitous combination of excellent filmma king and a timely issue that has grown in significance since th l· film's release. T he Clarence T homas-Ani ta H ill hearings, the Rodney K11111 1fl 11 11 ,

Do the Right Thing Revisited 63

and, most recently, the 0. J. Simpson trial, have reasserted the questions dra matized in Do The Right Thing.

Do The Right Thing's achievement lies in Spike Lee's abil ity to sur- mount obstacles and deal evenly wi th the issue of racism, both in fro nt of and behind the camera. From the outset, he rejected the fi lm industry's sug- gestions that he ma ke a fi lm about Black-on-Black crime in a drug-infes ted neighborhood. If he had accepted such a project, the studio would surely have gra nted him a m uch larger production budget. Now many post-Do The Right Thing films d ramatize drug dea lers and violence, yet Lee refused to present these issues in Do The Right Thing.33 T he recent cycle of Black gangster fi lms roma nticizes the drug dea lers and gang vio lence that plague Black urban America . T hese fi lms focus on one situation and provide a very na rrow view of the Black urban experience.

Do The Right Thing reminds us that doing th e right thing always involves recognizing in terracia l discord and attempting to eradicate the socioeconomic problems that produce it. For African-America ns, there exist additional right things to do, such as work ing within the Black com- munity to find solutions. Do The Right Thing dra matizes a difficult and perplexing issue that the United Sta tes must resolve: how to reapportion psychological, social, and economic space both the individual and various racial and ethnic communities. The resolution of th is contemporary poli ti- cal problem w ill surely promote the betterment of society. Hopefull y, Lee wi ll conti nue to explore these questions throughout his career.