Do the Right Thing
(MCA Home Video, 1980, 120 Minutes)
Review by Dr. Yueh-Ting Lee, Westfield State College
Film Relevance and Connection to the Text
This film is certainly related to many chapters in the textbook. Specifically, the movie can be easily linked to Chapter 1 (The Challenge of Social Psychology), 4 (Attitudes), 5 (Attribution), 7 (Obedience and Conformity), 8 (Liking and Loving), 10 (Prejudice), 11 (Aggression), 13 (Group Dynamics), and 14 (Intergroup Relations and Multiculturalism).
Summary/Synopsis
This film, directed by Spike Lee, depicts a very intense and powerful situation that occurs over the course of one summer day. The situation involves whites, blacks, Puerto Ricans, Koreans, and others in a Brooklyn neighborhood of New York City.. As presented in the film, racial and cultural conflict results in the death of a black man (Radio Raheem) and the destruction of part of the community (Sal's Pizza). The film serves as a sort of "social psychological" experiment, full of different races of people who express their attitudes and perceptions about other groups in terms of intimate relations, attraction, aggression and violence, and multicultural/intergroup relations.
Discussion Questions
- Ask students to discuss each of the following characters: Vito/Pino, Sal, Buggin' out, the police, Radio Raheem, Mookie, Korean store owner, Da Mayor/Mother Sister, Tina, Mister Love Daddy (the DJ), Smiley, and the three men on the sidewalk (ML, Coconut Sid, and Sweet Dick Willie).
- Ask students to have a group discussion on how the film has dealt successfully with social psychological issues (e.g., prejudice, stereotypes, aggression, love, sex, personality, intergroup conflict).
- How is the community depicted in this film related to other American communities? In what ways is this film related to the Philadelphia riots of the 1980s and the Los Angeles riots of the 1990s? Will these kinds of riots occur again? Why?
- Every now and then, Spike Lee pulled back from the narrative to present montages characteristic of time, place, and urban condition (e.g., heat, noise, crowded conditions, and hectic lifestyle). How would this artistic approach help to build up tensions between groups and people?
- In the middle of the film, a black man, a white policeman, a Puerto Rican man, and a Korean businessman recite a litany of bigoted epithets. What were those epithets about? Why were they reciting them in the film, from a social psychological point of view?
- The film eludes to Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. For example, Smiley attempts to sell photos of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. He also attempts to put their photos up on the wall of Sal's Pizzeria.. What is the point of Smiley's behavior in the film? Why did Spike Lee use quotations from Malcolm X and Martin Luther King to end the film?
- Ask students to list three or four points in the film which impressed them most. Why?
Student Assignment Suggestions
- Ask students to write (a) what they learned from the film and (b) what connections they can make between the film and the textbook chapters. For example, ask students to apply social psychological theories to the film.
- Assign students to interview a person who has watched the film about his or her thoughts on the film (e.g., why she or he likes or dislikes the film).
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