Response to Movie: Do The Right Thing

Vikki LaMorte

English 1101

29 January 2018

Professor Young

Response to Movie: Do The Right Thing

The movie, Do The Right Thing takes place on a hot summer day in Brooklyn in 1989. In this neighborhood of Brooklyn, there is one white Italian-American family owned pizzeria by a white man named Sal in the neighborhood that is full of different races and cultures. The pizzeria is the spot in the community that has been there for years and that many go to. Throughout the film, there are many different personalities that are present throughout the many different characters of different races and ethnicity backgrounds. Mookie is a younger man living in the neighborhood with his sister, Jade, and works as the pizza delivery man for the pizzeria. He seems to take his job day by day. In film, Mookie was depicted just as I thought that he would like from reading the script. He was one of the major characters in the film. Pino, Sal’s older son is a described as a racist in the film. Pino is the known it all big brother that likes to take control of an racial contempt that seems to arise in the black neighborhood. My reaction to how Radio Raheem was in the film was different than that of what I had imagined him to look like in my mind. Radio Raheem stood for the love and hate theme that was present in the film. He was the symbol of changing the community from hatred and tension to love and peace. From watching what was in the film so far, everything that was in the script was exactly depicted as it was to be in the film. Da Mayor is a man that is perceived to be a drunken old man with nothing else to live for. Da Mayor doesn’t live up to that because of his betterment to society. Early in the film, he gives advice to Mookie at the beginning of the film by simply stating, "Do the Right Thing." This shows a sign of his improvement as a person, but more importantly to society. He believes that one must choose to be good or evil. MLK refers to this because of the betterment to society and freedom for the African American people. In today's society, people can be too quick to judge one another, depending on how he or she looks or what their background might be. More importantly the color of someone else’s skin can bring up the idea pf stereotypes and judgmental thoughts. Overall my reaction to the film was great as it was a story of the tension between races with the relationship to the time period of Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X that brings the film all together as a whole.

Response to Do The Right Thing Homework Assignment

Vikki LaMorte
English 1101
29 January 2018
Professor Young

Do The Right Thing 

Does the script provide a point about doing the "right" thing? What is the "right" thing to do according to the script?

      The script of Do The Right Thing provides a point about doing the "right" thing. The point that this script is trying to convey to the audience is being able to confront the differences that set apart one another in order to build friendships and relationships to each other. In order to do the "right" thing, confrontation and rioting may have to take place according to the script. The "right" thing for Buggin' Out to do was to start a riot involving Radio Raheem, a fellow African American, to riot against the lack of Black famous people photographs upon alongside the Italian-American photographs that hung in the Wall of Fame of a white owner's business, Sal's Famous Pizzeria. The rioting of having the same equality as fellow humans in the script stands as the most important concept of the script. By confronting the idea of having some African American photographs alongside the Italian-American photographs only started the beginning of the riot. Blacks in the script were disrespected and stood of that of lesser value and equality to those of the Whites in Brooklyn during the time in which the script was written. When Mookie showed up the next morning after the rioting occurred to get money from Sal shows exactly the "right thing" to do. Mookie confronted Sal for his pay after he had thrown the trash can through his pizzeria window the night before. The confrontation only lead Sal to put the differences he had with Mookie to the side and gave Mookie what he had deserved, his money. By Sal giving Mookie the hundreds of dollars signifies that in order to move forward with one another, that the differences had to be sorted out of the way. In the end of the script Sal says to Mookie about how he can finally have a beach day to himself and that Mookie can enjoy his time as being a Rockefeller. The "right" thing to do according to the script may have not been straightforward to get to the point, but in the end the script comes full circle.