Do the Right Thing (1989). Time is a flat circle.

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Yesterday I watched Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing. I had never watched this film before, in fact it's from a bit before my time and not as relevant outside the US. Going into it I was expecting a good film, after all it is critically acclaimed, but even so I was not expecting it to be so prescient. But was it? It felt so at first because I literally had to pause the movie halfway through to double check whether it came out before or after the LA riots. But as I went through the rest of the film, I realised that it wasn't prescience, it was simply the state of US society as it was then, was before, been since then, and is still to this day.

What starts out as a normal summer day in a neighborhood in Brooklyn ends in tragedy. We follow along Mookie and multiple other characters in this predominantly black neighborhood as well as the Italian-American pizzeria owner Sal and his sons, the Korean family who opened up a convenience store in the area struggling to be accepted, and even a small group of Puerto Rican youths who butt heads with the local African American youths. What should have been a pleasant summer Saturday is actually a powder keg ready to explode. It's a snapshot of american society. A community divided along race, age, political leanings and wealth. Individuals butting against collectivists, idealists butting against pessimistic realists, the energetic and ambitious youth butting against the wiser but resigned older generation. Eventually things hit a breaking point and all hell breaks loose in an explosion of violence. And the question you're asked at the end of it all is whether the right thing was really done.

I started reading reviews about the film afterwards and boy oh boy it clearly caused controversy when it came out. A lot of the discourse was seemingly about picking the "right side", whether the black or white characters were justified, whether the movie picked a side itself and whether Spike Lee had a clear position on the matter. And you would expect him to, he's always been outspoken against racism, oppression, and the treatment of black people in the US. But to me, the film seemed surprisingly reserved and it did not pass judgement on the individuals.

To me it seemed that no one was in the right. The black youths were not any more right or wrong than the black elders of their community. The idealistic Bugging Out had his heart in the right place but he wasn't necessarily directing his energy in the best way either, which he was called out on by Mookie's sister. Sal loved the neighborhood and its community and tried to berate his son for his racist outbreaks but he himself had his own when pushed far enough. Pino was a bona fide racist spiralling out of control even though Mookie pointed out the hypocrisy on making distinctions between black celebrities and black people in general. And yet his worst fears were seemingly validated by the riot. Did that make him right? Radio Rakheem was unjustly killed by the police, choked to death by an overzealous cop, but he himself was chocking out Sal just before and his behavior up to that point of demanding from everyone to let him be a nuisance was not exactly justified.

To me the film doesn't pick a side. It's simply showing a snapshot of American society. One where communities are divided and will turn violent against each other without ever really directing this violence against the systems of power that oppress them. People never find it in their hearts to band together for the betterment of the community, instead destroying each other through violence. But at the same time how can you expect people to not be angry under these circumstances? How can you expect people to not be violent when they themselves are victims of violence? I think that that's what the movie is trying to tell us. To question and challenge systems of power. That being angry is the natural conclusion of oppression but that we should be careful to not let our anger be redirected towards the wrong people. This is a message that was as true then as it is today. We're nearly 40 years on and nothing has changed.