Do The Right Thing

Words: 807
Pages: 4

Film is our gateway to another world. It presents different scenarios and experiences that we may never come across in our daily lives. Some surreal, while others, almost too real. Do the Right Thing, directed by Spike Lee, falls into the latter. Set in Brooklyn, it provides a healthy mix of races from all around the world, some native born, some immigrants. While this film certainly contains lighthearted moments, its overall message regarding racial tensions is prominent throughout the film. Even though it is not always directly stated, it is emphasized through heat. As the heat rises, so does the conflict in the film; all the way up to its climax, in which a building is literally set ablaze. Since heat is such an important theme throughout the film, the focus of the selected scene is on how nondiegetic music, set design, and props are used to emphasize how hot it is while the cast attempts to beat the heat.
Right at the beginning of chapter nine, the first shot pans across several
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At first it seemed just like another way to stay cool, but, the fact that they are distanced from anyone who is not like them shows their disengagement with the community. Use of white here shows their racial bias though, since they only are seen next to white, wearing white clothes, and washing a white car. Yet it is juxtaposed to this very diverse and colorful mural further behind them. This insinuates that they are in fact making themselves more isolated by sticking to their whiteness. Then, in shot 7, the water is released. Shot 8 is of two people scraping cans on the ground, however the purpose of this action at this point in the film is unknown. It is apparent that they are hot with the sweat present on their bodies and the minimal clothes they wear. One would assume they would just jump in front of the water and cool