Do the Real Thing

When the heat rises things change. Tension seems to be synonyms with temperature in Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing. Things always had a way of coming to a head during the summer months in the neighborhood I spent most of my childhood in. Fights that were supposed to happen sooner exploded with no warning, usually resulting in violence later that night. The drunks roamed the streets later too... and so did the crooks. Although I grew up in California during the 80's, Bedford Stuyvesant seemed just like home. We didn't have the brownstones, or high rises, or all the concrete, but we had all the characters. Our drunk Mr. Crissy didn't pass out on the steps to someones two family flat like Da Mayor did. He slept flat on his face in my Grandma's front yard. Our dickhead police would smile in our mother's faces pretending to care about the community, all the while praying that we would get caught alone out past curfew so they could ruff us up. What they seemed to wish for even more was for you to fight back so they could kill you. I know this because they would say so while they slapped and pushed me around. Our Korean grocery store owner was actually Vietnamese but I really couldn't tell the difference when I was a kid, we just called it the "Chink's". Once when the owner saw me swipe some Bazooka gum off the counter while he was sweeping, he called me a thieving little nigger. But I was no more offended than he was when the people of the neighborhood called his store the Chink's just before making a trip there to spend their money. Now that I think of it, the first time I actually understood racism as something more than just the way things were may have been when I saw Do the Right Thing for the first time. It made me feel bad, I really didn't like the movie as a kid and didn't know why all my adult relatives were raving about it. Being taught from birth not to care about what people say, I was full of question for my parents about why someone would get so mad over being called a nigger when that was what everyone is always calling everyone. I guess you could say Spike Lee gave me my first racism reality check and that realism is what makes this film of the "Indie Spirit". It is snap shot of a small part of the populous' real lives, feelings, language and actions just how it goes. There is no dialogue changes for sensitive ears, the camera doesn't shy away from Rosie Perez's colored breast and black people are sprayed with a water hose putting an end to the myth that it only happened in the 60's. This film is of the Indie Spirit because when it was made, it was far too real for any responsible Hollywood studio to get behind. The risk that were taken only happen in the independent film world where maybe, just maybe, once in a while, money isn't the motivation behind the magic.
Kevin Washington