Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing: A Retrospective Analysis, In The Age of George Floyd.
A look back at a film that has aged incredibly well and remains powerfully relevant today, in its tackling of prejudice, gentrification, police brutality, geriatric Black love and everything else in between.
If you had asked me prior to writing this article, what my favorite spike lee movie was, Malcolm X, Mo Better Blues, School Daze and Get on the bus would be the titles coming out of my mouth.
But I have to confess to great shame that re-watching ‘ Do The Right Thing’ twice in the last twenty four hours, have changed my views irrevocably; only now as a forty three year old man, do I fully appreciate the nuance, freshness and incisiveness of the script, the power of the direction, that Mr. Shelton Jackson, brought to the fore in this great work.
These are my insights and highlights from the various sub-plots and plots of Spike Lee’s magnum opus, on screen.
Radio Raheem had shades of George Floyd
Radio Raheem, played by the late Bill Nunn, who passed away in 2016, was indubitably one of the more iconic characters, whom we encounter at various times in the film. Accompanying Radio Raheem was his booming radio, playing one of the greatest rap tunes from one of the greatest hip hop bands of all time —…