Symbolism in Do the Right Thing

In the movie, Do the Right Thing, Spike Lee uses symbolism to help portray the conflicts between races. The definition of symbolism is attributing symbolic meanings or significance to objects, events, or relationships. Spike Lee uses different forms of symbolism, which greatly add to the value and meaning of the film.

Do the Right Thing begins with the dancing of Rosie Perez to the song “Fight the Power,” by Public Enemy. She is pictured in colorful dance attire and then in a black and white boxing robe with red gloves. The black and white robe represents the black and white races. The red gloves are the anger and the bad blood between them. The use of symbolism here in the beginning of the film sets the stage for the entire movie. Do the Right Thing is about the fight between different races. When first viewing the film it is hard to understand the purpose and meaning of Perez’s dancing. After critically analyzing the film, the symbolism or meaning behind the boxing robe gives the film a symbolic introduction to the rest of the movie.

Another way symbolism is used is when Sal, Pino, and Vito pull up to Sal’s Pizzeria in a white Cadillac. A Cadillac has more meaning than being just a car. For years Cadillac symbolizes wealth and higher class. It is also white, just as Sal is white. The car shows how Sal is a white man with a successful business and the money to drive a Cadillac.

Also, just as the color white has meaning with the car, the colors of Sal’s son’s shirts have symbolic meaning. Pino wears a white shirt. He is very racist towards blacks and doesn’t get along with any of the black neighborhood. Pino’s brother Vito wears a black shirt and he gets along with Mookie, a black man. The contrast of the different colors represents the differences between Pino and Vito. Pino who is more racist wears the white shirt and Vito who is more open-minded wears the black shirt.

Another character that has symbolic meaning is Radio Raheem. Raheem shows the use of symbolism in multiple ways. One way is the shirt he wears that says “Bed-Stuy.” In “Do the Right Thing Production Notes,” Spike Lee says, “It turned out the block that we chose was the first one he had looked at—Stuyvesant Street between Lexington and Quincy Avenues, in the heart of the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn” (Common Culture). The words on his shirt represent the actual neighborhood the film was shot in.

Another way Radio Raheem shows symbolism is the “LOVE” and “HATE” knuckle rings he wears. Throughout the movie he shows who he has love for and who deserves his hate. In the end he dies in the battle between love and hate. Also the rings are gold, showing the big gold jewelry fad at the time.

One last use of symbolism with Raheem is the radio he carries and the only song he plays, “Fight the Power.” Radio Raheem does exactly that. He fought the power which was the fight against Sal for pictures of black Americans on the wall of fame. In the article “Fight the Power,” the author says, “Few moments in music history were as earth-shattering, as galvanizing and exhilarating, as the summer of 1989 when a black man in a baseball cap and a goofball sporting a giant clock necklace commanded America to Fight the Powers that Be” (Warrell). The song has a huge symbolic meaning that adds greatly to the film. Also the radio itself gave him his name, Radio Raheem. At the end of the movie Sal smashes his radio and soon afterwards the white policemen choke Raheem to death. The smashing of the radio symbolizes the death of Raheem. Both which were done by the white race, continuing the white against black conflicts.

Toward the end of Do the Right Thing, the events that take place give Spike Lee’s film even more symbolic meaning. After Radio Raheem’s murder by the New York City cops; Mookie, Sal, and his sons are standing in front of the pizzeria starring at a big angry mob. Mookie walks over to the mob, picks up a trash can, and throws it through the pizzeria’s window. Mookie walking to the mob and breaking the window symbolizes the point where he could no longer be a mediator between Sal and the black neighborhood. A quote from James S. Kunen illustrates the meaning the scene carries, “The garbage can sails through the air as swift and silent as hatred itself, shattering the pizzeria’s plate-glass window, and with it the fragile peace that had existed between black residents and the white shopkeepers on a sweltering ghetto block” (People magazine). Once the window was broken, it set off the rest of the crowd to destroy Sal’s Pizzeria.

Spike Lee uses different forms of symbolism, which greatly add to the value and meaning of the film. From the use of black and white clothing, the underlying meaning of the theme song, or to the meaning behind one single act from Mookie; the symbolism contributes to the quality of Do the Right Thing.

Works Cited

Do the Right Thing. Dir. Spike Lee. MCA Home Video, 1989.

Kunen, James S. “Spike Lee Inflames the Critics with a Film He Swears is the Right Thing.” People. 10 July 1989.

Lee, Spike. “Do the Right Thing Production Notes.” Common Culture. Ed. Michael Petracca, and Madeleine Sorapure. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2001: 492-499.

Warrell, Laura K. “Fight the Power.” Buzzle. 3 June 2002. 1 May 2003.

http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/6-3-2002-19667.asp.