Do The Right Thing - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages However, the younger son of the Pizzeria owner, Vito, is different, because he is friend with Mookie (Lee, 1989). Everybody in the neighborhood is going about their business, on a hot and sunny day. The conflict in the movie revolves around the Sal’s Pizzeria, where he refuses to include any pictures of a black man in his list of the wall of fame. Buggin' Out is the character who sparks off the conflict about the wall of fame, by demanding that Sal should include some blacks, since he sells Pizza in a black neighborhood to the black people (Lee, 1989). However, Sal refuses and asserts that he is proud to be an Italian-American, and thus his wall of fame should only consist of the Italians. This argument degenerates into a confrontation, with Sal threatening to bash Buggin' Out, who has no support, except that of Raheem and Smiley. The whole activities of the day degenerates into chaos with the involvement of the police, with Buggin' Out starting a fight with a white man, while Mookie and Pino stages an argument regarding which race is better between the blacks and the Italians, which involves a lot of racist insults. However, the greatest of the fight occurs between Radio Raheem and Sal, who fights physically, and their fight spills into the street, which attracts all in the neighborhood, the police inclusive (Lee, 1989). The police appear and apprehend Radio Raheem, with one officer killing him, while Buggin' Out is arrested. Even after Radio Raheem is dead, the police continue to beat him up, demanding that he stop pretending. When the crowd of onlookers realizes that the police had killed Radio Raheem, they turn against them, and the police run away. Their anger is then turned against Sal’s property, which is then destroyed by the black community. The riot breaks in the whole neighborhood with the residents fighting against the police and the firefighters. Eventually, Smiley, who had set Sal’s Pizzeria on fire then creeps into the remains of the burning building and hangs a picture of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., on the remains of the wall of fame. Nevertheless, in the first scene, both Mookie and Sal, who are the major representatives of Races end-up reconciling (Lee, 1989). Discussion Racism rears its ugly head through the expression of the discontent regarding the wall of fame. Despite the fact that there were other racist sentiments amongst the characters such as Pino in the previous scenes, the actual reality of the racisms breakout with the demand by Buggin' Out, that Sal should include pictures of blacks who were considered as heroes in his wall of fame, considering that he was running a Pizzeria in a black neighborhood, and selling the Pizzas to the blacks (Lee, 1989). This demand activates the racism in Sal, who responds by saying he is an Italian and is proud of that, and thus should only include the pictures of the Italians in the wall of fame. Sal threatens to bash Buggin' Out with a baseball bat, which then attracts both Radio Raheem and Smiley to support Buggin' Out (Lee, 1989). The whole issue degenerates into a major confrontation, which spills over the streets, and becomes the subject of the property destructions in the neighborhood. Mookie is another character who is a racist, and he ...Download file to see next pagesRead More