Open Thread: Do The Right Thing Edition
The 20th anniversary of the release of Spike Lee’s ground-breaking movie Do The Right Thing, which dealt with a day in the life of a block in Bed Stuy, and in so doing brought the multi-layered issues of gentrification race coexistence and conflict in the inner city to a broader national audience. Two decades later,…
The 20th anniversary of the release of Spike Lee’s ground-breaking movie Do The Right Thing, which dealt with a day in the life of a block in Bed Stuy, and in so doing brought the multi-layered issues of gentrification race coexistence and conflict in the inner city to a broader national audience. Two decades later, how much has changed and how much remains the same?
Fair enough, DIBS. No more cannibalization–we promise!
I guess I’m part vegan. Does that make me bicarnivore??
I enjoy many vegetables but please, how does one really live life without a foie gras appetizer, a rare veal chop, bacon infused bourbon and a nice slice of cheesecake.
I even grow some of my own vegetables. Organic products are the biggest rip off ever foisted upon the American public. I bet there’s a lot of public baby peeing going on in front of Park Slope Food Co-op.
HAHAHAHHAHAH 6years.
the thought of vegans getting tricked into buying overpriced non vegan food warms the cockles of my heart!
thanks for that 🙂
*rob*
I don’t see many movies but DTRT to me is one of the best ever. I had never seen a more visually vibrant movie when it came out, and the dialogue and the “bits” were great. And, maybe just because I was still young enough, the ending was shocking and sad.
Oh, and Dave, I agree with you completely as to your earlier post regarding the generations of Bed Stuyers who’ve held the neighborhood together over the years. Too many people think Mookie’s little corner of the ‘hood is all there is to BS, that’s just not so.
An undercover investigation of the “seedy world of vegan restaurants” in LA – how vegan are they, really? This takes obsession with food sources to new levels:
http://www.quarrygirl.com/2009/06/28/undercover-investigation-of-la-area-vegan-restaurants/
(cue Rob comment about vegan farts)
i think he is just either placating or baiting the what. either reason just seems ridiculous to me, but a lot of things in life seem ridiculous to me, so who knows.
*rob*
Well, at least one thing hasn’t changed. White guys (Dave) are buying brownstones in primarily black neighborhoods, infuriating some black people (The What). Slopefarm is right – the movie was about racism across NYCs’ communities, and also about gentrification, police vs. black community, absentee black fathers, respective ethnic icons and the cultural boiler room that was (and is) Brooklyn. I think the players have changed, since those days, but not much else.
I didn’t like it.
I thought it was over simplistic and preachy. There were some good scenes in it, of course, including gem’s pizza parlor scene, and there were some great performances, but it is not my favorite movie. I actually liked Crooklyn better, it was more a slice of life of real people, and much more believable. I do give Spike his props for a successful mainstream movie with an inner city theme, but it annoyed me no end that from that moment on, at least for a couple of years, he became the Voice Of The Black Community. He is ONE of the voices, but not the only one, but at the time, everytime anything happened with black people in the mix, the press, tv, magazines would ask Spike what he thought, like he was the authority. It went to his head.
Spike likes archetypes in a lot of his preachier movie making. His main characters always have some historical pivotal event happen to them so that he can have them explain why black people think or do such and such. So you have the Angry Black Man, the Tragic Drug Addict, the Clueless White Man, the Shrill Latina, the Strong Black Woman, the White Male Bigot, etc, etc. His better movies just have the characters do what they do, which explains their historic or personal motivations. His less successful movies always give me the impression that he feels he is obligated to give too much history, backstory or context to explain the plot. That said, his documentary on Katrina was a powerful piece of filmwork, and probably the best thing he ever did.