That night, after seeing the news, the world seemed a different place. That's the earliest I can remember being aware of the scale of the politics of race. I grew up in a tiny suburb without a ton of ethnic diversity, and there are a handful of incidents I can remember on the playgrounds where someone's race or beliefs or looks were singled out for persecution. It troubled me, but never to the point of defending those who were isolated and divided. I was never picked on, at least like that. I was always a part of the majority.
So, with that white male bias in mind, allow me to posit that in many ways, DO THE RIGHT THING is about something more than racism.
Of course, DO THE RIGHT THING is about racism, but to me, it's really about the foolishness of believing in any kind of binary system. It's a larger idea that is both incorporated and illustrated by racism.
Take the story of Love and Hate, as told to us by Radio Raheem (directly breaking the fourth wall, and cribbing from the Criterion-approved THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, soon to be watched around these parts). The story is a decidedly binary one, as Raheem makes the distinctions crystal clear: love and hate, two forces constantly at war in the universe. The story is left on a vague note, though. Raheem never really completes the story: he ends with the line, "If I love you, I love you. But if I hate you ..."
When Mookie screams "Hate!" at the end of the film, the significance of the story takes on a much more ambiguous note. Mookie's actions have a violent impact, and bear the trappings of hatred, but they are not borne of pure hatred; indeed, in some ways, they could be interpreted as coming from love. The story of love and hate is a far more complicated one than the narrative Radio Raheem suggests.
The title of the film also plays with the failings of binary choices. When Da Mayor tells Mookie to "always do the right thing," early in the film, Mookie laughs it off as something he's heard a thousand times before. At the end of the film, though, the simplicity of absolutes like "always do the right thing" have lost their meaning. Does Mookie do the right thing? Does he do the wrong thing? What about Sal? Or Radio Raheem? Destroying someone else's property is wrong, but what about when doing so could save someone's life? These aren't contrived choices, reality stretched and enhanced for dramatic impact, but rather the sort of excruciating choices life is made of. An action can be both wrong and right.
The greatest example of this blending of right/wrong, love/hate, is the Malcolm X/Martin Luther King, Jr. argument that runs through the film. The character of Smiley repeatedly shows us a picture of the two civil rights leaders smiling and shaking hands, which he decorates and attempts to sell to people throughout the movie. The two men are another example of two seemingly binary opposites that can actually co-exist. The film ends with quotes from the two men, King's an eloquent condemnation of violence, Malcolm X's a righteous justification of violence as self-defense. Again, it seems, an action can be both wrong and right at once.
To me, Lee seems to be saying that any kind of polarized view of the world is a false one, any world where we're given only two choices a limited one, and the film is really calling for a more nuanced and understanding view of each other as individuals.
The second feature in our Criterion-does-racism double bill, WHITE DOG, is equally brilliant.
The film examines racism through the nature/nurture argument, and examines racism as something taught, through the brilliant metaphor (and unfortunately all-too-factual reality) of 'white dogs', animals that have been trained to attack black people. When a young actress comes across one of these animals, she tries to cure it of its racist tendencies with the help of a black trainer.
I don't want to spoil things, as few people will have seen this particular film, given it's limited release, but it verges into surprising, yet inevitable territory. It's a brilliant depiction of the differences between human and animal, of the violence at the heart of survival, and it gives us one of the most fascinating villains in cinematic history.
Both of these films stuck with me, long after they were finished. They took me back to that little boy, watching Johnnie Cochrane on that tiny television, sitting on the library floor, and how much larger the world has become since then.
