Do the Right Thing/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Alternative Character Interpretation: Basically, the whole damn movie is an exercise on what each viewer interprets each character's actions and intentions as. A primary one being Mookie's motivation for throwing that trashcan. To redirect the mob's rage and save Sal's life? To vent his own rage over Radio Raheem's death? If he was trying to vent, why didn't he join in on the actual rioting and looting with the other black people?
    • "I wanna clear up something once and for all," says Spike Lee in a new commentary track on the 20th anniversary DVD of "Do the Right Thing". "Mookie did not throw the garbage can through the window to divert the mob from jumping on Sal". Mookie, the delivery guy who works for Sal and is played by Lee, "threw the garbage can through the window because he just saw one of his best friends get murdered in cold blood by NYPD."
    • Pino. An unapologetic racist and a bully? Or a hypocritical, insecure young man whose Italian friends make fun of him for working in a black neighborhood that, in turn, barely tolerates him only because he's Sal's son?
  • Funny Moments: Not a comedy film, but has it's moments.
    • Radio Raheem gets into an argument with Sonny, the Korean owner of the local grocery store, over the latters lack of English skills.

Sonny: Motherfuck you!
Raheem: "Motherfuck me?" [beat] You're alright man.

  • Heartwarming Moments: Sal explaining to Pino that he has no issue with black people, that they've supported him for decades and he's proud that people in the neighborhood have grown up on his pizza. The mood is broken when Smiley shows up and Pino starts picking on him, but still.
  • Hype Backlash: Although the movie was intended to be a love letter to Brooklyn and help bring its plight to the world stage, residents of the real neighborhood it was filmed in were not amused at being forced to move out so that the set crew could paint their apartment buildings strange colors and knock down ancient buildings to create 'realistic' sets. They also had issues with the whole "fairytale" feeling of the movie's first act, feeling it cheapened their daily struggle.
  • Retroactive Recognition: Everyone.
  • Too Cool to Live: Radio Raheem.
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