Wesley Morris on why Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” remains a classic

“The importance of Do the Right Thing out-lives all of the arguments against it. It embarrasses its critics, in a lot of ways. Spike Lee really is having the last laugh on this one.” –Wesley Morris

In this episode of Deviate, Wesley and Rolf talk about what Do the Right Thing is about, and why it’s a unique and extraordinary movie (2:45); how the characters are both sympathetic and unsympathetic, and how the movie isn’t trying to teach a tidy lesson (12:00); how Spike Lee’s story ideas from the 1980s feel relevant to social conditions in the 2010s (17:30); how the movie is more like Greek tragedy than a raw realistic depiction of its setting and story (23:00); the conditions of filmmaking for black artists in the 1980s (28:00); the way Do the Right Thing attracted a kind of panic from social critics when it came out (33:15); Spike Lee’s strategic use of powerful music, visuals, and blocking in the movie (37:00); the fact the Barack and Michelle Obama saw this movie on their first date, and how Spike Lee wanted the movie to be classified as a One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest-style comedy (41:00); Rolf’s interest in and personal experience with the film living in Wichita in 1989 (45:45); and the narrative specificity of the details in the film, and how they parallel real-life events (49:45).

Wesley Morris (@Wesley_Morris) the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic at large for the New York Times. Formerly the co-host of the Grantland podcast “Do You Like Prince Movies?”, he now co-hosts the “Still Processing” podcast with Times colleague Jenna Wortham. He previously appeared on Episode 41 of Deviate, Wesley Morris on podcast-fame, sports, and performing blackness in America.

Notable links:

• Spike Lee (film director)
• Do the Right Thing ( 1989 Spike Lee film)
• She’s Gotta Have It (1986 Spike Lee film)
• School Daze (1988 Spike Lee film)
• Bed-Stuy (Brooklyn neighborhood)
• Tawana Brawley rape allegations (legal case)
• Barry Michael Cooper (writer/producer)
• Do the Right Thing, by Spike Lee (film journal)
• Death of Sandra Bland (police-custody incident)
• John Savage (actor)
• Rosie Perez (actress and choreographer)
• Driving Miss Daisy (1989 movie)
• sex, lies, and videotape (1989 movie)
• Central Park jogger case (rape case)
• Stanley Crouch (cultural critic)
• Fight the Power (Public Enemy song)
• Southside with You (movie)
• Death of Eric Garner (police incident)

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The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.

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