DO THE RIGHT THING Decoded. No Easy Theses, No Simple Solutions

Buggin’ Out

Buggin’ Out, played by Giancarlo Esposito, is largely responsible for the escalation of tensions in Do the Right Thing. A loudmouth, not always the sharpest, constantly scheming and looking for an argument, he initiates the tragic conflict over the “Wall of Fame” in Sal’s pizzeria and then roams the neighborhood, urging everyone to boycott the businessman who refuses to honor Black heroes. Buggin’ Out leverages fragments of the anti-racist freedom discourse, but as Jade points out in one scene, his activist zeal blinds him to the bigger picture, and his engagement takes on caricatured forms. However, Lee does not dismiss the impulsive actions rooted in sentiments very similar to those of the oppressors. It is, after all, due to Buggin’ Out that Raheem (one of the few convinced to protest) shows up at the pizzeria in the evening with his boombox. By portraying these particular, pseudo-radical, and prejudiced forms of resistance in a somewhat satirical light, Spike Lee does not invalidate the sense of injustice that gives rise to them, but rather points out the dead ends of such attitudes.

The Mayor

The proud nickname of an old man hides an unflattering truth—the Mayor is the neighborhood drunk, sweeping the sidewalk for a dollar, wandering around, ready to dispense life wisdom to anyone (such as always doing the right thing) and flirting with the Mother Sister, who constantly scolds him. Beyond his satirical function, the Mayor plays the role of a fallen, dusty authority figure whom no one listens to—neither when he’s spouting platitudes nor when he calls for everyone to come to their senses during the final brawl. However, the broken old man also represents the older generation of African Americans who grew up without full rights and during the dark days of structural racism in the USA. His tattered, dirty clothes seem to testify to the damage caused by decades of officially discriminatory policies by white Americans against the Black community—the Mayor in Do the Right Thing can be seen as the most glaring example of a recurring theme in the film: the deep erosion of African American self-worth, burdened by a legacy of neglect, prejudice, and stereotypes, which subsequent generations have adapted and internalized as their own identity.

Collective Character

It is precisely the deep entrenchment of auto-stereotypes and the image of brash, noisy hooligans that seems to be represented by the group of young African Americans (Ahmad, Cee, Punchy, Ella) lounging on the steps, prone to provocation and fun on the verge of breaking the law. In an older variant, similar inclinations are shown by Willie, ML, Sid—a kind of quasi-comedic chorus occupying folding chairs on the corner, commenting on everything and everyone around them. Neither the young nor the old shy away from making ribald remarks about themselves and their brothers, placing themselves ambiguously in relation to the prejudices against the Black community. Both groups in Do the Right Thing serve as a synecdoche for the collective character, which is the entire politically disengaged African American community, sustaining the status quo. Spike Lee also directs his critical edge at them, seemingly “reflecting” the film’s titular call to action toward these very attitudes—one cannot break the oppressive reality by accepting the roles it imposes.

Tina and Jade

In Do the Right Thing, male characters predominantly take the spotlight, yet there’s a noticeable semi-feminist accent introduced by Lee through the two women close to Mookie—his sister Jade and his girlfriend Tina (with whom he has a child). Although their roles are somewhat minor, they echo the themes from Lee’s earlier film, She’s Gotta Have It, which critiqued gender norms and societal conceptions of the female body. While Jade and Tina don’t have the opportunity to emancipate themselves as Nola did in that film, both represent female agency that resists male dominance, although they ultimately remain its victims. This is most evident in Jade’s ambiguous visit to Sal’s Pizzeria—while she flirts with the older man, asserting her independence (by dismissing her brother’s protective instincts), her behavior seems a strategy forced by the social hierarchy. Tina’s situation highlights patriarchal conditioning even more clearly; she’s stuck at home with their child while Mookie roams the streets. Her determination and energy break away from the archetype of the waiting Penelope, but ultimately, Tina remains confined to her roles as a mother and lover. The inclusion of these female characters enriches Do the Right Thing with an additional layer of social division—beyond class and race, it also addresses gender—completing the portrayal of a micro-community entangled in these complex intersections. The characters of Jade and Tina also complicate Mookie’s character, introducing another dimension to the film’s title—it’s not just racism that needs to be challenged but also the ingrained habit of patriarchy. It’s worth noting that, despite her relatively small role in *Do the Right Thing*, Rosie Perez, who plays Tina, makes a powerful impact from the film’s very beginning with an energetic dance sequence during the opening credits. Dancing—how could it be otherwise?—to Public Enemy’s Fight The Power, Perez’s performance sets the film’s tone as a manifesto, a spontaneous expression of the anger of the marginalized. It’s no accident that a female character delivers this emblematic performance.

Smiley – Martin Luther King and Malcolm X

The last character I’d consider significant in Spike Lee’s film is Smiley—a disabled, stuttering young man who sells hand-colored photos of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. Smiley is the third person who enters the pizzeria that evening with Radio Raheem and Buggin’ Out to demand that photos of Black heroes be hung on the “Wall of Fame.” It’s no coincidence, as Smiley clearly idolizes these two murdered legends and seems to be their unusual apostle. However, his involvement in the protest isn’t only due to his admiration for these figures—earlier, Pino had driven him away and almost beaten him for trying to sell a photo (a scene that also starkly shows Sal’s negligence in curbing his son’s aggression). Humiliated, likely not for the first time, Smiley turns somewhat naively and childishly to the symbols of Black liberation—his faith in their legacy is both touching and, in a sad way, hopeless.

To Fight, or to Conquer Evil with Good?

The two figures in Smiley’s photos are the final, absent heroes of Do the Right Thing. Both represented radically different approaches to the fight for equality and freedom—King advocated for love, respect, and peaceful methods, while Malcolm X was associated with radical movements, often justifying violence as a means of combating a discriminatory system. Yet, they are pictured together. Similarly, they appear together at the film’s conclusion, with their opposing quotes on violence in the fight against racism (King condemning it and Malcolm affirming it) placed side by side. Spike Lee brings these two poles together, presenting them as a complementary ideological symbol. The tension and fragile balance between Martin Luther King Jr.’s teachings and Malcolm X’s rhetoric frame the narrative from which the central message of Do the Right Thing emerges.

The core idea is expressed in one of the film’s most recognizable moments, where Radio Raheem directly explains to the camera his theory of the world’s perpetual struggle between love and hate (represented by the gold rings on his right and left hands). This scene, a nod to The Night of the Hunter (1955), introduces the symbolism of the fight between good and evil within human nature into Do the Right Thing. Here, good is represented by respect, understanding, and the bonds that connect the characters, while evil is embodied by prejudice, hatred, and racism. Raheem’s clenched fists symbolize how love and hate coexist, creating a society that is dramatically complex, caught between good and evil. The interlocked fingers of Raheem’s hands symbolize the balance between these two forces, and when the hands separate, two opposing forces are unleashed. Lee emphatically suggests that good is born at the cost of evil and that life is marked by violence and suffering. In this world, fraught with contradictions, a person can strive for balance but, when pushed to the limit, must choose—whether to resist oppression or submit to it. To fight, or to conquer evil with good. Lee offers no answer. Instead, he shows how emotions escalate in a crisis, how violence begets violence, and how seemingly innocent prejudices or stereotypes turn into harm.

What Did Mookie Do?

Ultimately, Mookie turned his back on his employer and joined the crowd’s anger, responding symbolically to his friend’s death by initiating the looting with the act of throwing a trash can through Sal’s pizzeria window. He sided with the fight and Radio Raheem’s clenched left fist. The next morning, he does something that might be seen as audacious—he shows up to ask his boss for his back pay. Though Sal angrily throws more money at him than he’s owed, Mookie takes only what is rightfully his according to their agreement. This decisive moral stance is not just about choosing to resist but also about refusing to be denied his rights or accept a contemptuous gesture. In a world where the police killed Raheem while on the job, Mookie, who smashed his employer’s window, still gets paid for delivering pizzas—he did the work, so he gets paid. There is no symmetry here, and one can argue about the moral correctness. But Mookie ultimately decides that in the face of inequality, violence is his only recourse. His balancing act, his passive submission to reality and its rules, has run its course.

The action in Do the Right Thing is set over exactly 24 hours—from morning to morning, with a scorching hot day and an equally heated night in between (from both the weather and the emotions). The neighborhood that slowly wakes up in the morning serves as a frame for Spike Lee’s film, emphasizing its bitter tone. Despite all that happens in between, everything looks as if nothing has changed. In this context, the film portrays the daily routine of a poor neighborhood, where hatred, violence, and tragedy are normal parts of reality, ingrained in the inherited order of things passed down through generations. The characters seem to be trapped in a vicious cycle with no escape. Do the Right Thing can be read as a cry of helplessness, calling for a break from this impotence, but also showing how difficult this task is, as even a revolt seems like a predictable event that the social system can easily handle, restoring the status quo.

In Do the Right Thing, Spike Lee created a kind of ideological manifesto while avoiding easy theses or a single narrative. He condemns racism but sees it as a complex problem, involving the problematic nature of various strategies for both internalizing and combating it, while also strongly criticizing the perpetuation of racist discourses and their acceptance or deflection onto others. In one of the film’s best scenes, Lee offers us a montage of characters of all ethnicities hurling racist slogans and insults directly at the camera. This is a clear warning message that while racism painfully affects African Americans and is mainly revealed in structural ways against them, it is not unidirectional—any hatred is a threat. By problematizing this issue, Lee also subtly introduces a rather leftist critique of class structure, where prejudices are also rooted. Here, not only skin color matters but also the thickness of one’s wallet. Racism is not just the result of prejudice but perhaps primarily a product of a certain social system, one of the tools of segregation.

Lee presents all these elements in a way that’s almost nonchalant, devoid of didacticism or agitational zeal. He simply shows us an ordinary day in Brooklyn. In the ordinary lies the essence of Do the Right Thing, which ultimately submerges even the most dramatic tensions in the stagnation of a community still stuck in the same cycle of actions and routines. Was Mookie changed as he left with his paycheck, or did he simply return to his routine? Did anything really change in the overall picture of the neighborhood? The bitter punchline delivered by Lee is voiced by DJ Love Daddy: It’s gonna be even hotter today. The emotions have subsided, the blood has been spilled, and the glass has shattered—but the overall structure of class-race relations remains the same. A lot happens in one sweltering day, but in the end, nothing really changes.