I am recommending that our readers take a fresh look at some Spike Lee films that most folks may have forgotten. I am hoping that you won’t forget these films because—sadly—they remain so relevant today.
Do the Right Thing was released in 1989, the same year as Driving Miss Daisy. The latter was a pleasant film about the relationship between a rich white lady and her chauffeur, designed to make white liberals feel good. Lee’s film was a hard-hitting gut puncher set in a black neighborhood that ended with cops killing a black youth and the residents erupting in a riot. Ending with quotes from Dr. MLK and Malcolm X, this magnificent film was designed to disturb and to make audiences think. Guess which won the Oscar for best Picture?
You guessed it.
Lee’s more funny but dead serious BlacKkKlansman came out in 2018, as did Green Book. The latter is a good film, but again, more pleasing to white liberals in that it was designed to make us feel good. Both were nominated for Oscars. Which do you think was awarded the Oscar?
Bingo! Hollywood, and the society it reflects, still has a long way to go.
Lee dedicated Do the Right Thing, in the end credits, to the families of six black people, five of whom were killed by police officers, as the character Radio Raheem was in the film–Eleanor Bumpurs, Michael Griffith, Arthur Miller, Edmund Perry, Yvonne Smallwood, and Michael Stewart. ( A white mob killed Griffith .)
This was film debuted decades ago!
And the killing goes on.
Finally, I hope our readers will take a fresh look at Lee’s 1992 powerful tribute to Malcolm X. It behooves white Americans, especially at this moment in our history, to see and discuss this film—and the book which lies behind it.
Malcolm X is a life, a book and a movie that raise questions we all must struggle to answer.