Fight the Power! (And Do The Right Thing)

I thought the film was kind of slow at first, and that characters like Radio Raheem were petty and unneccessary. Little did I know that characters like Raheem would make the film for me and I would love it as much as I did. Lee's awareness of social situations and racism and community enhance the film to make it extraordinary. It was a great compilation of characters that embodied different kinds of people.
My favorite concept of the movie was the prejudices present in the Korean man, the Italian family, and the African-American people. Everyone had their own biases and grudges against the other groups, and I think it was well done in a way that forces every community to look at the way they view others.
The most striking scene is (unsurprisingly?) that of Radio Raheem's brutal murder and the riot that ensues. As Raheem was slowly strangled, the reality of the undertones of racism came at me full swing, and the riot brought the chaos that quickly erupted over the music in Sal's pizzeria. To think that all that Buggin' Out wanted from Sal was a picture of a black person on the wall....and that so much destruction came out of something so seemingly petty. Smiley put a different twist on the whole film for me as well. The whole time, he is trying to get people to buy pictures of MLK and Malcom X, and he is the person who sets the store on fire and puts up the picture of the black men. Does his speech impediment mean anything? I think that Spike Lee put him in the film to show the ideals of the two men , which is echoed int he final words just before the closing credits.