Essay: Spike Lee’s School Daze (1988) and Do the Right Thing (1989)

Spike Lee is known for making films about African Americans with underlying political messages. His second and third features, School Daze (1988) and Do the Right Thing (1989) serve as two best examples that work in tandem to critically comment on racial representations, specifically in relation to the African American community. Additionally, in his article “The Violence of Public Art,” W. J. T. Mitchell argues that art in the public sphere can be interpreted as standing in for or inciting acts of violence (881). However, this sphere is controlled by the majority group in power, and dictates the responses of the excluded groups. I will examine how racial themes and scenes may overlap to provide a kind of “auteurist” approach to analyzing Lee’s style of filmmaking through use of artistic expression.
School Daze (1988) takes place Homecoming weekend at Mission College, a financially unstable historically all-black college. The film follows the lives of “Wannabe” Greek life students, headed by Julian (Giancarlo Esposito) and Jane (Tisha Campbell) and their activist classmates, notably Dap (Larry Fishburne) and Rachel (Kyme). Tensions arise between the groups when Darrell (Lee), Dap’s cousin, rushes Julian’s fraternity, Gamma Phi Gamma, Rachel and Jane cannot agree on what constitutes as “proper” black female beauty, and the administration threatens to discipline Dap for his outspoken behavior at anti-Apartheid rallies. However, each side recognizes their differences and comes together as a whole student body so as to uphold the college’s reputation, and, more importantly, to work on creating a stronger African American community.
Do The Right Thing (1989) is set on a racially diverse block in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood on the hottest day of summer, and the following morning. Mookie (Lee), a negligent pizza deliverer, attempts to keep peace between his white employer, Sal (Danny Aiello), and the neighborhood rebels, Buggin’ Out (Esposito) and Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn), when questions of African American representation on Sal’s restaurant’s “Wall of Fame” turn to violence and boycotting. Meanwhile, the rest of the neighborhood deals with its own fragmented racial divides under the watch of DJ Señor Love Daddy, waiting for the tension to finally come to a head. The night ends in a death, a vandalism, and uncertainty for the future of the block.
The spiritual hymn “I’m Building Me a Home” used in Daze’s opening credits plays in the background of a slideshow of photographs and diagrams of African American history, starting from the Middle Passage and working its way forward to the Civil Rights Movement. The song itself sounds like something out of the slavery era, and brings up the theme of overcoming and reconciling the black diaspora emphasized in Dap’s divestment student coalition and the divide between the “Wannabe” Gamma Rays women’s auxiliary and the darker-skinned female students. Though Daze chronologically comes before Right Thing, it begins where Right Thing leaves off, with a validation of the importance of minority presence and representation throughout American history. Furthermore, while Daze shows what can happen when communities come together over a shared experience (such as being black), Right Thing works in tandem to show when things fall apart.
In contrast, Daze ends in the same way Right Thing begins, with a “wake-up” call. Dap uses the call to bring his campus together and put aside the rivaling differences with Gamma Phi Gamma head brother Julian with a direct address of the camera. In Right Thing, Love Daddy’s intonation seems more sardonic, as if to undo the sense of unity the Mission students form, a kind of “wake up and face the facts” moment to foreshadow the racial tension on the microcosm of the Bedford-Stuyvesant block. This second address implicitly states that, no matter how hard the African American community may try to work as one, it will always come up against “the powers that be” of the white nation they reside in, every moment of every day.
Darrell and Mookie both act on the gap between boundaries. Darrell doesn’t seem to learn the consequences of his actions as he fully takes on the G-Phi-G lifestyle and commits himself to their brutal hazing practices, such as being led around campus on all fours via a chain collar. Mookie “mediates” between Sal and Buggin’ Out’s heated argument, until he too joins in the riot by throwing a trash can through the restaurant window. Mookie joins to show his own frustration with the argument, but secretly helping Sal by drawing attention to destroying the restaurant rather than harming the people involved.
Rachel and Jade (Joie Lee), Mookie’s sister, similarly try to bridge the gap, showing the struggles of being a black woman in a white (or white-passing) world. Both recognize the importance of acknowledging their racial history, but also pose the question of how boundaries, whether within the African American community or between black and white, can be tested and changed, providing necessary counterparts to the male characters.
The extra-diegetic scenes include Daze’s song “Straight and Nappy” and Right Thing’s “slur segment.” “Straight and Nappy” comments on inter-community opinions of “proper” blackness, focusing specifically on beauty standards of black women’s hair care and dress. Though each the Wannabes, who want to blend in with white people, and Activists (called “Jiggaboos” in the song), who would rather show off and be proud of their “natural” styles, believe that their way is right, the two sides come together by the final shot of the song. However, it is interesting to note that while the Activists explicitly call out the Wannabes’ overall behavior, the Wannabes only share their discontent on their rivals’ looks, perhaps implying that, while the Wannabes do want to be white, they also have a deep-seeded jealousy that they do not look “more black,” so they don’t really fit in to either group. The “slur segment” focuses on listing different ethnic slurs for each of the races represented in the Bed-Stuy block, rather than reconciling perhaps why these kinds of names exist at all. This surface-level hatred is achieved through close-up shots and a quickly tracking camera to create a disorienting feel for the viewer.
Both films utilize prominent black leaders Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X as a backdrop, not only to politically comment on international black oppression throughout history, but also in a more philosophical way of how to be a “proper” black person calling for revolution in a white world. By using leaders who represent both sides of the issue, civil disobedience (Mandela and King) and violence in self-defense (X), Lee highlights the complexities of minority struggle for power, understanding, and cooperation without clearly choosing a side that best represents the African American community’s needs at all times. As seen, Daze relies on building strength from within the community to peacefully resist, while Right Thing resorts to violence in order to break the silence that racism holds over the Bed-Stuy block residents. In this same strain, neither should the caricatures Lee uses in either film be taken as completely accurate of all people, no matter their race, at all times.