Film Questions
Spike Lee’s film, Do the Right Thing, portrays racism in a somewhat light sense contrary to the actual racist acts witnessed across the world. The film is dominated by black characters who are also shown to have an intricate role in society, and this largely downplays the weight of the matter (Spence 411). The film seems to indicate that it is socially acceptable for whites to insult blacks verbally since the black characters take no offense with the insults (Lee). Further, the film gives black characters more power over societal forces, which is not the case in reality. Based on this, the film lacks authenticity in conveying the depths of racism and the impact that racism poses in society.
Television and film affect how we look at the work through characters, themes, and how film themes are presented. In many instances, films and television exaggerate or understate the themes they carry by creating unreal or fictitious plots. In the interview with Istavan, he clearly states that European film directors are keen on telling actual stories about real emotions, unlike American film directors (Radia et al. 181). The Truman Show also shapes a false perception of society by creating a perfect word for Jim Carry. Such a state of perfection may cause the perception that the real world is terrible or that there is better to come, which is all a fantasy. Moreover, the upsurge in fiction films tells of the rise in hypothetical life situations and the increasingly digital wave taking over the work (Virvidaki 160). This way, films, and television send messages through themes and how the themes portrayed impact our perception of the world.
Works Cited
Lee, Spike. Do the Right Thing. 40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks, 1989.
Radia, Pavlina, et al., editors. The Future of Humanity: Revisioning the Human in the Posthuman Age. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2019.
Spence, Lester K. “Do the Right Thing in the Post-Post Civil Rights Era.” Safundi, vol. 20, no. 4, Taylor & Francis, 2019, pp. 410–413.
Virvidaki, Katerina. “The Digressive: Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction.” Testing Coherence in Narrative Film, Springer, 2017, pp. 147–180.