The only African American characters I liked were Mayor, the three old guys, and Mother Sister. Sal didn't do anything wrong, he hung up pictures of Italians in an Italian pizza joint. Radio was probably the rudest person in the film. I wasn't upset when he died.
Films are my only friends.
Sal did plenty wrong by being white. If he didn't want to be lynched he shouldn't have been so white. You're forgetting that this is a film made by a racist black supremacist.
shareWhats funny is that all he did is portray blacks in a negative light.
One thing we ALL should agree on, if nothing else: Peace.:)>-
Whats funny is that all he did is portray blacks in a negative light.
I doubt that about Spike Lee, considering his background is rather educated and artistic as a filmmaker. Educated people tend to not approach racist black supremacy. What you're claiming about the director is pure nonsense, and you didn't prove anything to back up your claim.
shareWell, Sal had a good point, it was his place and he had the right to put up what pictures he wanted. However, maybe he could've thought that since he made all his money for 20 years on blacks, he had a moral obligation to put up at least a black person on the wall as a sort of thanks.
shareI think he was getting to something near that at the end. He was getting ready to do something nice for Mookie. "You've always been a son to me.." and then he was cutoff. But playing the loud music in the restaurant? That's just obnoxious.
Films are my only friends.
Around that time I would expect pictures of Italians in an Italian restaurant. Nowadays you would add a few black Italians!!
Its that man again!!
I laughed at the title of the thread. I'm not racist, but....makes it seem like being on Sal's side is wrong.
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I'm black and I agreed with Sal until he said the "N" word. You can't expect an italian owner of an italian pizzeria to put pictures of blacks on the wall. In black restaurants with pictures of celebrities there are no pictures of whites or hispanics. Not even one and no one complains. So you should expect Sal to put up pictures of italian's because he is italian. Where Sal went wrong was when he called them the "N" word and tore up Radio's box. Now they were pretty much asking for it on both occaisons but he should have just had them call the cops before any kind of fight began. Maybe there would be no riot!
share'Where Sal went wrong was when he called them the "N" word and tore up Radio's box. Now they were pretty much asking for it on both occaisons but he should have just had them call the cops before any kind of fight began. Maybe there would be no riot!'
There would had been no rest of the movie!
Incidentally Danny Aiello was reluctant to use the N word in the film and had to be persuaded by Lee to use the word. Lee has a funny story to tell about the incident!
Its that man again!!
You can only be pushed so far though. Sal's blowup was understandable. I didn't lose sympathy for him when he used the N-word. Why is it okay for them to call him "guinea" but not expect something in return?
shareHe only said the "N" word at the end after they had come into his pizzeria to cause more trouble than they already had. He only used the word when he was getting worked up.
sharehe only said the "N" word after these people were attacking him in his own shop, sorry but thats just the way it was, and he was right to do so.
sharehe only said the "N" word after these people were attacking him in his own shop, sorry but thats just the way it was, and he was right to do so.
TBH, he was pushed into it. People go off on the fact that he used a slur, but the ones he aimed it at were pretty much playing out the stereotype. And as that is the most commonly used slur; he probably just blurted it out out of anger.
shareLike Giancarlo Esposito, who played "Buggin Out" in the film? His father was Italian and mother black.
shareSal made some foolish mistakes, but wasn't really that bad. His mistakes:
1-Not being calm when confronted by Radio the first time.
2-Not being calm when confronted by Buggin Out the first time.
3-Giving Buggin Out the finger when told of the boycott.
4-Letting Pino berate Smiley then scream at the men on the corner.
5-Busting Radio's radio rather than just calling the cops.
Compare that with Radio, an obnoxious thug who threatened anybody who told him to turn down his obnoxious radio, who instigated trouble at Sal's, and who tried to choke Sal to death after Sal busted his radio.
> Compare that with Radio, an obnoxious thug who threatened anybody who told him to turn down his obnoxious radio, who instigated trouble at Sal's, and who tried to choke Sal to death after Sal busted his radio.
He didn’t deserve to die but he sure wasn’t a sympathetic figure. Neither did Sal deserve to have his shop trashed and burned down.
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I think he was getting to something near that at the end. He was getting ready to do something nice for Mookie. "You've always been a son to me.." and then he was cutoff.
he had a moral obligation to put up at least a black person on the wall as a sort of thanks.
!share
I feel Sal was in the right too, it's an Italian pizzeria after all. The Italian celebrities he had on the wall were not offensive to the clientele and added to the vibe Sal wanted in his pizza parlour. What is next? Will the Koreans in the dairy over the road demand Sal put up pictures of asian films stars next? Will he have to buckle to every demand that every customer demands of him for the decor of his shop? No one cared about the issue until somebody was killed, and even then they didn't really care, mob mentality just took hold of the street and Sal's shop became the target of a lot of pent up tension and frustration that really had very little to do with the pictures on the wall.
shareSals problem is that he let his pride blind him. Yes its his place and he has the right to display any pictures he wants. If he was smart he would make his customer base happy and hand a picture or two of black heros. That would've been a smart business move. Afterall, he made his money off of black consumers, piss them off and bye bye customers.
The brilliance of this movie is that it shows that everyone involved played at least a small part in what happened. It also shows how things can get tragically out of control very quickly, especially when a racial element is thrown into the mix. A true tradgety that was brilliantly shown. No one was innocent and no one was fully to blame.
Oh yeah, i agree with you as well in part. Especially your second paragraph there, I think that is the clever aspect of the script as well that "no one was innocent and no one was fully to blame" either. It was just a cluster *beep* of occurrences that led to a result nobody wanted.
shareAgreed, great film.
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Not racist, then you call them African Americans.
Do you have any black friends?
I find "African American" a racist term unless the person was born from a person(s) who was actually born in a country in Africa; I mean, white people aren't referred to as "European-Americans" are they? Sometimes certain Americans are called Italian-american or Irish-american, or Russian-american but they are few and far between, and usually, from what I've seen or read, are mentioned in the Northern US.
Either way it's a separation as not being 100% american. I mean, no one calls me an Irish-Welsh American, so why refer to blacks or Hispanic/Latino or others as being from another place if they were actually born and raised here? I understand from the point-of-view of representing one's heritage but if the person them self is doing it, that's one thing but for others--seems like separating one group from another. Perhaps not racist to such an extent but quite prejudice.
-Nam
I'm on the road less traveled...
Black chick here, totally on Sal's side. He was somewhat in the wrong, but nowhere near as much as a$$holes like Buggin' Out and RR. I really liked Jade, though; she was a positive person...
"Oh, Britta's in this?"
Seems to me that Spike Lee had quite a bit of affection for Sal as well... of course Sal was right! That's the point. He shouldn't have lost his temper and assaulted Raheem, but at the same time Raheem and his crew were totally out of line and i think that came across quite clearly in the film.
This is a complicated movie with complicate characters just like the thematic issues aren't so black and white if you forgive the expression.
Totally on Sal's side. Even when he threw out the N word. How many times did you hear them call him a Guini? Like that's not an offensive word to Italians? Major double standards.
But you know what? I'm an Italian American and my panties don't get all bunched up if someone calls me or my family that. Maybe that's because I'm not a whiney, self-righteous leftist and I can get over s_hit.
I get pissed off when I watch the chaos after Radio is killed, because I get the feeling that that racist Spike Lee is on their side.
If the races were reversed, you think a black cop would go easy on an obnoxious, bigoted white dude who started s_hit with and was beating up on a black store owner? I don't think so.
"But you know what? I'm an Italian American and my panties don't get all bunched up if someone calls me or my family that. Maybe that's because I'm not a whiney, self-righteous leftist and I can get over s_hit. "
Agreed, you're a right-wing pussy. You're not whiney or self-righteous, yet you call this movie racist? LMFAO. You can get over *beep* yet here you are bitching about a movie from the 80's. You're truly an SJW.
This movie pisses me off! Sal was in the right! It was HIS restaurant, he can put up whoever the heck he wants! I didn't expect him to put up any black celebrities! This movies just ugh!
shareThat's what I don't get about this movie - just about everyone in there played a negative stereotype. It made it look like the Korean store owner and Sal were the only successful people in the neighborhood, while everyone else was just hanging out, being belligerent.
Goblin Cannonball: I hit something! Yes?!? No?!?
I just finished watching this film, and it was so strange and kinda surreal, that I felt the need to give it a 10/10. I just thought it was a great portrayal that no matter how hard we try, we, as humans, will always become racially prejudiced 'in the heat of the moment'.
I was on Sal's side as well, there's nothing racist about that, it's common sense! But 'the heat', I feel, has quite alot to do with the story arc, in a similar way as 'Summer of Sam'.
It's a hot summers day, and everyone's really cranky, in a bad mood.
My only problem was the actions of Spike Lee's character, he was the weakest link for me in the film, and throwing a garbage can in Sal's restaurant, then having the nerve to ask for his money after it burnt down the next day, wtf?
I think I may to knock off a few stars for that, otherwise, if Spike's character didn't ruin the genuine tension building between the different ethnicities, and decided to actually stay on Sal's side, it would have been a masterpiece.
Spike just looked stoned all the time and played the part so bad I actually laughed quite a few times.
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The movie was trying to portray all white people as racist no matter how much they don't typically act racist. That's what the Sal character was trying to get across, no matter what a white man will resort to saying the N word during a confrontation with a black man.
The only thing Sal did wrong was call him the N word. It shouldn't have even came to that anyway, if RR and Buggin out had even a minute bit of respect. You don't go into a place of business and start blasting loud music. He was provoked into using the N word.
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I don't think the movie is at all trying to imply that all white people are racist. Is Sal, in his heart of hearts, an awful bigot? I don't feel so but I think he is the more liberal-minded racist. He thinks because he has a business in a black neighborhood and gives the local wino some beer money to clean his sidewalk that he is the good guy. I think so many people are concentrating on those last few minutes before the fight breaks out that they aren't noticing the underlying tensions that exist through out the film.
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I'm not sure where specifically that came from but it was this idea fueled by a comment I either read or heard somewhere that argued about how more liberal minded people can in some ways, be more dangerous or as dangerous as those who have a more openly prejudiced approach to things. They want to be cool with the black kid or help out the black family so they can subconsciously, or even openly, use them as a shield to deflect the idea that they could exhibit any form of racism. "I'm not racist... my best friend/girlfriend/employee is black." It may not be as hostile as the angry racial slur-tossing bigots but it is still a very strong form of racism in the sense that you are using this person's skin color as some kind of self-righteous social statement. Showing them off to your white friends like they are a new pair of sneakers or flashy new object. There's this whole idea that the white guy who hires black people to clean the floors is less the racist than the one who won't hire them at all.
Racism is very rarely as simple as whether someone likes or dislikes another race. The problem that a lot of those white liberal Hollywood films of the time had was they tried to portray the situation as such. As long as the Klu-Klux-Klan or whatever evil bigot antagonist was defeated in the end, white and black can live happily ever after in perfect harmony. Spike's film took a much deeper look at the problem and while it may not have given us the answers we may have wanted, it didn't sugarcoat the problem.
Sal is no saint but he is easy to sympathize with. He's a nice, well-meaning guy who tries hard to get along with the people in the community. But he's there for personal finiancial gain. He's in Brooklyn because there's less competition from rival pizza places than in Bensonhurst. I think he believes in his heart that he is a beloved figure in the community and that he is taking care of all his black customers and his one sole black employee but he is a bit too naive to connect with the idea that he is an outsider. He doesn't live in the neighborhood. He goes there to make his money. He's woefully ignorant of the issues, even in the confines of his own place of business. His eldest son does not want to be there. He and Mookie are friendly enough as far as employee-employer relationships go but he doesn't treat Mookie like a son as much as he may think otherwise. I think there is so much more to the whole thing than some pictures on a wall.
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The one thing I hate about this is that Spike Lee has stated that the riot was justified. This is from wikipedia "Spike Lee has remarked that he himself has only ever been asked by white viewers whether Mookie did the right thing; black viewers do not ask the question.[12] Lee believes the key point is that Mookie was angry at the death of Radio Raheem, and that viewers who question the riot's justification are implicitly valuing white property over the life of a black man." This makes me sort of pissed off. In Lee's mind he believes that Sal deserved all of this.
"Good,Bad, I'm the guy with the Gun!"
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It seems odd that Lee would say that the riot was "the right thing." Da Mayor is the one who tells Mookie to do the right thing, but he reacts negatively to the riot.
"every time godzilla loses to mothra I die a little bit more"--Godzillaswrath
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A lot of things in the film were over the top, including these characters.
I do feel that the movie could have had more civil protagonists, it kind of seemed like the riot at the end was the reasonable thing to do, which I disagree with.
Are you freaking nuts?! Radio deserved to get killed?! The guy was a jerk, but he did not deserve to be killed!
sharePlaying loud music in a business place is rude, obnoxious, low class and disrespectful and you should be asked to leave.
Radio Raheem caused his own death because of his stupidity.