1. In both of these pieces, media is used to connect the community. Wright had said in "How Bigger Was Born?", "First, through some quirk of circumstance, he had become estranged from the religion and the folk culture of his race. Second, he was trying to react to and answer the call of the dominant civilization whose glitter came to him through the newspapers, magazines, radios, movies, and the mere imposing site and sound of daily American Life" (439). Bigger Thomas had left his morals and had been accustomed to living his everyday life as a response to the media. When he read newspapers regarding himself and Mary Dalton's murder his emotions changed, when he watched movies about whites he stereotyped them as having perfect lives. The "glitter" that Wright talked about was his emotions and reactions to the media. In Do The Right Thing Senor Love Daddy (a.k.a. Mr. Rigler) strongly influences the community. He connects them through describing events that are going on around town, or describing what he sees. Throughout the movie, he is constantly narrorating what is going on in the community, which allows the community to be closer like a family. On one hand the media gives way to make assumptions that may not be true, but on the other hand the media acts as the community mediator, uniting those who follow media by informing community members what is going on within the neighborhood. Therefore the media can act in a positive way, or a negative way depending on who or what the source is.
Q. What are your personal (emotional, critical) responses? What are your feelings, at the movie's end, for Mookie, for Sal, for the police, for the community, for Radio Raheem? Who does--and who does not do--"the right thing"? Whose actions seem meaningful, purposeful, humane? What has been earned, learned, or lost?
There was so much tension between the racial groups, but there was tension internally within each group as well. For example, the blacks had tension with eachother and with people of races such as Asian and Latino. I was surprised about how much violence could occur within 24 hours in one neighborhood, but I think it is because of this internal tension. In order to bring peace the tension would have to go away internally within one particular groups such as the African Americans, before the tension between the groups of the Latinos, Asians and African Americans would go away. At the end of this movie I felt that Sal was a good person. Even though he may have seemed hot headed at times he treated Mooky with respect and cared for him like he was his own son. He never violently hurt anyone, he just verbally abused or offended blacks like Radio Raheem when he asked to turn the volume on his radio down. So Sal was did not cause the violence directly but he had influence it, as after he talked to Radio Raheem about the volume, Radio Raheem threw his radio at the counter of the Pizzeria. This did not help the situation it made the tension worse; Radio Raheem did not do the right thing with his response to Sal. However, Da Mayor seemed as though he tried to do the right thing throughout the movie. He was an alchololic who had messed up his life, and he tried to learn from his mistakes by telling others to do the right thing. Within the 24 hour period, he bought flowers for Mother Sister and saved a boy's life. Through these actions he was trying to be a good person to make up the fact that he had messed up his life with his dependence on alcohol. One of the officers did not do the right thing, as he (the officer) overreacted to Radio Raheem's fight with Sal. Even though it was his duty to break the fight up and restore the peace of the community, he did not need to go to the extent of killing Radio Raheem. Through killing him, the rest of the black community would never respect police officers again, holding a grudge against them. Even though Sal's Pizzeria was lost, something within the community was gained. As Buggin' Out asked others to join a boycott towards Sal's, others in the community would say "No I grew up on Sal's" and positive comments as such. You never know what you got until it is gone and I believe that will happen in this situation. People will realize how great of an impact Sal's was. It brought people together not just to eat, but to communicate as a community should.
No comments:
Post a Comment