Editing Do the Right Thing (section)

===Controversies===
After release, many reviewers protested its content. Some columnists opined that the film could incite Black audiences to riot.<ref>Klein, Joe. "Spiked?", ''New York'', June 26, 1989: 14–15.</ref> Lee criticized White reviewers in turn for suggesting that Black audiences were incapable of restraining themselves while watching a fictional motion picture.<ref name="autogenerated1">"Spike Lee's Last Word", special feature on the [[Criterion Collection]] DVD (2000)</ref> In a 2014 interview, Lee said, "That still bugs the shit out of me", calling the remarks "outrageous, egregious and, I think, racist." He said, "I don't remember people saying people were going to come out of theaters killing people after they watched [[Arnold Schwarzenegger]] films."<ref>{{cite magazine|last1=Edwards|first1=Gavin|title=Fight the Power: Spike Lee on 'Do the Right Thing'|url=https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/fight-the-power-spike-lee-on-do-the-right-thing-20140620|magazine=Rolling Stone|access-date=4 April 2017|date=June 20, 2014|archive-date=August 22, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170822222636/http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/fight-the-power-spike-lee-on-do-the-right-thing-20140620|url-status=live}}</ref>

An open question near the end of the film is whether Mookie "does the right thing" by throwing the garbage can through the window, inciting the riot that destroys Sal's pizzeria. Some critics have interpreted Mookie's action as one that saves Sal's life by redirecting the crowd's anger away from Sal to his property, while others say that it was an "irresponsible encouragement to enact violence".<ref name="Reid1997">{{cite book|author=Mark A. Reid|title=Spike Lee's Do the right thing|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780521550765|url-access=registration|access-date=September 25, 2010|year=1997|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-55954-6|pages=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780521550765/page/43 43]–}}</ref> The quotations by two major Black leaders used at the end of the film provide no answers: one advocates nonviolence, the other advocates armed self-defense in response to oppression.<ref name="Reid1997" />

Lee has remarked that only White viewers ask him if Mookie did the right thing; Black viewers do not ask him the question.<ref>''Do The Right Thing'' DVD, Director's commentary</ref> Lee believes the key point is that Mookie was angry at the wrongful death of Radio Raheem, stating that viewers who question the riot are explicitly failing to see the difference between property damage and the death of a Black man.<ref name="autogenerated1" />

Lee has been criticized for his treatment of women in his films. [[bell hooks]] said that he wrote Black women in the same objectifying way that White male filmmakers write the characters of White women.<ref>{{Cite book|last=hooks|first=bell|date=2014-10-10|title=Black Looks|doi=10.4324/9781315743226|isbn=9781315743226}}</ref> Rosie Perez, who made her acting debut as Tina in the film, later said that she was very uncomfortable with doing the nude scene in the film:

{{Blockquote
|text=My first experience [with doing nude scenes] was ''Do the Right Thing''. And I had a big problem with it, mainly because I was afraid of what my family would think—that's what was really bothering me. It wasn't really about taking off my clothes. But I also didn't feel good about it because the atmosphere wasn't correct. And when Spike Lee puts ice cubes on my nipples, the reason you don't see my head is because I'm crying. I was like, I don't want to do this.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/25/magazine/the-pressure-to-take-it-off.html|title=The Pressure To Take It Off|last=Udovitch|first=Mim|date=2000-06-25|work=The New York Times|access-date=2019-05-10|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331|archive-date=May 10, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190510110110/https://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/25/magazine/the-pressure-to-take-it-off.html|url-status=live}}</ref>
}}

Subsequently, Perez stated that Lee had offered an apology, and the two remained friends.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/rosie-perez-spike-lee-matrix-audition-1235566016/ |title=Rosie Perez on Making Peace with Spike Lee, Bombing Her 'Matrix' Audition and Why Hollywood's Latino Representation Still 'Sucks' |date=March 29, 2023 |access-date=November 30, 2023 |archive-date=March 31, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230331125542/https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/rosie-perez-spike-lee-matrix-audition-1235566016/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

In June 2006, ''[[Entertainment Weekly]]'' placed ''Do the Right Thing'' at No. 22 on its list of The 25 Most Controversial Movies Ever.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20141009035251/http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,1202224,00.html "The 25 Most Controversial Movies Ever"], ''Entertainment Weekly'' (Retrieved 9 Apr 2016).</ref>

In the 2021 [[Cannes Film Festival]] award ceremony, Chaz Ebert, the wife of the late film critic Roger Ebert, noted that her husband had been appalled that the film had not received any awards from the Cannes jury in 1989, and had even threatened to boycott the festival as a result.<ref>{{cite podcast|url=http://podbay.fm/p/the-big-picture/e/1629194400|title=Gene and Roger: 6. The Human Condition|date=August 17, 2021|website=The Big Picture|publisher=[[The Ringer (website)|The Ringer]]|via=Podboy|first=Brian|last=Raftery|access-date=July 8, 2022|archive-date=June 23, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230623063808/https://podbay.fm/p/the-big-picture/e/1629194400|url-status=live}}</ref> Lee noted that the U.S. press at the time thought the film "would start race riots all across America". Drawing a loud applause from attending press, he pointed to the continued relevance of the film's story, more than three decades on, saying: "You would think and hope that 30-something motherfucking years later that Black people would have stopped being hunted down like animals."<ref>{{Cite web|title=Spike Lee Reflects On 'Do The Right Thing' 32 Years Later; Says Black People Are Still "Being Hunted Down Like Animals" – Cannes|url=https://deadline.com/2021/07/spike-lee-do-the-right-thing-32-years-later-black-people-hunted-down-like-animals-cannes-1234786708/|url-status=live|access-date=2021-07-18|website=Deadline|date=July 6, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210706141724/https://deadline.com/2021/07/spike-lee-do-the-right-thing-32-years-later-black-people-hunted-down-like-animals-cannes-1234786708/ |archive-date=July 6, 2021}}</ref>

African-American [[Avant-garde film|avant-garde filmmaker]] Tony Cokes thought the juxtaposition of both the MLK and Malcolm X quotes was "muddle-headed politically" in the same way the riot started by Mookie was absurd as expression/response to things happening to people of color all over NYC's Metro area during the period. He also criticized the narrative as "producing an uncannily heavy identification with Sal and sons pizza shop as 'victims' of 'irrational black violence' for many critics and white viewers thinking that Radio Raheem deserved what he got from the police and thought the way Lee's construction of situations like the Michael Stewart case functioned was misrepresented and "a disservice".<ref>[https://www.google.com/books/edition/Adventures_of_Perception/vbowDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1 Adventures of Perception: Cinema as Exploration - Google Books (pgs.75-76)]</ref>

It also topped the list of [[The Orlando Sentinel]]'s overrated films of 1989 calling it "a tiresome combination of sitcom and message movie" that is "full of honest anger but expresses little else". The article also stated that:<ref>[https://www.orlandosentinel.com/1990/02/02/do-the-right-thing-tops-list-of-89-overrated-films/ 'DO THE RIGHT THING' TOPS LIST OF '89 OVERRATED FILMS – Orlando Sentinel]</ref>

<blockquote>It's hard to oppose a film that opposes racism without sounding racist – or at least racially biased – even if the film is superficial in its approach to the issue.</blockquote>