Spike Lee: critics said Do the Right Thing would ‘incite riots’
Spike Lee has criticised press reaction to Do the Right Thing on its release in 1989, saying “those motherfuckers” claimed the film would “incite black people to riot”.
Lee was speaking at an awards ceremony at the Toronto film festival, at which he was given the Ebert director award, designed to recognise filmmakers “who have exemplified greatness in their careers”. The award is named after prominent film critic Roger Ebert, who died in 2013, and Lee acknowledged Ebert’s support when the film received its world premiere at the Cannes film festival.
Lee said: “[Ebert] was very crucial to my career … in 1989, in Cannes, [he] got behind me when those motherfuckers in the press were saying that Do the Right Thing was going to incite black people to riot, that that this film could not be shown in the United States, that black people … would see the film and take to the streets.”
Adding “I know it’s a long time ago, and you should let some grudges go”, Lee named two writers whose comments he particularly objected to: film critic David Denby and Primary Colors author Joe Klein, whose articles both appeared in the same issue of New York magazine in June 1989. Lee said: “David Denby and Joe Klein wrote articles … saying: hope to God this film does not open in your neighbourhood, that this film Do the Right Thing will incite black people to tear shit up, take to the streets, like Detroit and Newark.”
Denby, later to become a regular critic for the New Yorker, reviewed Do the Right Thing in New York magazine, saying: “This immensely skilful, humane, and richly detailed movie about racism in New York suffers from trying to satisfy everyone”. He added: “If Spike Lee is a commercial opportunist, he’s also playing with dynamite in an urban playground. The response to the movie could get away from him.”
Klein, who wrote a regular political column for New York magazine, published an article about New York’s then mayoral candidate David Dinkins and
how Do the Right Thing may undermine his campaign, saying the film was “reckless” and “there’s a good chance … [it] will increase racial tensions”. Klein mentioned the film “opens on 30 June (in not too many theatres near you, one hopes).”
Ebert, in contrast, wrote in his review of Do the Right Thing in 1989: “Some of the advance articles about this movie have suggested that it is an incitement to racial violence. Those articles say more about their authors than about the movie.” No riots or civil unrest were reported when the film was screened.