Inevitably, at least once a semester in one of my classes, I show Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing. It's a fantastically well made film, in terms of everything important in film making. The exposition of the characters isn't overly long, it's an ensemble piece, the cinematography is breathtaking, the music fits so well, the attention to how the film affects it's audience throughout, and so on, and so on...
It is also alienating. I watch my students sit quietly and struggle through the film, not entirely certain if they are getting anything from it. I often talk about how my hope for classes like Film and Culture is that I throw lots of different ideas at them and hope that something sticks - but I never really get to know what takes a hold in their minds and what they dismiss as being irrelevant.
Can I prepare them better? I don't think so. I think the nature of Do The Right Thing is to be in your face, to confront issues of race and racism and not let the audience up to breathe. The best approach I find is to talk about the history of black film making and black film makers, then watch the film, then try to talk about it afterwards. Sometimes the discussions are interesting and heated, and other times the discussions are quiet and require more prompting on my part to end up anywhere.
I don't plan on changing this film out for another any time soon.
A community college film adjunct talks about teaching.
