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Menace II Society vs. Do The Right Thing

by Alper Caglar

In the last few decades more and more black filmmakers have been critically acclaimed for their innovative films dealing with social and racial problems. Their works try to provide a guiding light for the black community. They often address problematic issues in today's communities by criticizing issues through a mass medium. Amongst the many examples of films depicting the black community, there are several independent works which had profound impact on our society today. In this paper I will try to compare the political and stylistic differences between two drastically different movies made by black filmmakers: Do The Right Thing by Spike Lee, and Menace II Society by the Hughes Brothers. I will also examine the differences between the directors in terms of being independent, and free of the mainstream film culture.

Do The Right Thing is a movie which has created an immense amount of controversy regarding its explosive culmination. Set in a Brooklyn neighborhood during the hottest day of the summer, director Lee observes and depicts racist tension brewing up within the small community. It is a masterpiece within Spike Lee's career, in which he uses style and finesse to reach a dramatic crescendo in the end.

Menace II Society on the other hand, is the story of a young man seeking his future in crime. Dramatic in its own right, Menace uses disturbing visuals and visceral violence to portray the cruelty of crime within the Black Ghetto. It is a narrative which has no single political agenda, but rather uses them as plot elements sprinkled throughout the course of the film.

There is an obvious dissimilarity between the two independent films and their directors both in terms of style and storytelling. One film deals with racism, and the other with the violent lifestyle in the ghetto. Spike Lee chooses to show us a story which exposes covert discrimination in a seemingly united community. His main agenda is to address the ever-present racial disdain. Themes such as heat and poverty only make the inherent prejudice surface throughout the movie. The Hughes brothers on the other hand use the elements of violence and misguidance in their rawest form. The sins and the virtues within Menace are clear and present. That is what makes their movie powerful, as they depict a world which is not filtered but told in a straightforward way.

Without a doubt, as Spike Lee himself accepts it in the introduction to his production handbook, Do The Right Thing is a very political movie. It is made to actively provoke thought and reaction to the storyline. Lee criticizes the diversion of the productive energies of black youth, and the dominance of white businesses within black communities. The film itself is very deep and subtle in terms of establishing the characters. Every character gets into the spotlight throughout the film and have a significance that will further the cause of the storytelling.

I would like this script to be circular. Every character should have a function. If a character is introduced, he or she should appear again and advance the script in some way. (Spike Lee, Film Diary pg. 32)

After the characters are established we see a rise in the tempo of the film. This stylistic choice ironically comes with the arrival of sun-down. Although the heat has served its purpose in serving as a catalyst for aggression, things have become irreversible now. Main and secondary characters slowly begin shedding their tolerant skin and showing us their true personality full of contempt for others. Scenes like the track-ins on main characters as they insult some other racial character are prime examples of this. As we near the inevitable explosion of tension and police brutality, Radio Raheem, Sal and all the likeable characters begin their descent towards that fateful ending. The director changes our outlook on them all in the end without a second thought. They are believable and often humorous, providing us with a sense of sympathy towards them, but when the moment comes we all see their darker side of intolerance.

The treatment of racism [in Do The Right Thing] will have to be carried in the subtext until the end of the film. Then again, being too avant-garde, too indirect, might trivialize the subject matter. Any approach I take must be done carefully and realistically. (Lee, Film Diary, pg. 33)

The film challenges mainstream in its perception of racism. Everything within the images has a deeper reason for being there. Spike Lee attempts to put meaning into every minor detail as he wishes to justify the violence in the end. He sees the death of the black youngster more important than the loss of property of the white-owned business. He fervently claims that a considerable portions of his critics who claim that he tries to incite riots, forget the death of Radio Raheem, and the irreversible significance of that (DVD Final Thoughts). His argument is that racism is deep rooted within American culture and it will not always be resolved peacefully. This is one of the reasons why I felt Do The Right Thing was a true independent film. It did not hesitate to challenge conventions of portraying bigotry, and did not give quarter to unnecessary peacemaking. It tried to depict the world as it really was albeit within the boundaries of Lee's political view of the world.

That's why this film must have a coda on the end. I'd get myself hung by showing violence for violence's sake. / It has to be subtle. It can't be any of this We-Are-The-World, We-Are-God's-Children, We-Can-Work-It-Out shit, either. But it has to be honest. (Lee, Film Diary, pg. 42)

Menace II Society on the other hand thrived by showing us random acts of violence and hatred. It was not as planned and calculated as Lee's film, infact it was purposefully crafted into a chaotic portrayal of the African-American gangster youth. In an interview, Hughes brother say:

If you already hate Blacks, this film will make you hate them more. If you are liberal though, it may lead you into contemplating the issue. (Interview)

This appears to be their general outlook towards the film. They are obviously following the footsteps of Scorsese and De Palma (DVD Interview), in depicting a brutal world which is unpredictable in its ferocity. Even during the film Caine tells us how the Hood is sometimes like that, as it surprises you with a sudden development or random event. Unlike Lee, the Hughes Brothers prefer to let the events and characters get out of control. They are obviously not as scripted as their counterparts. In their DVD Interview they mention that:

We initially never thought that Larenz Tate would be O-Dog. He was completely not the person we had in mind for the role. Jada Pinkett wasn't the exact idea we had either. / But as we went on we noticed that the actors added so much to those characters so we gave them freedom in developing them.

Unlike Lee's film, Menace II Society is not structured in dealing with different characters. They are not so strictly affiliated with any sort of race or ethnicity. There is no single Sal or Mookie character within their script, as they wanted their characters to be layered with many different types of emotions.

We had to make Caine a middle of the ground type of character, we couldn't make him too far out on [violence] or vice versa. / We did not want to make a movie about [L.A.] Gangs, with colors. Plus we thought just being gangsters [young group of friends] would be more universal, as people can identify with them more.

Their film is very unlike ordinary mainstream pictures as well. The level of unrestricted violence in the film disturbs the viewer. There are elements which most Hollywood directors dare not expose audience to. Unexplained deaths and acts of murder occur throughout the film. All of these aspects complement the theme of savagery and show us a world where nothing is truly safe. Whereas Do The Right thing built up the tension until it broke with an intricate riot scene, Menace II Society is full of equally shocking moments for the audience. The disturbing scenes overpower your senses after a while, and the Directors succeed in making you insensitive to violence just like those kids in the movie.

There were many innovations in terms of visuals in both films, despite their limited budgets. Do The Right Thing was filmed with a 6.5 million dollar budget, and Menace II Society was filmed with a 3 million dollar budget. Both had to squeeze the last amount of financial benefit from their sponsors, and made great use of it. The atmosphere of desert orange and faded red amid the scorched summer within Brooklyn was art in its own right. In every shot made me feel uncomfortable watching the characters sweat and fan themselves frantically. Similarly, in Menace, I was deeply affected my the concrete monstrosity of the environment. There was a Neo-Realist use of environment as the camera glided around the industrial suburbs making us see the modern hell these people lived in. The meager existence of greens and blues, made me feel as if the movie itself was set in a world which was dying, similar to the young and unfortunate characters within it.

One could try, but ultimately never manage to compare the intricate symbolic storytelling within a Spike Lee movie and the no-holds-barred visuals in a Hughes Brothers film. Yet when we analyze the political motives, Menace to Society was a far more untainted in terms of feeding the audience with a specific claim. Spike Lee attempted and triumphed in creating an immense amount of controversy in an age of racist police brutality whereas the Hughes brothers skillfully exhibited the quicksand of violence today's poor neighborhoods are in. However righteous and powerful the argument may have been, I feel as if I had more spectator freedom within Menace in terms of judging issues and characters.

Bibliography

Films

Lee, Spike Do The Right Thing
Universal Pictures, 1989

Hughes Brothers Menace II Society
New Line Cinema, 1993

Books
Lee, Spike with Jones, Lisa Do The Right Thing
New York, Simon & Schuster Inc. 1989

Interviews
Hughes Brothers Menace II Society DVD Interview
New Line Cinema, 1993

Lee, Spike Do The Right Thing DVD Commentary
Universal Pictures, 1999