Scarlet Masque Theatre Journal New Beginnings and Fond Farewells Vol. 1 | Page 82

Maloney 19
are exposed to a film like ​ Do the Right Thing ​ . In response, rather than grapple with the complex
ideas and situations shown on the screen, they revert to simplistic, sometimes even prejudiced
reactions. They cherry pick which moments of the film truly “matter,” and reject the rest as
shoddy filmmaking. But, after all, they are movie reviewers. The scholarly work to which they
are compared in this essay clearly reflects a much higher expectation of writing. Is it fair to hold
these men’s interpretations under the microscope of academic journals? It would only be fair,
one could argue, if there were a film critic who wrote reviews with similar consideration and
attention to nuance. Luckily, there exists one such critic: Roger Ebert.
Ebert wrote his review of ​ Do the Right Thing ​ on June 30​ th​ , 1989, the day it was released
to the general public. He begins his own review by citing the polarizing reactions he has seen in
other people already:
Some of them are bothered by it; they think it will cause trouble. Others feel the
message is confused. Some find it too militant, others find it the work of a middle-class
director who is trying to play street-smart (Ebert).
Ebert, however, does not feel a need to pigeonhole himself into one emotional reaction.
He identifies the cause of these deep, impassioned receptions as avoidance of “the central fact
of the film, which is that it comes closer to reflecting the current state of race relations in
America than any other move of our time.” Ebert believes that so many people—including
people like Corliss, Klein, and Kunen—are responding so viscerally because they are
uncomfortable. And Ebert’s response? That it is perfectly okay:
Of course [​ Do the Right Thing ​ ] is confused. Of course it wavers between middle-class