Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - Miscellaneous neighborhood Shock neighborhood Shock In Barnlund's essay "Communication in a Global Village" he says, "Tomorrow we can expect to spend most of our lives in the company of neighbors who will speak in a different tongue, seek different values, move at a different pace, and interact according to a different script (61). In Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing" he gives the viewer a glimpse of a community in which this is already taking place. He shows the struggle of people from different cultures trying to live side by side and the way they coexist in a shared environment. Each group has it's own way of dealing with the struggle and due to the lack of understanding and communication there arises conflict. In one scene, the camera focuses on Sal and his son Pino talking face to face and in their pizza shop. In the background you see the oriental couple standing outside their mini-mart as they too try and survive in a global village. Pino is telling his father how tired he is of trying to run their business in a black neighborhood as he asks, "Could we sell this and open up a new pizza parlor in our own neighborhood? Barnlund further explores this surcumstance when he says; "It is a feeling of helplessness, even of terror or anger, that accompanies working in an alien society. One feels trapped in an absurd and indecipherable nightmare" (72). I also think this is a great example of what Barnlund refers to as "interpersonal understanding" (68), the desire of people to associate with others that share the same views as themselves and who express themselves in similar ways. I think the significance of this scene is the way it shows people still feeling isolated and alone in an unfamiliar culture even though there are others right next to them suffering from the same depression. It is the failure to communicate with those around them that keeps people feeling isolated and alone. At one point in the movie a black teenager named Buggin' Out walks into Sal's pizza parlor and notices that there are not any pictures of African-Americans on the wall. As he argues with Sal to put up some pictures of blacks he says, "Rarely do I see any American-Italians eating in here, all I see is black folks. So since we spend much money here, we do have some say." To this Sal replies, "You want brothers on the wall, you can open your own place." Both Sal and Buggin' Out refuse to back down and accept each other and their respective cultural values. As Barnlund states, "What seems most critical is to find ways of gaining entrance into the assumptive world of another culture, to identify the norms that govern face-to-face relations…(63). By hanging the pictures of only American-Italians on his wall, Sal is setting up barriers that are stopping him from gaining entrance into Buggin' Out's "assumptive world." Sal is proud of who he is and where he comes from or more generally, his culture. I think he is unwilling to change his views because he still sees himself as a tourist or a visitor in the black community. He works to get along with his customers and looks for mutual respect but he is still not able to see them as friends or neighbors. I think the underlying problem that is demonstrated in the film is the failure of people to look past the faultlines of color and culture. I think this is well portrayed when Mookie asks who Pino's favorite celebrities are and Pino recites a list of mostly black athletes and entertainers. When Mookie asks him, "Why do you always say nigger this and nigger that when all your favorite people are black?" Pino replies, "To me they are not black, they are more than black." Why does he see these famous people as more than black when they probably grew up with the same people he calls niggers? He does not associate them with the black culture that he is surrounded by. He sees them as part of the same elite culture that includes all the white and Italian entertainers. He figures that they must be different if others except them. We so often just look at the surface and fail to search for what is truly beneath the skin and its color. Another example in "Do the Right Thing" of failing to look past color happens when a man tries to drive through a water fight between the inner-city kids. He gets sprayed as he drives by and when asked by the police who was to blame he replies; "It was Moe and Joe black." This man was not concerned with what individual was responsible, he just knew that they were black and that was all that mattered to him. He would have been happy to see any of them hauled off to jail whether they did it or not. This made me wonder how often we do this with other races. I don't think I have ever heard someone blame Moe and Joe white. If we are truly going to exist as a global village in the future we must at some point stop looking at people by the color of their skin and begin accepting people for who they are and what they contribute to our society. The most profound statement in the movie also happened to be the title. "Always do the right thing," Da Mayor tells Mookie at one point. In the movie, I think Da Mayor had a God like presence. He roamed the streets and seemed to see and hear everything that was going on around the neighborhood. Although he was a drunk he was also the one person who seemed able to look past these faultlines, not judge people by stereotypes. He had been part of the global village for many years and had learned to live with these people of other cultures. He knew the conflicts that arise when different cultures mix and he recognized that Mookie was feeling these strains. "Always do the right thing" was his way of telling Mookie to look past the cultural barriers and to view his problems for what they were and not matters of race or culture. Bibliography: The enduring vision, Boyer and clark Word Count: 1049
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