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Right out of the gate you could tell this was very few peoples’ first time. As the now iconic opening scene of Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing (1989), which celebrated its 30th anniversary on Sunday night, started to play across the inflatable, matte white screen, knowing cheers broke out among the audience. Having waited patiently on sprawling sheets and blankets since “doors” opened at 7:30, excitement bounced through the crowd gathered on Fort Greene Park’s western lawn as Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” blared through portable speakers. It had begun.
And while thirty years have passed, the film’s themes of police brutality, gentrification, and representation have yet to reach an end.
“This entire thing has really felt like a full circle,” says Jon Logan, pausing to speak with me between capturing photos for the event. “It’s amazing to be in a space designed to celebrate arts and blackness all in one.”
Centered around the Black community of Bed-Stuy, Do The Right Thing explores race, violence and community as they come together and clash on the hottest day of the year. As tensions rose on screen, ticking like a time bomb in the relentless heat, a cold wind blew through the audience, forcing viewers to tear their eyes away in search of extra layers. Fort Greene resident Peter Steinberg bundled up alone, unable to convince his two children to join in. Sarah-Christin Richter, an artist who recently moved to the neighborhood from Hamburg, Germany, moved to tuck her well-dressed puppet creation Walter deeper into her bag. But even in the breeze, appreciation for the film refused to sway.
“Do The Right Thing meant so much to this neighborhood and brought so much recognition and visibility to this place,” said Bed-Stuy resident Ansley Hobbes, wrapped inside a blanket cocoon. “To be able to sit down in the park with the people who live in this area is amazing. It seems like it really brought together people of all different ages and races, which perhaps was the hope of putting out a movie like this, just to bring people together to talk about the hard stuff.”
The anniversary’s neighborhood celebrations stretched well beyond the lawns of Fort Greene Park. The screening was preceded by an all-day block party on the street in Bed-Stuy, now known as “Do The Right Thing Way,” where the majority of the film was shot. The block was once again transformed, filled to the brim with laughter and music as community members celebrated the culture that Spike Lee played an integral role in strengthening. The Museum of Contemporary African Diaspora Arts (MoCADA), which is currently hosting a summer-long exhibition centered around Lee and his life’s work, helped to restore the “Bed-Stuy – Do or Die” mural featured in the film.
Sunday’s screening, however, stood out among the rest as a celebration of Spike Lee himself as well as the work he has since become known for. With his debut film She’s Gotta Have It (1986), being based on and filmed in Fort Greene (“Nola sat right there!” one attendant exclaimed, pointing towards the park’s famous Prison Ship Martyr Monument) and his production company Forty Acres & A Mule Filmworks being located only a block away, Lee’s status as a Fort Greene resident was never far from mind. Though audience members tapped each other and smirked in recognition at the film’s Bed-Stuy apartment facades, the neighborhood pride couldn’t help but be felt.
“It’s critical for us to be able to come together and find these moments of joy,” Logan said, packing up his camera for the night. “To celebrate the work of one of our own.”