Spike Lee is a filmmaker that has never shied away from being outspoken and infusing his films with clear messages about society and the issues that plague the country. So, with the events that have been dominating the media over the past several days, stemming from the brutal killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis, it didn’t take long for Lee to put together a quick clip showcasing how his film, “Do the Right Thing,” connects to the string of police brutality issues that have been captured on video over the past few years.
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On Twitter, Lee released a video that he edited that shows clips from the senseless killings of Eric Garner and George Floyd, both being choked to death by police officers, as well as clips from a scene from “Do The Right Thing,” where Radio Raheem is in a similar situation. The video isn’t there to show that Spike Lee is some sort of Nostradamus that predicted a rash of police-involved murders of Black men, but instead to show that this is the type of violence that has been inflicted on the Black community for decades, which is why the filmmaker showed the reality in his 1989 film.
Lee’s video is just one of a multitude of messages that have been released over the past few days by actors, filmmakers, Hollywood studios, and more in the wake of Floyd’s death. We’ve seen the protests that have been happening in almost every state in the US, as well as overseas. And the anger that an entire community feels is palpable and understandable. People are pissed off, and Lee’s video shows why. This isn’t a new issue that has shown up in the past few years. This is something that originated back before Civil Rights and hasn’t changed since. It’s just that now we don’t have Lee showing it in his films, we have real people using their cameras to show the real violence and murder of people that aren’t actors on a controlled set.
You can watch Lee’s video below.