Actors and Performance in Do the Right Thing
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	A film's mise-en-scène is often held together by the performances of the actors. In Do the Right Thing the central character is unmistakably Mookie. All actors are, of course, performers, but in Do the Right Thing Mookie is a more self-conscious performer than most. His power and attraction comes in some ways from his ability to identify with other characters across generation and neighborhood borders and perform like a mirror, showing the other characters their true selves. In some ways he acts as
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	the truth teller of the film. For example, in this scene Pino and Mookie face off about the celebrities they identify with. Despite his overt racism, as Mookie points out, Pino's favorite celebrities are in fact African American. While Mookie is able to work the streets with style and sympathy, adapting himself to everyone and every situation, in his home life Mookie is a less successful performer. His partner, Tina, constantly berates him for never taking
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	responsibility. How would you define Mookie as the central performer? As simply self-serving and therefore hypocritical? As a peacemaker? Or as someone who eventually learns that to perform means to be responsible? Performance is at the heart of the mise-en-scène of Do the Right Thing, the performance of sympathy, the performance of difference, and in one of the most dramatic sequences in the film, the performance of racial rage and hatred. In this montage, various members of the neighborhood unleash a series of disturbing and stinging racial slurs about
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	blacks, Latinos, whites, and Asians. Running through the film's various performances is a common concern, one that is echoed in the title. What exactly is the right thing to do?