{"id":485,"date":"2014-06-30T20:08:00","date_gmt":"2014-07-01T00:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/2014\/06\/30\/today-weve-had-25-years-to-do-the-right-thing\/"},"modified":"2014-06-30T20:08:00","modified_gmt":"2014-07-01T00:08:00","slug":"today-weve-had-25-years-to-do-the-right-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/2014\/06\/30\/today-weve-had-25-years-to-do-the-right-thing\/","title":{"rendered":"Today, we&#8217;ve had 25 years to Do the Right Thing"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"clear: both;text-align: center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-6m3nE42dhwI\/U7H64AOB16I\/AAAAAAAABLg\/3wh6glx3VsI\/s1600\/dtrt.png\" height=\"163\" width=\"400\" \/><\/div>\n<p>25 years ago today, Spike Lee released <i>Do the Right Thing<\/i> (<a href=\"http:\/\/catalog.wrlc.org\/cgi-bin\/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=3472829\">HU DVD 38<\/a>), a landmark film about race relations that nearly speaks for itself. The film generated enormous controversy at its release, with one critic calling it &#8220;dynamite under every seat.&#8221; It immediately became a cultural touchstone and quickly cemented its status as one of the most significant (and most beloved) films of its time.<\/p>\n<p>In commemoration of a big day for a big movie, there&#8217;s been a whole slew of retrospectives and essays. For your reading pleasure, we&#8217;ll leave you with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/blogs\/codeswitch\/2014\/06\/30\/326797997\/do-the-right-thing-celebrates-its-25th-anniversary\">NPR&#8217;s recap of an Academy-sponsored screening<\/a> (complete with a stop-in by the Obamas, who saw <i>Do the Right Thing<\/i> on their first date); <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2014\/06\/30\/do-the-right-thing-anniversary_n_5543293.html\">Spike Lee&#8217;s reactions to early reviews that he slams as racist<\/a>; and a piece from Complex about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.complex.com\/city-guide\/2014\/06\/how-do-the-right-thing-predicted-our-current-frustrations-with-gentrification\">how the film anticipated today&#8217;s problems with gentrification<\/a>. They&#8217;re all great reads and provide some interesting insight into how this film has stayed relevant and shocking even after a quarter century. You might also want to check out <a href=\"http:\/\/instagram.com\/sheltonjlee\">Spike Lee&#8217;s Instagram<\/a>, where he&#8217;s been having some fun with the big anniversary.<\/p>\n<p>Appropriately, it was swelteringly hot outside today. (Maybe not a good day to get pizza though.)\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>25 years ago today, Spike Lee released Do the Right Thing (HU DVD 38), a landmark film about race relations that nearly speaks for itself. The film generated enormous controversy at its release, with one critic calling it &#8220;dynamite under every seat.&#8221; It immediately became a cultural touchstone and quickly cemented its status as one [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[39,355],"class_list":["post-485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-anniversaries","tag-timely-things"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}