Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing remains a canonical and much-discussed film primarily for the way that it has been able to engender continued debate about the politics of race and representation since it was first released in 1989. In this essay, I would like to consider the global circulations of American culture industries, and how the meanings of Do the Right Thing might dovetail with South African debates regarding politics and media representation. To do so, I examine the twin interventions of the film around the politics of race and the politics of representation in order to illuminate why Lee’s filmic text might have particular resonance for South African audiences. The South African film scholar Dylan Valley discusses encountering the film for the first time: “it had been nearly 20 years since the film’s inception and it took place in a completely different context and yet it was so relatable.” Valley suggests that the relatability of the film is anchored in the ways in which it is able to lay bare the material conditions of race in the American context and the familiarity of this condition for South Africans. Early 1990s South Africa was a chaotic time, yet it was also a time of great hope. One of the central themes of Lee’s film is the sense of exclusion felt by the black people in his constructed Brooklyn neighborhood. Whether it was forms of economic exclusion represented by the lack of black ownership of businesses in their community, or examples of representational exclusion from Sal’s “Wall of Fame,” the theme of exclusion is key. In those explosive and uncertain times of the early 1990s, I have to imagine that part of the resonance of the text with South Africa lay in the notion of inclusion and the fears and hopes that this brought for South Africans. The apartheid state was built of various different forms of violent exclusion of black South Africans, and the transition period of the early 1990s offered a hopeful, if incomplete and not entirely satisfactory answer to those forms of exclusion. The film would have resonated as a potentially cautionary tale of what happens when violent forms of exclusion continue to be perpetuated. Yet 30 years later, the optimism of hope in South African politics has withered away. Many black South Africans in particular remain unsatisfied with the nature of their inclusion in the post-apartheid political economy. Valley mentions in particular the Marikana massacre of 2012 as an important example of what it means to be included in a post-apartheid South Africa that prizes protection of white capital (property) over black people. This resonates with one of the major points that Lee made about the interpretation that various audiences had to the critical scene of violence that

中文翻译：

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在种族隔离后的南非做正确的事

斯派克·李（Spike Lee）的《做正确的事》（Do the Right Thing）仍然是一部经典电影，受到广泛讨论，主要是因为自1989年首次发行以来，它一直能够引起有关种族和代表政治的持续辩论。在本文中，我想考虑到美国文化产业的全球流通，以及“做正确的事”的含义可能与南非有关政治和媒体代表性的辩论相吻合。为此，我考察了电影围绕种族政治和代表政治的双重干预，以阐明为什么李的电影文字可能会引起南非观众的共鸣。南非电影学者迪伦·谷（Dylan Valley）首次讨论了与这部电影的相遇：“自电影诞生以来已经有将近20年的时间了，它发生在完全不同的背景下，但它是如此的相关。” 瓦利认为，影片的相关性在于它能够揭露美国背景下的种族物质条件以及南非人对这种条件的熟悉程度。1990年代初，南非是一个混乱的时期，但它也是充满希望的时期。李的电影的中心主题之一是黑人在布鲁克林居住区所感受到的排斥感。无论是以社区中企业缺乏黑人所有权为代表的经济排斥形式，还是萨尔（Sal）的《名人堂》（Wall of Fame）中代表性排斥的例子，排斥的主题都是关键。在1990年代初期的爆炸性和不确定性时期，我必须想象，该案文与南非的共鸣部分在于包容性概念以及这给南非人带来的恐惧和希望。种族隔离国家是由各种不同形式的暴力排斥南非黑人建立起来的，1990年代初期的过渡时期为这些形式的排斥提供了一个有希望的，甚至是不完全的和不完全令人满意的答案。这部电影可能会引起警惕，因为当暴力形式的排斥形式继续存在时会发生什么。然而30年后，对南非政治的希望的乐观主义逐渐消退。尤其是许多南非黑人对将他们纳入种族隔离后的政治经济的性质仍然不满意。瓦利特别提到2012年的马里卡纳大屠杀，这是一个重要例子，说明被纳入种族隔离后的南非意味着对白人的保护优先于白人（财产）。这与李对主要听众对暴力事件的关键场景的解释所要表达的主要观点产生共鸣。