A New Black Aesthetic” and not “A New Blackness”: An Analysis of Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing

Abstract

This dissertation examines race, politics, culture, and class in the cinematic representations developed by Spike Lee through the lens of African American aesthetic values. Scholars have classified Spike Lee as the most important (and certainly most successful) African American filmmaker in American history. Critics and scholars alike have extensively examined Lee’s often-controversial productions since his first film, She’s Gotta Have It, was released. In this work, I explore Spike Lee’s most controversial “joint,” Do the Right Thing, (DTRT) through a historical, communication studies lens. I critically examine Lee’s work within the broad historical framework of African American cultural history and in terms of his engagement with controversial social, political, and economic issues in American society. Through a reading of Trey Ellis’s Platitude & The New Black Aesthetic (1988), I interrogate how Lee complicates the formation of “New Blackness.”