MovieChat Forums > Do the Right Thing (1989) Discussion > Great film.... but Sal forgot how to run...

Great film.... but Sal forgot how to run an American business.

posted 13 years ago by dasein_williams
87 replies | jump to latest

The double standards in American culture are amazing sometimes...

I don't think there was anything unreasonable about asking Sal to put some black stars on his wall of fame. He was in a black neighborhood. Making money off of black customers in a black community.

The customer is always right, remember? Isn't that what we say in America? (Or does that not apply if the customer is not the right color? It's not about cultural sensitivity... it's about Sal having good business sense.)

Many Americans (of every color, including black) will get up in arms about the AUDACITY of Buggin Out wanting black people on Sal's Wall of Fame... but have no problems complaining bitterly that the person helping them on the customer support line has a strong Indian accent... or that the signs in their local bank are written in both Spanish & English (or Chinese & English) instead of being English-only.

If you're in a business, you cater to your clientele. Period. It's the American way. You only want Italians on the wall? Make sure you have enough Italian customers coming to that black neighborhood to stay in business and then you don't have a problem.

Where Sal went wrong is in thinking he could come into a community, run his pizzeria without customer input, and then try to get violent in response. Had Sal not threatened Buggin with a baseball bat for verbally expressing himself, he wouldn't have set off the chain of events that followed, the least of which was the burning of his pizzeria. Somebody was killed, remember?

[–] PurpleLemonadeDinosaur 12 years ago

Sal was a great American business man. No one had any issues with Italian Americans on his wall due to it being an Italian pizzeria. The only people who had an issue was Buggin Out and Raheem. Sal was right. If this was their restaurant, they could do whatever they want. But he was an Italian man proud of his heritage and wanted to represent Italian Americans. It would be the same thing if a black man ran a restaurant and had pictures of great African Americans on the wall.

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[–] kag2 12 years ago

I have seen Arab and Chinese small business owners in a black neighborhood display pictures of Barack Obama. Some would call this a sign of respect. Others would call it is a patronizing attempt to buy favor.

It was Sal's choice. Not a very smart choice. But you saw what happened when Buggin Out tried to get others to boycott.

[–] 12 years ago

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[–] Robbmonster 11 years ago

Exactly right, and it brings up a matter of perspective that no one else on the board has considered.

Imagine the following in a film...

Black family runs a pizzeria in an Italian neighborhood. The walls are adorned with pictures of great black entertainers.

A pair of grandstanding, self-important mafioso-wannabe Italian kids come in and demand pictures of Italian entertainers be put on the wall.

Black store owner tells them where to go, chaos ensues.

I wonder what the race/right vs wrong argument would be if this was the case. Sal is Italian-American, proud of his hertage and allowed to be. African-Americans don't have a monopoly on racial pride.

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[–] TopFrog 11 years ago

I have a little familiarity with Italian-American neighborhoods, since my wife used to live in one (in the mid-1980s), and hoo-boy was there trouble when she had a black friend stop by to visit her once. (Let's just say she took the hint and from then on met her friend outside that neighborhood.)

Based on that experience, I find your hypothetical laughable. Not only would a pizzeria (a pizzeria!) run by a black family in an Italian neighbor get essentially *zero* business, as in not one customer from the neighborhood, I doubt it would even stay in business long enough to financially fail. There would be a fire or some other sort of property damage that would shut it down long before it went bankrupt.

(Of course perhaps there are now Italian neighborhoods somewhere that wouldn't be so hostile to a pizzeria run by a black family.)

[–] Robbmonster 11 years ago

I'm glad you got the point.

But if you must split hairs, try to rethink my original post with 'burger joint' instead of 'pizzeria' if you must.

Or even better, just imagine the same situation in Do the Right Thing with races reversed.

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[–] TopFrog 11 years ago

Actually I'm not sure what conclusion to draw from the comparison. A black restaurant in an Italian neighborhood would likely be shunned from the get-go, which would be rightly viewed as racist on the part of the neighborhood residents. But that's not the same as if the restaurant was popular with the neighborhood residents, but the residents who patronized the restaurant and made it popular then felt it was wrong that the restaurant didn't reflect the character of the neighborhood by including some pictures of Italians on the restaurant's walls. And when you get right down to it, you miss an important element when you draw up a hypothetical by just flipping the races -- African Americans have been historically repressed, and have been underrepresented in business ownership, even in their own neighborhoods.

Look, I think that Buggin' Out's demand for pictures of black people on Sal's wall was silly. If I go into an Italian restaurant (even a cheap pizzeria) I expect it to be decorated in an Italian theme, just like I'd expect an Ethiopian restaurant to be decorated in an African theme. However, I don't think that the movie was taking the position that Sal was in the wrong regarding this.

[–] Robbmonster 11 years ago

I understand what you mean, but how long will the 'historically repressed' thing hold water? As others have pointed out, if you don't like the theme of the restaurant, boycott. And similarly, the pictures on the wall were not a problem for a long time then suddenly they were.

I understand that simply 'flipping races' doesn't work, I'm not that naive, I just figured it was interesting food for thought.

But yeah, Buggin' Out was basically a jerk trying to win a pissing contest. Then the mob mentality took over.

Frankly, I think it's great we are discussing this. It's a testement to the quality of the film and the issues it raises, and the lack of abuse in this thread about what is definitely a sensitive topic is refreshing.

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[–] elizabethalice08 12 years ago

I agree. that racist *beep* did not know how to run a business and it ended up costing someone a life and his business to burn down. But then again, Italians are notorious racists.

[–] maxskyfan-9 12 years ago

It was racist to keep pictures he wanted on the walls? You make as much sense as having a dinner party on a sinking yacht in the middle of a hurricane. The way he made pizza cost someone his life? Then he set fire to his pizzeria? How deluded can someone be? Sal didn’t have any problem with selling someone pizza and that is what he was in business to do. If you are going to blame him for causing his business to go up in flames then you might want to blame him for the changing of the tides or the sun in the sky. I was at an Italian restaurant recently. The owner had over a dozen picture of the actress Sophia Loren. I asked him why he displayed her photographs. He said his mother like Sophia Loren. I won’t say where his restaurant is located because you might decide to burn it down for that very reason and I might want to go back there some day.

[–] yfguitarist 11 years ago

Uh, no, Sal is not to blame here. He didn't owe Buggin' Out anything. Buggin' Out was incredibly rude and demanding and needed to eff off with his sense of entitlement. Then he brings his goon Radio Raheem to try to intimidate Sal with the threat of violence.

[–] 11 years ago

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[–] liquidchaoss 11 years ago

The ending was weird to me, they rioted and burned down the restaurant not because of anything but mob mentality. They were blaming Sal and his sons for the death of Radio Raheem. Really? Good thing Mookie shifted the hate to the restaurant otherwise Sal and his sons would of gotten hurt real bad or killed over something they were not responsible for. Herd mentality can be very dangerous.

[–] screenscreams 11 years ago

Well said. Sal was no businessman. Who the hell breaks a customer's radio because it's too loud? No one has the right to do that, anyway. Sal didn't care about repeat business, that's for sure. He was clueless and didn't know a thing about personal boundaries. In some neighborhoods, breaking someone else's property is risking your life, and Sal was way old enough to know that.

[–] samotraki 11 years ago

Great chain of post everybody, that pictures perfecftly the message of the movie. It's not that simple to do the right thing. No matter how logical you are, and how hard you try.

[–] IMDB_Vits 11 years ago

If I had looked at that wall, I wouldn't have said "Hmmm... They're all Italians". I mean, I also could've said "Hmmm... They're all white". But I most likely would've said "Hmmm... They're all famous".

[–] lola_mento 10 years ago

You make some good points, OP. You have to adapt to you enviroment if you want to have a successful business. There's no need to be hard-headed at a customer suggestion. Even though he went the wrong way about it.

[–] friendoffilm 10 years ago

Maybe some compromising on the part of Sal regarding pics on his walls would've been better, but the very fact that the people demanding that Sal put some pics of black heroes on the walls of his pizzeria got so up in arms and nasty about it that a riot erupted that ultimately ended with the total destruction of Sal's business was inexcusable, imho.

The message of this film was that almost nobody, including Sal, did the right thing here. Everybody ultimately lost as a result of bad behavior.