Honors 399 Final Paper Ideas:
- How would Spike Lee make Do The Right Thing today?
- Views about the ending of Do The Right Thing
- Did Spike Lee do the right thing in his film?
- Minor characters in Do The Right Thing and their significance
- The role of music in Do The Right Thing
- Symbols and images in Do The Right Thing—the heat, primary colors, names, the music
- Women and organizing in Norma Rae
- Race and ethnicity in Norma Rae
- Race and class in Norma Rae
- The outsider in films as different as Norma Rae and Just Mercy
- Men versus women in these films
- The issue of class in the films of this course
- From the rainy streets of 1920s Berlin to the hot sidewalks of Bedford-Styvesant—what connects the films of this class, or what contrasts do we find?
- From Murnaw’s doorman to Charlie Chaplin’s Tramp to Spike Lee’s Mookie, what do they share or how are they different?
- The idea of struggle-whether it’s James Allen for freedom, Rip Murdock for justice in a friend’s death, Bed-Sty’s fight against the “Man”, and Norma Rae versus the cotton mill bosses—and how they might be linked or be different
- A comparison/contrast of Do The Right Thing and Just Mercy
- The evolution of race as an issue or at least a presence from I Am A Fugitive on a Chain Gang to Just Mercy
- Systemic racism in Just Mercy
- From I Am a Fugitive on a Chain Gang to Chaplin to Just Mercy, a critique of the criminal justice system
