Shortly after the video was released of George Floyd being killed by a police officer and protests began to rise up around the US, Spike Lee released a short clip editing together the videos of Floyd and Eric Garner being killed alongside a similar scene in the director’s own “Do The Right Thing,” asking the question, “When will history stop repeating itself?” In a new interview with the Los Angeles Times, Lee talked about the connection between his 1989 acclaimed film and the recent racist killings of Black folks and why he thinks 2020 is already one of the worst years ever.
While Lee didn’t necessarily bring up the connection between the scene from “Do The Right Thing” and the recent George Floyd killing, the filmmaker did discuss how one of the biggest criticisms of his film back in 1989 can be explained by the events of 2020.
“One of the biggest criticisms of ‘Do the Right Thing’ was that I did not provide the answer to racism at the end of the movie,” the filmmaker said. “And here we are in modern-day America, pandemic America, and cities are up in flames. … I’ve just been taken away with Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor — I mean, it’s like open season.”
Lee went on to talk about how he is often seen by members of the international press as the defacto speaker for the entire Black community in the US. And back when he did this in 2018, he thought the worst was already behind him, in regards to the state of the US. Needless to say, Lee can tell that 2020 has already surpassed previous years in terms of awfulness.
“Let me tell you a story,” Lee explained. “I knew I was going to the Cannes Film Festival [in 2018] with ‘BlacKkKlansman.’ And I know anytime I go to Cannes, the world’s journalists falsely look at me as a spokesperson for every single African American. I knew they were going to ask me questions about Agent Orange [Donald Trump] and what’s happening in America.”
He continued, “So I came up with this novel idea of trying to pick a film title that I felt would be short and to the point and I picked the film ‘The Year of Living Dangerously.’ That was 2018. But I’m going to extend that to 2020. This year has been horrific. This is going to go down as one of the worst years ever. And it’s only May.”
With nightly protests all across the country and the continued polarization of the US population, with racism actually being something that not everyone can see eye-to-eye on, it’s obvious why Lee feels this way about 2020. Hopefully, June and beyond can only lead to better outcomes. Or perhaps I’m being way too optimistic.