CINEMATIC URBANISM

A History of the Modern from Reel to Real

Nezar AlSayyad

.')
,{'o lj 5
E) Routledge
E \ Taylor& Francis Croup
 r City', jn
: .. Blade

Chapter B
- S:orsese
.'= lvlellds,
---30 The An Alternate Modernity:
,- House,
Race, Ethnicity and the
- Taubin,
3:rrader
Urban Experience
: -e SIOr!

It can be said that raccl and ethnicity2 have been insufficiently undcrstood
as essential mediators of the c>.perience of modernity. While scholars
continue to tackle new concepts with enthusiasm, much of the work has
been limited to the framcworks of segregation and difference. Despite the
absence of cmpirical evidence, the presence of so-called cthnic minorities
in certain socicties has often been attributed to migration, immigration
and rcsettlement, gradual or sudden. It may be reasonable to suggest that
all racial groups are, in a sense, ethnic groups. This however is not the
position adopted in this chapter, which accepts that racc and ethniciry as
:^ Film', social categories are modern inventions produced primarily for political
;':ahy of reasons and governance purposes. Hence, in this chapter we will invoke
both conccpts, often interchangeably, using the terminology applied by other
authors to describe relevant commensurate cinematic or urban examples.
In urban studies, thcre has been very littlc attention given to the
interscction of ethnic difTerence, modernity, and spatial geography.
Following earlier sociological studies, race has only been analysed within
the modern American and European city according to a rhetoric of crisis.
This has limitcd its scope either to a study of the spaces of marginality or
an exploration of the phenomenon of urban violence as a rcsult of racial or
ethnic tension.
Thc understanding of urban modernity itself leans heavily upon a
particularly European e>.perience that chooscs the end of thc nineteenth
century as its originary moment.r Scholars such as Paul Gilroy have
specifically critiqued these descriptions, and argued that such theorctical
lrameworks are overly influenced by the project of the Europcan
Enlightenment, which largcly included ongoing brutality against blacks
and othcr subject races during the colonial era.a In reccnt years, howevcr,
postcolonial and ethnic studies have attemptcd to adjust this model according
to the notion of alternative modernities.s However, these effbcts have paid
 T

little atter-rtictn to the intricacics of race and ethnicity as tl-rcy play ,-rut ill H.
space, or as they constitLlte a poiitics of place. For cxamplc, nlorc often than t-... _'

not, 'blackness' has been conflated with othcr forms of marginaliry povcrry Pr -:.
and discnfranchiscment to provide a generalized Other to 'whiteness'. And th,:
when black identity in the contcmporary city is analysed, it has bccn cast at'.,

ollen only in tcrms of thc black hctcrosexual male, avoiding a coltversatioll d:::-
of gendcr and racc as disparatc subject pctsitions. Indeed, in allalysing urban h:.
modernities in thc context of race, thc rclationship bctlveen rnoderniry and p'- :.
postmodernity is revcalcd to exist in a continuum; a tension depicted in the il-,- .

films used in this chapter. Though race and ethnicity are mcdiators through f't":-
which the city is expcricnced, they unscttle critical assullptions of hybridity T

and struggles over the right to the city. ttr l.

Unlikc scholars of urbanism, scholars of cultural studies and sociology th.
have long recognizcd the ditTiculties poscd by racial identity. For examplc, as L-ll'
long ago as 1899 VIE.B. Du Bois argued that: u'l--
ce :--

Herein lie buned many things which if read with patience may show the strange h-,.
meaning of being black here in the dawning of the Twentieth Century This meaning is F,r:-,
not without rnterest to you, Gentle Reader; for the prob em of the Twentieth Century is Si---,-

lhe probler ol tte colo- ne.' In-:.

.,r-: : --

These words should be read by all who continue to evade the questiorr Fr.
of race in their understanding of the Nventieth-ccntury city. Irr particular, o Ll:
Du Rois's notion of black consciousness was tied to the African-An-rerican th-. .

cxperiencc of being locked into a doublc-consciousness of being both black .1C r:

and Americatr. Among other things, he saw this as creating an uncomfortablc tcl.::
oscillation of idcntiry that dcnied a confidcnt or whole self-conscioustless.' LtL .

Thc time whcn Dr-r Bois was writing was also when American cities werc in:..
being rcstructured in terrns of their racial composition due to the Clreat th:::
Sor-rth-North Migration. As St. Clair Drake and Horace R. Cayton pointed D,
out in Black Metropolrs (1945), tlie influr of black workers into northcrn A:-,
citics grew significantly during World Wars I and II, when labour shortagcs :
led recruitcrs to comb the South for workcrs, aud transport blacks up north H,',
to serve as metrial labourers.s Ilowever, whilc Europcan immigrants had th:'- -

bccn absorbcd into the city, procecding through various urbatr zones, and alt: -'
moving from cthnically homogenous neighbourhoods to thc 'mclting-pclt' il!':
suburbs, African-Americans retnaincd confined to the inner city, to what An.-
Drake and Cayton call 'Black Mctropolis'. The mechanisms of ethno-racial bt:- :
ciosurc and control, including racial violence, techttologics of city planning, tr.i ...

and whitc flight, constitute what is the specific socio-spatial formation of the Lr':-:
'ghetto'. C)lt -

In contrast to Du llois's readir-rg of black subjectivity in the US, Stuart vir"-:.,

]90 . C]NEIVATIC URBANISM

 notion of contemporary
1n Hall has more recently attempted to address the
black and ethnic identity in the UK' Speaking
from a postcolonial vantage
lan
and political category
rty, point, Hall sees blackness as a broad historical, cultural
md thatwasrelentlesslyproduced,anddoubtlesslyresistedduringthecolonial
era.e Hall has further echoed Gilroy's
analysis of the centrality of race in a
:a5t
deeper understanding of moderniry arguing
that the project of modernity
ion
has destabilized identiry and the notion
of historically continuous subject
)an
positions. According to Hall, '"' this is the beginning
of modernity as
rnd
progress' but modernity as a
the trouble. Not modernity as enlightenment and
problem'.10
h
liry Hall,sideaofmodernityasproblematicandunsettlingisfurthertied
totherevisionofolderdefinitionsofidentirybasedonpsychoanalysisand
ogy theconstructionofadistinctsenseofselfandOther'Instead'Hallhad
by the postcolonial moment'
'. as envisioned a new subjectiviry one occasioned
Other is situated at the
when the Self is refl.cttd in the Other' and the
coreoftheSel|Itispreciselythispostmoderninstabilityofidentirythat
,brack identity' in Britain. Reacting to the
has alrowed .."ffir-"tion of
nge "
is particularlyracistdefinitionsofwhitenessaSnationalidentiryinthel9T0s,
ryis
StuartHallhasarguedthatadiversegroupofethnicities(Bangladeshi,
Indian, Pakistani, Jamaican, Caribbean' African)
all situated themselves
hand' Hall has
within the political category of black'11 Thus' on one
10n proposedamodelofblacknessthatisnotunlikeDuBois's,inthatitgrows
out of a double-consciousness' And yet' unlike
Du Bois' he has looked at
llar,
can thisdouble-consciousnessaSaStrategicposition,enteredintoasadeliberate
act of agency, with the intent of subverting
the mythical' stable core ofwhite
lack
examined in this chapter'If My
rble identity.l2 Such issues are central to the films
lss.7 BeautifulLaundrettee|egantlycapturedtheracialdimensionofethnicrelations
Tory regime.
r-efe in the contexl 0f a lib"eralizinj London during a conservative
reat thennofilmbetterCapturestheAmericanequivalentthanSpikeLee'sfilm,
an equally conservative
rted Do the Right Thing iiOal;, produced also during I
i

lern American regime.

response to an incident in
1

Spike Lee:st3 film was conceived as a cinematic

es gallgof white youths attacked
rnh Howard Beach, Queens' NY in 1986 when a
had threeblackmenwhowerelostinthearea,whichispredominantlyltalian
and andJewish.onemanwaskilledwhileattemptingtoescape.laThemovieis
and violence in the North
pot' not only powerful in its critique of racial tension
it was released tlvo years
r-hat American city,15 but it was also prescient in that
in the Rodney King beating
rcial before the LA riots,16 sparked by the jury verdict
(1984) is based in
,itg, trial in 1g91.n Stephen Frear's My Beautiful Laundrette
Thatcher was intent
ithe London at a time when the government of Margaret
welfare state and when
on eliminating most aspects of 'nt former British
ingrained in the IJK'18
rraft virulent anti-immigration sentiments were becoming

AN ALTERNATIVE MODERNITY
It is based on a 1983 screenplay by Hanif Kurcishi, a British author-dircctor t::
of Pakistani origin, renowned for tackling issues of racc, nationalism and
sexuality.le Each of thcsc fihns attempts to exposc arnbivalent spaces of an
urban moderniry and postmodernity charactcrized by changing notions of
racc and ethnicity.

S ir:
Brookfyn of the Do the Right Thing
.1:-:
Thc setting lor Do the Right Thing is in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of rr:- :
Brooklyn, NcwYork (often refcrred to as Bed-Str-ry). The film opens with K:'
a shot of the insidc of the local radio DJ's tiny cubicle. The DJ, Scnor Love .t 4..

Daddy, broadcasts that it will be the hottcst day of the year, and as thc day's p. -.

events unfold, the social climatc will parallel thc weather, finally exploding. --:-
flr -_

From this openirrg claustrophobic space, the camera pans out to the larger l

colltcxt of the strcct, where the story will take place. Thcre, it follows the t]-.:t
chief protagonist, Mookie (playcd by Spike Lee l-rimself), as he goes about tl-.:
his morning routine. ,\l::-
Spikc Lee chooses thc street as hts mise-en-scine, atrd a large part of th.'.
the fi1m revolves around its culture. On this hot day, when almost all of al -:
thc block's residcnts mllst come out of doors because they have no air- ti:. .

conditioning, the strcct itself becomcs thc main arena of social intcraction. b'--.::
The one block where the film takes place includes Love Daddy's radicr c i:.,,:.
cubiclc, Sal's pizzeria, a groccry store run by Korean immigrants, and the th,.,
flats rcntcd by Mookie's sister and girlfricnd. The film is animated with a tl:.
host of colourful characters. Thcse include Sal and his sons. Vito and Pino, bLr.::
:

Do the Right Thing (1989). The 'Bed-Stuy Do or D e' mura

]92 . CINEN/ATIC URBANISN/

-rr-director the neighbourhood matriarch, Mother Sister; the local wino, Da Mayor,
r:lism and who mutters words of wisdom; Radio-Raheem, a bulky young black man
'.ces of an who carries an oversized boom box that plays 'Fight the Power' (by Public
:rorions of Enemy), Smiley, who is retarded and carries around black-and-white photos
of Malcolm X with Martin Luthcr King; Buggin' Out, a young black man
who seems to be in a constant state of rage; the police ollicers who patrol the
streets and surwey the block; and the Corner Men - ML, Sweet DickWillie,
and Coconut Sid -who appear throughout like a Greek chorus commenting
rt arca of on their surroundings. With its black, white, Puerto Rican, Italian-American,
,lr'trs with Korean immigrants, and Caribbean-black rcsidcnts, the block appcars at first
:'Ilor LoVe a caricatlJrized US melting pot. Yet it is clear from the beginning that the
: the day's politics of race simmcr just bclow thc surface . Thc cracks between races and
-:'9loding. ethnicities are indeed deep, and they are soon erposed.
thc- larger An important theme that runs through the film is how people identify
-,riot's the themselves with the neighbourhood. In various ways, they see their presence
:-rr's about there as erpressing a fundamental right to the city. Thus, cven as the Corner
Men and Buggin' Out appear to have neither homes nor jobs on the block,
:. part of they refer to it as 'their neighbourhood'. The Corner Men, who sit around
:-.st all of all day and don't work, look at the Korcans with enr,1r and loathing becausc
,'e no air- they'vc been offthe boat for less than a year, and yet are already doing grcat
::r-raction. business in 'our' neighbourhood. Ironically, the person who presses these
ii''s radio charges most loudly spcaks with a Caribbean acccnt, and is duly reminded
.. and the that he has not been in the country that long himself For his part, Sal sees
:d u'ith a the neighbourhood as his territory because it is where he has owned a
=nd Pino, business for decades.
As the film begins, Mookie is shown diligently and paticntly counting a

Do the Right Thing . Ihe three black men sitting at the street corner

AN ALTERNATIVE N/ODEBNIry . 193

T
wad ofmoney in his sister's apartment. The scene then shifts to Sal's pizzetra.
the central space of the film. Sal (played by Danny Aielo) gets by with help
from his t\,vo sons, Pino and Vito, while Mookie selves as their delivery boy.
Except for Mookie, the black characters are shown to do nothing to make a
living though they are fully cognizant that it is they who keep establishmcnts
such as Sal's running. With this recognition, and a communitarian sense of
ownership, Buggin' Out asks Sal to put some pictures of 'black brothers'
up on his walls. Sal refuses, citing notions of private property. In thc past he
has always been able to buy off racial trouble by slipping a few dollars to Da
Mayor or Smilcy or Mookic.

bttt-'--.:
to S::r :
to cir:-,
Ir: ::-
Sal :r:: .

int..:.::
arrir; ,:,
fu tl:'.

Do the Right lhlng. Mookie delivers pizza while everyone hangs out on their stoops.

A memorable fragment of the fihn fcatures a quick-cutting montage

of various characters (black Mookie, Italian-American Pino, Latino Stcvie,
white police otEccr Long, and the Korcan store o\Mner) as thcy spew hatc-
speech based on racial stercotypes. The montage follows a particularly
intcnse back and forth between Pino and Mookie, when the former is
irritated bccause he belicves that Mookic is lazing about on the job. In order
to get back at Pino, Mookie cleverly turns the tablcs on him by simply asking
him who his favourite basketball player, movie star, and rock star are. Pino
innocently answers the first tlvo questions by naming black Americans. But
he stops before thc third, as he recognizes the trap that Mookic has led him
into. 'Prince', Vito answers on his behalf Pino then defends his choiccs by
arguing that those celcbrities he has named are not'really'black. The tcnsion
that arises betr,veen the two characters leads into the name-calling montage,

]94 . CINEIVATIC URBANISN/

 the'Wall of Fame
and Sal argue in front of
Dothe Rightfhing Mookie

rcaches its crcscendo'

the scene cuts
butjust as this chorcography ofracism
as the voice of rcason
and adviscs evcryone
to Senor Love Daddy,i"fl" "t"
to chill out' befiveen
an argunlcnt in Sal's pizzena
In thc finai part of thc tnovie' first
who rcfuses to down his rnusic' escalatcs
Sal and Radio Raheem' :urn policemen who
then a full-scale brawl' The
into racial natne-caliing an<1 Radro Raheern to death'
usc excessive fi'ice and cnd up strangling
arrive
the dcad body away' an t"g'1'
tio*J gatl-rers' The crc'rwd holds
As thcy drag

out in f ront o{ ihe ptzzerta

Do the Right Thing Ariot breaks

AN ALTERNATIVE MODERNITY ' 195

Sal and his two sons responsible for the death of Raheem. Da Mayor tries
to protect them from further violence, but Mookie makes the decision to
smash the pizzeria's front window. As all hell breaks loose, the establishment
is firstvandalized, and sct ablaze. As the fire burns, Smiley is seen pinning
his photos of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. up on Sal's Italian-
American wall of famc. The irony is that neither the pizzeria nor the wall
will survive.
A particularly poignant moment in the film comes just after Radio
Raheem's death. The mob gathered outside Sal's turns on the Korean couple
making them the ncw targets of their ragc. The Korean shopkeepcr flails a
broomstick, desperately trying to protect his store from the destruction that
has just been wreaked on Sal's. In an attempt to protect himsel{ the Korean
cries out in broken English that he is also black. Even though the crowd
initially mocks him, some begin to feel for him. Oscillating between hate
and love, violence and peace, rivalry and brotherhood, the 'right thing to do'
becomes less and less clear as the movie progresses.20

Do the Right Thing. fhe Korean shop owner tries to protect his store from the mob

The London ol My Beautiful Laundrette

My Beauti;fut Laundrette deals with many of these same issues of cthnicity
and race but in a European contex:t. Its characters are similarly challenged
by social tensions, and they vacillate about the right thing to do. Thc story
hinges on thc chance encounter oftwo young Londoners, Johnny (played by lvlJ :== -
Daniel Day-Lewis) and Omar (played by Gordon'W'arnecke), who happen rai,'.:. . =

196 . CINEIVATIC URBANISNi

 c:r-sch,,.r1rnates and cx-lovers. It dcr.clops aroutld their resurned
'1a s
to bc
tO rclationship ,tric'l collaboratiolt to revarnp :r rLtlt-dowli South London
, rlt laundcrctt.'. Blrt as Johnny and Onrar bcconrc incrcasiugly sr-1ccessfi.ll, theil-
llq ethnic anc'l soci:ri backgrounds catch up rvitlr thc'nr. Johnny is a rvorking-class
.:t - white s-rth tl-icnds in the British National I)arty (RNP), a lascist group whose
,tl nrcmbcrs takc pridc in basl-ring imrnigrants. Omar is a second-sencr.rtion
Pakistani livrne rvith his alcoholic, cx-journalist fathcr, A1i, and working
l-rt for l-ris crltreprclrcur unclc Nasscr. ()rn:rr's tather and uncle are antithetical
characters. Wlrile thc 1:ither, a onc-tinre 'leftist-conin'nrnist/socialist-ricws-
writer'. rvants Ornar to get ar1 education, his unclc prioritizcs rnaking money.
It is the utrcle r,vho eventually providcs thc rnorc powerful role model lbr
Omar witliin thc context of Thatcherite llritlin.
The filnr operls to a scene of racc lolc rcvcrsal, as a colrple ofyoungrvhite
sqllattcrs are being evicted by Asians and bl:rcks. As it turns ollt, it isJohnny
and a friend who arc bcing tl'rror.n out of a ruir-dou'n and dilapid:rtcd South
London flat. Thc film then sr,vitches to the intericrr of Omar's small cout'rcil
flat, rvhich hc shares with his f,ithcr, Ali. This tiny spacc is constaritly fi1led
by the din of trains, and at night thcir lights shine through its windows.
Omar has just had a iucky break, since uncle Nasscr, wfio owns a chain of
parkine garages and storcfr-ont rctail shops. lias just hired hirn to w:rsh cars.
As the film proercsscs, Ornar begins his job at the llarace as a rather
rcluctant undcrstudy. But hc quickly realizes that, dcspitc rvhat his intcl-
lcctual lather has told him, such jobs will be his only rolltc upward. At thc
garagc, Ornar soon mccts Nasscr's white rnistress, Rachel, and his business
partner, Salim. He also meets Nasser's farnily, including his dar-rghtcr, Tania
- who may one day bc liis bride. Nasser has a luxurious home and a wife aud
kids who provide him dignity in his cthnic community. Nasscr and Rachel
socializc at whitc cstablishrnents that migl-it other-wise be out of Nasscr's
reach as a 'Paki'. Rachel comes from a working-class background, but like
Nasser, she dreams of an uppcr-class life. So, in etTect, the extran'rarital
relationship has bcncfit for her as wel1. This is made clear at the grand opcning
of Omar and Johnny's laundry when Rachel and Nasser's wife encounter
each other for the first tirne. Rachel argues that l-rer rclatiorrship with Nasser
is hcr only chancc in lifc to cxcccd her class position. Meanwhiie, shc points
out that Nasser's lamily members are all upwardly mobilc and thcir lives are
full of prospects. Later, howcvcr, Rachcl dc'cides to leave Nasser, whcn sl-rc
falls ill with a skir-r rash apparently caused by the magical powers of Nasser's
wifc. And toward thc cnd of the film, Nasser's V/esternized daughter Thnia
also leaves him. Bored with her role in traditional family lifc, Tbnia first
approachcs Omar, and thcnJohnuy, without realizins they are homosexual.
She then runs away from home.
Both Salim and Nasscr, havc n-ianagcd to buy their rvay or-rt of the slums of it'idc-: - :.
South London with their quasi-lcgal businesscs and quick-money schcmes. stlP'. r':
But Salim is the more corrupt of the two. Ile trafTicks drugs and hires Omar har-i r'.. -

to deliver them. He also tells Omar, when he starts to work for thern that,
Your unclc can't pay you rnuch. But you'll be able to afTord a dcccnt shirt, tht- i : :r

and yort'11 be with your own peoplc. Not in a dolc qneue. Mrs. Thatcher will a St.': -
be pleased with me'.21 Salim is not critical of Thatcher's policies. In fact, he c:ir -,: - -:
.
and the othcr cntrcprclrcurial Pakistanis shown in the film take pridc in their hitrr.,
assa\-- :.
hrnr. I .

SCL-S l. .

skin-r.,-'
peoP. r

his r'.'"-,
C)rn,.:.
skinl,-,--
t-rtti.:,,. . -'
skrr::: - -

th.rr :'-,
-Joh:.:.
thc-, ..
lal.r, .-.'
tr: :

Joh:-:.
My Beautiful Laundrette The revamped launderette is a huge success thcrr :',

I98 . CNEMATC TJRBANISN/

, r. T:rnia
' rte and
. R:rchel
'.,
-..sser's
-rt like
,::r rrit:r l

:lnitrq
--rLlntef
\rsscr
, --!rints
''Jf :lfe

-:r slrc
.,-.CL'S
.:. T.rnia
, iLIst MyBeautifulLauncJrette'NasserandRacheldancelntherecentlyopenedlaunderette
. - .Llrl.

policies. Irr gcncral, ttrcy

-: Llt
irrdepcndencc fi.tlln prcviclrrs l]ritislr social.welfare
that sorlre oi its police s
I :-.4,i.
srlpport the Tiratcher govcrnmcllt dcspitc the fact
have racist underpinnings that harm their owtr
ctttntlrttlritics'
)::r.iI
clthcr aqaitl sllct't
'. tt. After ycars :lpart, Onlar anclJohnny conre across cach
ft'ot'rl a Pakist:uli soirec '{t
-: :'t. the fbrrrer is takirrg Salim and his wife homc
-..ill a stophght by sotnc railway viadrtcts, a bunch
of skiuheads sttrrolrrrd the'ir
..r: b.gill to bully them' Omar recognizes Joirnliy and rciirtroduces
"trJ by the implied
hitnsell At the timc,Johnny is nnernployed and crnb:irrasscd
appears nlttch bcttcr olTthan
associations rvith a ]):iki and the fuct tl'rat On-rar
a jclb irr his ilc.w lautrderette,
the latter
lrirn. Bttt wiictl C)mar otTersJcllrr]ny
scesitaSawaytort.iakeallewstart.ButJoilrrny'slow-classiderrtiryarrd
to call on him ttl tlrrow
skitrliead backgrouncl soolt caLlse omar and Nasscr
peoplcoutofthelaunderettc',cvict'bastard'tcnattts'andrundrugs'despite
rough no nlorc''rr As
his repeatecl protestatiolls that hc 'don't do anythir-ig
filrrner
omar and Johnny renovate thcir rur]-dclwtt l:rtlndcrcttc, Johnny's
iuto rcturuing to their lile of
skinhead lricnds also try to irrtimidate hirr-r
vairdalisrn.The'owtrpcople'di:rlogttccolncstoaheadwhelrJohnny's
_rkinl.read friends ,hun, .rp and try to wreck
thc launderctte. Thcy tell Johrrny
i]l..rtilcPakisl,l.crebrclrrghtovertoEngl:rrrdtoworkiortlreln,arrdthat
-:.:'.ltoLrldii'ttbrgethisou'npcoplc'lnthcelld'cveryonehastobelorlg'

I .'-'.t t i .] .- L.- t t.-

 V

My Beautif ul Laundrette. Omar and Johnny repair the launderette My E=..

Salim, whorn he despises, but eventually hejoins the fight and ends up being bttt t-t,,: :.

beaten up by l-iis firrmer friends. Clearly, he is torn benveen his racial and Pintr i, :

yollth ilr South London atrd his lovc

class identity, as a r.vhite, rrnemployed to \1' l
fbr Orlar- and the upward mobility that his job at the laundcrctte provides stlcac>:
hirn. As thc laundry is transformed fi'om its dccrepit statc to a clcau, flashy ther i, ..
spacc with neon lights, its clrstomcrs too change. The teenagc punks who r-cl:lt.'. l
uscd to hang out there are replaced by working people impatient to get their lrl'iic1-:
laundry dor-rc. St:r11i.: - -

Ti. .:

to un,- -:
Race, Ethnicity, Entrepreneurship, and Urban ldentity
idcnr:.
To asscss the thread of racial anger that mns throlrllh these two {rhns, we X lrr.: l
rnllst first retrlrn to L)u Bois's notion of double-consciousness. Particularly uticlr >
in Do the Right Thin-g, we see how accepted nreasurcs of success, farne, wcalth, the r:
beauty, crtltural sllprcmacy, and intelligence are all establishcd against l of r'.r:-
dornitrant ideal of whiteness. Ilowcvcr. while these are set as a benchtnark petlpl. '
of aspirations for black Arnericans, it is undcrstood blacks will nevcr bc ablc oYL-rl .:.

to rcach thenr. It is in this rcgard that mor-e recerlt scholars of blackidentity Arr.-: : --

such as Cornel V/cst havc argucd that it is the 'amused coutcn-rpt and pity'
with which wirite Aneric:r looks dowtr at its black population that fuels black
rage.I
The spectral inipossibiliry,rf blacks achicving any fbrrn of acccptence in
aworld orqanized by whites is madc clcar in Do the Right Thing when Pino
declarcs that popular icons like Princc arc not black: 'It's ditTerent. Magic,
Eddie, I)rincc arc not niggers, I mean, arc not black. I mcan, they'rc black ()i

2OO . CINEMATIC URBANISM

 :

:t

L "i;;
lb* :;:"r
@:f:
.ffi
:ww4

h"l lne launderette's

smasn the
lhugs smash
My Beautiful Laundrette Thugs
laurruerultt window

, '--: be ing butnotreallyblack.They,remorethanblack,.Thereputationoftheblacks

statements are a rcmindcr
:-.--r:rl and Pino namcs goes beyond thcir blackness' Pino's
a level of fame and
: :iis love to Mookie (and others) that once black people rcach
,white,*o.id, they escape thcir racial identity. More importantly
i::,,r\-ideS success in a
cease being black in a way in whlch people
likc Mookic can continLlc to
.:'-. dashy they
,:: t-. ff'hO relate.BycontrastSal,PinoandVitocanstillrclatetotheltaliarr-Atnericans
--: their whichincludenameslikeFrankSinatra,AiPacino,LizaMinnelli,Sylvester
of fame'
Stallone, and Luciano Pavarotti on the ptzzcria'swali
is important
To understand the tropc of black ragc portraycd in the film' it
toutlderstandthedifferencesinviewsofthetwohistorical{iguresofblack
identitywlroappearinit.ThevastlydifTerentpoliticalideologiesofMalcolm
of them
X and Martin Luther King are captured both in the photographs
thc end of
which Smiley carries and in the long quotes that appear at
",,""td, I{ing' MalcolmXcame to embrace thc rcalrty
thc movie.2r Specifically, r-rnlike
ofrageasanimportantavenucforblackconsciousness,becauseitfrcedblack
and helped
people from passive acceptance of their'double-consciousness'
take control of their place in
overturn their fecling, of po*ttltssness and
this point as follows:
Amcrican society' Cornel'West has summarized

Ma|colmbelievedthatifblackpeople{eltthelovethatmotivatedtherage,thelove
wouldproduceapsychicconversioninblackpeople;theywouldaffirmthemselvesas
humanbeings,noIongerviewingtheirbodies,minds'andsouIsthroughwhltelenses,
andbelievingthemselvescapableoftakingcontroloftheirowndestinies'ri

in thc cities of
,-li c.-ttrse. these racial issr:es have plaved or'rt diflerently
the lJK, unlike the US. Slavcrywas not the overt source of race problems Br:
that are tlre subject of My Bedutiful Laundretfe.2(' Rathcr, they cmcrgcd from resuli
the legacy of colonialisrn and the desire of former colonial subjects to (1e;-
imnigrate to the IJK to scek better livcs for themsclves and their families. It of c,.,'-t
is in this sense that a dialogue ovcr 'true' Ilritish identiry has since developcd l-ie cr..
and has involved racist notions and anti-irnmigrant sentimcnt. Ironically, to ltrrt'tl
howcver, the same Thatcher cousetwativc govcrnment that established fi-ien.i.
quotas on immigration from former colonial regions has pointed to the vcry \\raqL':..
entreprcnellrial vigour of these immigrants as evidence of the new social Berltti:'.

clin'rate it hopcd to establish. a SLrt-al.

As part of this social revolutiorr, Adrian Kearns hrs rcmarked that thc other- :
British Conscrvative govcrnment developed the concept of active citizenship St2Itc- -:.'-

as a way to facilitate the dismantling ofwelfare govcrnment ser-viccs.zTActive fbrnr.

citizenship would transfer thc burden of providing such setwices to charity irnnir::-
organizations, the larnily, and communiry groups. The decrcasing role of the T..
statc was to be thus matchcd by individual citizeus acting via an incrcased teflll >

sense of moral obligation. Howevcr, as Kearns pointed out, this re-definition the i:::
of individual arrd statc rclationships that was sold as dinrinishing patr: rnalistic Thr-rs. :
state power only serwed to substitute othcr forms of patriarchy for ccfrtralized repe ,r1:r --

statc power.2t Nas.-:--

In My Omar and his uncle
Beatni;ftil Laundrette, the relationship between co11t1:t, . "

Nasscr fa1ls into precisely this patriarchal contract of ncedy recipient and - i.e.. ,,:.
wealthy bcnefactor. Thus, even though Omar is lcss than thrilled about his blt-.i:r,.-:
job cleaning cars, it is his only way to avoid going to the dole. It is important, racL'i:1 :.,
howc'ver to rcad propcrly the motivations of individual characters itr this lleQ.li.': -

particular equation. Salim and Nasscr are bothwell awarc oftheir'constructivc' he rU-.: --

roles in providing ernployment for Omar. But Otrtar exercises agency via his n'ttir ' :. -

role as a beneficiary of the systcm.'V/hile Kcarns has said that active citizenship sttl.u: .- ,:-

reduced rccipients to passive agents of chariry On'rar seizes the opportrrnity soci,-.-::
provided by Nasser to crcate iris owu sct of pcrsonal opportunities. in ir,::'.. .

The idea of dcpendencc on an individual benefactor also emcrgcs in the \.:. - .

charactcr of Sal, thc pizzeria owlrer inDo the Right Thing. Hc and his br-rsiness the t..:-
arc presented as the econotnical pivot arouud which the ncighbourhood An.l ',. -

functions. It is through his mnnificencc that Da Mayor is able to sweep thc re n-[::-' --

street corner and make the few dollars that will get him his next bottle of is:rr'-.-..:
beer. Similarly Mookie's relationship with Sal echoes that between Otnar l\t--r'
and uncle Nasser. Mookie and Omar are botli aware they are being exploited, lbci:- :

but thcy are lurcd into thcir rcspectivc social transactions by a prospect of aSSLrJl....

wealth. A newkind of social contract is presented here, whcre Mookie and Bttt .-. -:

On'rar's circumstances arc a product of state policics, yet their cvcryday lifc is bttr ;, -.. '
controlled by a patriarch whose position derives from the abscncc of a statc rl'hic : .,
prcscilcc in tllc c()mmuniry. artisr I.l :

2O2.CNEMATICURBANISM
:roblems Both movies also ofrbr insights into the producrion of gender as a
-:d from result of these intricate dcpendent rclationships. In Learning to [-ahour
:':iects to (1977), Paul V/iliis wrote about thc constrttction of masculinity as a sign
,:rilics. It of counter-cuiture among high school students in England. In particular,
.-;e loped he examined the formation of sociai cliqucs around erpressing resistance
:,.,nica1ly, to normalized patterns of authoriry. In My Beautiful Laundrette, Johnny's
::hlished friends fall into the category Wiilis called 'lads', those who see working for
rirc very wagcs as a sign of conformity. However, it is intcresting to note that in My
-'.-.- sociai Beautiful Laundrette, the anger ofJohnny's BNP thug-friends does not frnd
a specific 'establishment' target. There are no signs of patrolling cops or any
other formalized means of state control. And in the absence of a centralized
state apparatus the BNP lads direct their anger towards the only visible
forms of social order in their urban milieu, in this case run by SouthAsian
immigrants.2e
Thatcherite ideas of entreprcneurialism also have a double meaning in
terms of ethnic identiry. In the film, Nasser is portrayed as having escaped
thc limits of race by buying into a supposedly 'colour-blind' capitalism.
Thus, the scenes showing Johnny being cvicted from his apartment are
repeatedin a curious mannef when the one-timc squatter himself helps
Nasser cvict a poor, black poet. During this sccond eviction, Johnny
.ts trncle comments that it doesn't look good for a Pakistani to evict his ou,-n kind
-. tlt and - i.e., atrother coloured person. But Nasser replies that he is a professitlnal
:,-.ut his businessman and not a professional Paki, and that there is no question of
ll trftllltt, race in l1ew enterprise culture.30Nasser's view of Thatcherite politics is not
: tn this negativc because he wants to belong to the dominant society so much that
::--tctive' hc regards his own exclusion as a personal failing and tries to fiil the gap
-. ..-ia his with visible symbols of a whitc, middle-class lifestyle. Besides the cars and
:-:r-rship suburban house he can afTord to provide for his family, this yearning for
,rr-tnity social rnobility is best dcfined by his white mistress, ILachel, who he dresscs
in fr-rrs, and who escorts him to fancy bars.
,. in the Yet, class relations in this multicultural society are complex. At the end of
: -:siness the fiim it is revealed that Rachel comcs from a working-c1ass background.
'-rrhood And when Nasser's daughter Tania accuses hcr of bcing a parasite, Rachcl
-r'F\ the reminds Thnia that thcy are of different classes and gencratiolls. Everything
'-,nleof is available for Thnia, but the only thing that was ever available for her was
: L)rnar Nasser. Associating hersclf with a rich, albeit colourcd, man has allowed
: -oited, Rachel to transcend class boundaries in much thc samc way that Johnny's
.::Ct Of association with Omar has lifted him out of his own 1ow-class background.
.1.- and But cven as the film holds out wealth as a grcat social leveller (since it can
.., lrte is buy class, racial ambiguity, and even cltlturc - as seen in Salim's apartment,
:r state which is decorated with clegant paintings by the well-known Indian
artist M.F. Hussain), it only providcs agcncy and inclusion within certain

AN ALTERNATIVE MODERNITY . 203

:f --- - -:- r-. r : --- --:--
and social a\t?reness pr-rssessed b',- Ornar's -}h.: -{l F:Lr'.-i r-l\ t irabllines
that exclude him from an acti\-e pan in Tharchente sor-ien. Thus. er-en as
active citizenship appears to hold the promise of influence and pos-er. clear
boundaries still protect the monopoly of the stare over other imponant areas
of British life.

Race, Urban Space and the Displacement of Gommunity

V4rat does My Beauti;ful Laundrette tell us about London? W.hat is the sense
of urban modernity related through this film? Not once in the film does the
audience see any traditional images of the city. In fact, its absence is enough
for some to ask if the movie is not really based in some other blighted
English town. Frears deliberately bypasses the usual urban symbols of
London (for example, the dome of St. Paul's, Tiafalgar Square, Docklands)
to present the city as composed of derelict council houscs, grimy car garages,
defunct laundromats, and the spaces underneath train viaducts. My Beauti;ful
Laundrette's London is precariously perched at the intersection of multiplc
ends - the end of empire (represented by the spaces of deprivation); the
end of socialism (embodied by the isolated father Ali); the end of the myth
of an ethnically pure and properly gendered Britain (fohnny and Omar's
relationship that is taboo for reasons beyond homosexuality). Accompanying
this city of endings are the continually transgressive identities of its main
characters: Johnny is white by race, black by class; Omar is black by race, but
white by class in relation toJohnny and his BNP friends. Johnny becomes the
thug who is called on to beat up vagrants; Omar never declines the proposal
to marry Tania. Yet, they easily slip out of these transitional masculine roles
to be tender with one another. Class, gender, race are constantly mediating
'W.ho
one another to provide this slippage. is the black person or the poor
person at the end of the film -Johnny, Omar, or Nasser?
As the main characters in My Beautiful Laundrette slip between idcntities,
the past is always present in the idea of 'home', here used to reGrence
Pakistan. Salim's wife, Cherry is the only pcrson who emphatically claims
her Pakistani identiry even as she tells Omar she is 'sick of hearing about
these in-betweens', in reference to him never having been to Karachi. But
Omar's nostalgia for countries where he has never been is evident in the
interest he expresses in knowing about Juhu beach' or the 'house in Lahore'.
Like an exile, he sets up the place of his origin as an imaginary geography
shaped largely through nostalgia.3lAli (Omar's father), on the other hand,
has a different nostalgia for Pakistan. He says he wants to go 'home' so that
he will be free to think, write, and ex?ress his political thoughts - which he is
unable to do in Britain. But Nasser disabuses him of this optimism when he

204 . CINEIVATIC URBANISIV

lucation argues 'that country has been sodomized b)'reiigion' rvhich interleres with
abilities the making of money'.
efen as By leaving the usual symbols of London out of the fiim, My Beauti;ful
er. clear Laundrette also presents London as a decidedlv postcolonial city. In Edge
.nt areas of Empire,Jane M. Jacobs tried to define London according to spatial and
temporal geographies of empire.32 According to some, London is post-
imperial because imperialism is over. However, Jacobs maintains that
imperialism, ideology, is ever present under the guise of globalization and
as
ity
neoliberalism. As a result, Jacob prefers to designate London a postcolonial
re sense city because local articulations of imperiallsm's heritage are reconstituted
loes the on a daily basis in the heart of the empire.33 Indeed if nineteenth-century
enough notions of racism based on the denigration of the colonial other have been
'lighted discounted, it does not mean that racism has disappeared. Along with the
b.rls of new form of imperialism, the terms of racism are complicated by dilTerent
klands) positions based on axes ofclass and race. F{ere race is seen as a culture' rather
IAraqes, than a skin colour.3aIn this sense, Anne Marie Smith has explained how in
k"utitirl the context of Thatcherite Britain 'tolerance' came to be seen as a way to
ruldple denigrate others who were thought to belong elsewhere. Smith also pointed
,n r: the to the conflation of racism and homophobia during the Thatcher years as
e mrth potential threats to the idea of a properly Christian Anglo-Saxon nation.35
Jmar's Against such a political background at the centre of My Beautful Laundrette,
r:.nrinq the interracial relationship between t\,vo gay men is doubly problematic.
'Watts's
:. main The film affirms Michael J. assertion that 'Difference and identity
rce. but is produced and reproduced within a field of power relations rooted in
lr;s rhe interconnected spaces linked by political and economic relations'.36
p"rptrsal Such a society exists in the slippage of identities where no one is fixed in
ta rLrleS a position of simply black or simply white. In this alternate urban modernity,
di.rring hegemony is produced by some groups through the playing offof differences
li: f0Or that subvert collective will or choice. Here, Nasser's triumphant assertion
that in the new entrepreneurial culture, there is no room for race setwes
to uphold the very structures that marginalize his own ethnic group as it
mandates the production of consent. The racism in Do the Right Thing is
constructed as a historic and social category. Thus, the harder the characters
try to escape their racial confines, the more they are locked into it. It thus
shows how blackness is produced as a social category with little regard for
the physicality of race.37
ln the first part of Do the Right Thing, Lee emphasizes the modern
melrine-pot communitv among the people of this block. V/hen Pino
sense of
plt;Cs r,.ith Sal ro consider moyinq to their'ou'n'neighbourhood (Little
nr;j; " :re replies that he idenntles with the people on the block because theY
:: *jli hir t,:xd. In ln.-ttler scene- a cL1uPle t-tt black kids open up a
.--1 :*-;:-: -. :'::-lt i"i:\'i:-lj .::: in'-'\' >Lt-Il-= rilrili -rrr- th: he-lr- -\ Iin'c
 Do,.t, -.

girl draws a house and a sun with a 'smiley' face on the street. Thus the
sir-rql. r
film scts up a seductive, romanticized version of conrmuniry whicl-i it thcn
Bcd- S:
purposcfully destroys. What starts out as a display of hybridiry as variotls and
Th.' :r.
complex identities living togethcr, soon degeneratcs into hatcful and narrow
tlltfa>
descriptions of thc Othcr in a landscape whcrc cveryone is the Other.
its .-i:: -
Do the Right Thing attcmpts to challenge thc sirnplistic binary opposition
nl-r
r'_ rf_ :
uscd to describe the rnodcrn Afiicalr-American cultural crpcrietrcc.
'West have perceived such ideas
Contetnporary commentators like Cornel
as Du Bois's notictn of 'double-consciousncss' or the 'doublc personality'
portrayccl byJarnes WeldonJol-rnson as a crisis of identity by an-xiety-ridden
middlc-class intcliectuals.38 The filrn riscs to.West's challenge to deconstruct
tl-re early 'tnodertr black strategics of identiry formation'. Instead, it
constrllcts an alternate modern or possible postmodern 'multivalent and
multidimensional rcsponsc to thc divcrsity of black practices in the current
global cra'.:reHeuce, the film does not ofTer a simplc closure, not even the
Illrlir I'i
promise of onc. Similarly, Henry Louis Gates has not seen the oLltcome of
ioL .-.r -
the film as predestined. Rathcr he has argucd that the dilTerent charactcrs'
re-tit.
choices shapc its complcx outcolnc.+0 I Ic has further argucd that the film
..

():t
consists of dynarnic and indeterministic rclationships in which meaning and
oi r,-.---
tmth remain multiplc and notr-fixcd.+LLikcwise, thc somcwhat sympathctic
r-tr1.... t-.
portrayal of ltalian-Amcricans complicates the story and sllpports Lee's
s tthr:
position tl-rat 'evcrybody's right. And cverybody's wrong. And nobody's a
-

cttlf -.'.1

hcro'.+l
cont,:.
Accordiug to J.c. McKelly, 'The dramatic structure of Do the Right
ellar'...
Thing sttuates Mookie, the film's protagonist played by Lee himsclf, in
rl. r il
the midst of this architecture of polarities constructed around the cultural
r-1

cL-l1l'.1:-
logic of "tlvo-ness"'.a3 As he has further argued, Mookie is 'Henry Louis
(lates's homo rhetoritus Africatnrs'who moves freely betwecn 't$/o discursive
chrl.-:
cc11:,-t-
universes'.++ Radkte has sr-rggcsted that this non-participatory ccntrality in
citi..
thc film emerges from his showing us arollnd his ncighbourhood.+5 'IJc
th.ir :
is a pair of eycs on feet who wc calt see through out into the comnrunity
thai . ,,

... His lnotives, intentions and dcsires are not revcaled'.+6Hc is in a scnse
t\\ i:.:
thc racialized and ethicizcd blds,!-cttm-fineur whose disengagernent, while
CLrlll.:.
wiiful, is partly a product of his race. Hc represents a typc of late-t\rventieth-
ta'
century modernity, which is urban in nature but neighbourhood-based in
111

.111i .
scale. As Lirida Hutchcon has argucd, the ncighbourhood, in this case llcd-
alr-. .:'
Stuy, bccomes an'assertion not of ccntralized sameness but of deccntralizcd
pf .r-:
community'.47
dtr :-
McKelly's use of Mikhail Bakhtin's work on Dostoevski is further help
ah...,'
in explaining Mookie's erTerience in Bed-Stuy. According to McKelly,
'Mookic's eycs bccomc a medium for the "unification" ol all of thc
neighborhood's "incompatible" elements'. As in Bakhtin's analysis of

206 . CINEMATIC URBANISM

Dostoycvski.stlor-e]s.thepluralityofconsciottsnesscal}llotbe.reducedtoa
offered by
singlc ideological commo" dt"o-i""tor''+''The orr11- unification
interaction''4"
Simultaneiqr.coexistence' and
Bed-Stuy is the r-rnity o'O"tt' in which thc
a symbolic modern space
The neighbourhood tht''t btto-cs its polarization and
ambivale nces about race and ethnicifl, leads to
unresolved
As an alternative modern
its emergcnc. pl"t,e of discursivc arnbiguity'
"' ' is his race' Mookie becomes:
protagonist whose prirlciple identification

awalkingsynecdocheforhisneighborhood,sdialogicalassimi|aiionofapluralityof
culturalsigniliers'.,hebecomeswhatBakhtincalls'aninternaldialogic,character
containrng'''acacophonyofautonomoustrreconcilablesrgnificationsinconflicteach
reflectingapersistenceofdouble-consclousness:Sal/BuggingOut',,PinoruitoDa
thtng' '0
Love/Hate' Riqht thing/wrong
Major/Mother Sisier, Cool/Heat'

accepts the economic realities

of thc
As a modern protagonist who a model not
rrodern capitalist in which he livcs' Mookie offers
for the
"t"titttt of his inherent doublencss but
for an integral and stable resolution
cultural logic''51
refusal to abide by its'schizophrenic modcrnity
the ncw {igur-es of an alternate
Omar and Mookic emerge as in thc
Their prcsence
of racc ethnicif *nftt" Europe "ld 'i-t'ita'
ar-td society
their engagement with dominant
urban scene i' "ot "t-' Rather us to recalibrate
..nt.rt1r requires
within the urban spaces of the twenti.th is herc
and postmodernity' There
our understanding of both moderniry
of the nineteenth century where
continllity with the urban moderniry
encountcrsbetr,vecnclassesrcvealedatransientandcontingentquaiityto
urbanlife.Thiscontinucstohavesornevaliditythroughoutthetwentieth series of
of Omar and Mookie poses a
century. However, tl-re situatedness
chailengcstothiswell-establishedframeofreferencc.indeed,thetwentietlr
centuryhaswitnessedthcriseofstrbstantialetlrniccommunitiesinthemany
citicsoftheFirst\Yorlddemandrngaredefinitionoftl.rcurbancxperietlcc same way
not or.ly tr"o-p""t' t"tt bui also problcmatizes it in the
that
thateariyninetecnth-centurymodcrnityarticulatedclass'Moreover'theiate
twentieth-centurymoderniryofclassandethniciryisequallytransientand his u'ay
the new cthnic protagonist forces
contingent, and ephemeral' As of identiry
of the city based on new lxes
into thc hybrid po"-oatt'l spaces do llot
we mLlst remember that hybrid
spaces
and encounters of difTerence'
pluralistic tendencies or multicultural
always cncourage the celebratory is that hybrid places
practices synonymous with
globalization' Equally true
do not
people ' just as hybrid people
dtr ilot als'ays accommodate ttyUria
.l-,'. rr s crcate hvbrid places''
Notes
1 Race came nto common use in the English language around the sxteenth century
as a category that designates d fferences arnongst groups of people according to
real or perceived physical and blological characteristics. Although these differences
between races arose as a result of mutation, selection and adaptation, the category of
race has not disappeared in common culture R Wil iams, Keywords. Oxford: Oxford 19
Unrversity Press 1976, p.248.
2 Ethnicity has been in the Eng rsh anguage since the foL.rrteenth century when it was
originaly used to designate'heathen and pagan cultura groups', but t emerged
in the mid twentieth century to des gnate dlstinct categories of national or ocal
populattons whose culture and physical appearance is different from the dominanl
rajorily. /bid.. p. 1 19.
3 M. Berman, All Thatis So/id Melts into Air. New York: Viking, 1988.
4 P Gilroy, The Black Atlantic. Modernity and Double Consclousness. Cambridge, MA
Harvard Univers ty Press. 1993.
5 D. P Gaonkar (ed.) Alternative Modernities. Durham, NC: Duke Unrvers ty Press, 2001
6 WE.B. Du Bois, Ihe Sou/s of Black Folk (1903) NewYork: Penguin, 1989, p. 1.
7 lbid., p. 5.
B St. C. Drake and H.R. Cayton, Black Metropolis A Study of Negro Life in a Northern
Cify. Chicago: Unrversity of Chicago 1993.
21
9 S. Ha l, 'O d and New ldentities, Old and New Ethn cities' in Anthony D King (ed )
22
Culture, Globalizatton and the World System. Contemporary Conditions for the aa
Representatton of ldentify. London: Macm llan, 1991, p.53
24
10 lbid,p 44
11 /bid,p 55
12 'Third generation young black men and women know they come from the Caribbean,
know that they are black, know that they are British. They want to speak from all three
identlties. They are not prepared to give up any one of them. They wi I contest the
Thatcberite notron of Englishness because they say th s Eng ishness is b ack'. /bid.,
p59
13 Spike Lee (1957-) was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and raised n Brooklyn, NY He
studied at traditional y black Morehouse College and later attended New York
University's we I known Tisch School of The Arts, where his master's thesis project
(Joe's Bed-Stuy Barber Shop: We Cut Heads, 1983) brought him eary recognition
(Student Director Oscar, 1986). Do the Right lhlng (1989) brought him national,
and Malcolm X (1992) internattona fame He has directed films engaging a variety 25_
of topics,butall are'blackstores'. lnhispressprofle headvocatedmaking'back 26
fi ms' us ng not only black stories but aso black crews, as a form of resistance to -
the whte dominated Hollyr,vood studio system. 'Spike Lee', n H.L. Gates Jr. and C. :
West (eds.) The Afncan American Century. How Black Americans Have Shaped Our 27-
Century. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002, pp.359-361 .

14 S Lee, n S. Lee and L. Jones (eds.) Do the RrghtThing. ASprke LeeJoinl NewYork 2E

Fires de, 1989, p. 1 18.

15 Some have argued that Lee's f lms prepared the ground for the reception of other
black films (e g , Boyz rn the Hood. New Jack City, Straight Out of Brooklyn, Juice). W
Lane, 'No Accident: From B ack Power to Black Box Office', Afrtcan Amertcan Review,
voi 34, no. 1, 2000, pp 39 59. The reference is from p. 47.
16 D. Muzzio, "'Decent People Shouldn't Lve Here": The American City n Cinema',
Journal of Urban Affarrs, no. 18, pp 189 215, cted ln N. AlSayyad, 'The Cinematic
City: Between Modernist Utopia and Postmodernist Dystopia', Built Envrronmenf, vol.
26,.a. 4, p.274.
17 The LA riots erupted at the intersect on of the Pico Union, South Central and Koreatown
districts of Los Angeles. This occurred after the police, accused of beatlng Rodney

2OB . CINEN/ATIC URBAN SN/

 King, were acquitted. The trial had been held in Simi Val ey, a predominantly white
Republrcan stronghold, despite the fact that the jncident took place in Los Angeles.
-- 3entury 1B Stephen Frears (1941 ) began a career in televis on n the 1960s. He directed his first
::'iing to television film, Gumshoe, in 1972. He drrected My Beautiful Laundrette for Channel 4
I -ai-ences as a TV production. lt was subsequently released in cinemas and led Frears to direct
:-::gOry Of
-: other successful films in the UK as well as in Hollyi,vood.
Oxford
19 Kureishi grew up in the suburbs of London. He describes his London as follows: '...
for me, London became a kind of inferno of p easure and madness... And so I would
".:^ it was
go up to the King's Road and just see these incredible people, and the shops, and all
: =-erged
of that. And just think, and think; you know, I just wasn't to be here with these people.
: a. local
And then, at the end of the day, you'd have to go home fto Bromley] and it was rather
ltrinant disappointing. So London was always a place that I imagined... So you know my
London isn't going to be like anybody else's London, lt's a playground, it's a place
where I can imagine, where I can play'. C. MacCabe, 'lnterview: Hanif Kureishi on
r;3 MA:
London', Critical Quarterly, vol. 41, no. 3, 1999, pp. 37-56.
-= 2001.
20 Mookie's action has caused much debate in film criticism. For example, W.J.I
Mitchell has argued that Mookie ndeed did do the 'right thing' by directing anger
from Sal and his sons to their property. WJ.T. Mitchell, 'The Violence of Public Art: Do
',:ihern the Right Thing', Critical lnquiry, no. 16, 1990, pp. BB0-99. As clted in W, Lane, 'No
Accident', p. 48.
' ^l red.)
21 H. Kureishi, Collected Screenplays. London: Faber and Faber, 2002, p, 10.
> 'a. 22 lbid., p a3
the
23 C. West, Race Matters. New York: Vlntage Books, 1994, p.138.
24 'The greatest miracle Christianity has achieved in America is that the black man
in white Christian hands has not grown violent. lt is a miracle Ihal 22 million black
people have not risen up agarnst their oppressors in which they would have been
- a ,lfee justified by all moral criteria, and even bythe democratic tradition! lt is a miracle that
--^::--- rf,^
Lt le
a nation of black people has so fervently continued io believe tn a turnlhe-other-
: - cid. cheek and heaven-for-you-after-you-die philosophyl lt is a miracle that the American
black people have remained a peaceful people, while catching all the centuries of
'.y He hell that they have caught, here in whrte man's heavenl The miracle is that the white
,:,,, York man's puppet Negro "leaders", his preachers and the educated Negroes laden with
: a-rject degrees, and others who have been allowed to wax fat off their black poor brothers,
:: t. iion have been able to hold the black masses quiet until now'. Ihe Autobiography ol
- Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley. New York: Ballantine Books, 1999.
=. Onal,
: a:iety. 25 C. West, Race Matters.
26 In the UK, the Tory candidate, Peter Griffiths, gained notoriety for having said, 'lf you want
I cack
:--le to a nigger for a neighbour, voie Labour', quoted in 'Cry Nigger: Playing the Race Card in
' a-a c. British Politics', The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, no. 32,2001 , pp. 69-70.
:=: aur 27 A. Kearns, 'Active Cltizenship and Urban Governance' , Transactions of the lnstitute ol
British Geographers, vol. 17, no. 1, 1992, pp.20-34,
:,,, Ycrk: 28 It bears noting here that the concept of active crtizenship came about in reaction
to the public censure that Thatcher's government received in its first two terms due
:'lrher to what was seen as a shameless promotion of greed and selfishness. This was
.:-.W characterized best by Thatcher's own statements such as, 'There is no such thing as
:^=. ^,,, =vv,
society'. Active crtizenship was seen then as the tonic that would both counter such
allegations through its emphasis on Christian morality, while providing a justification
-:ala" for the decrease in social services provided by the state. /bld.
-=-aiic 29 ln Do the Right Thing, his sons crlticize Sal for recruiting local blacks as a form of
r-, vol. charity. Pino goes as far as to scold, 'We runnin' welfare or somethin'?'. Although
Pino himself is living off his father's good will, in his understanding, his familial tie
':a.awn supersedes the busrness. Sal is both encouraged and disturbed by his own son's
:: :ley aggressive attitude, which verges on racism. He tries to protect Mookie - at ttmes

AN ALTERNATIVE IVODERNITY . 209

 :.-=.a-a --.'=. :-:-:-:: :: --==-: --=- : - -:.
='= l::l
5a ccSs'a:'a-1'*:- .::-:: -:- -:::s-:: -::: -=-:-
his bat. Accorcing ic ine c,acK co:-.-r-i :,, ^ :^: , : -:. :-: ' -
=-;;:::=
'receives'. According to Sal. however. ti rS : r ,',-3 c':, 3as
30 H. Kureishi, Collected Screenp/ays, p.50.
31 S. Rushdie, lmaginary Homelands; Essays and Criticism 1981 1991 . Loncon Grar.a
and Penguin, 1 991 .

32 J.M. Jacobs, Edge of Empire: Postcolonialism and the Crfu. London: Routledge. 1996
33 Despite the ambivalence Jacobs has expressed about the designaiion of
'postcolonial' at the time of writing her book, it seems that the term is gaining
acceptance in London. How London's socio-political demography is related to and
constructed by diverse cultures has become of increasing inierest to mainstream
inteilectual debate in the city from the Architectural Association's 1999 conference
and accompanying photographic competition, 'London: Postcolonial City (12-13
March 1999), to the series of Hanif Kureishi's films at the National Film Theatre.
M. Cousins, Critical Quarterly,vol.41, no. 3, 1999, p.36. A recent publication that
reflects this trend is Mcleod's Postcolonial London. J. Mcleod, Postcolonial London:
Rewitrng the Metropolis. London: Routledge, 2004.
34 A.M. Smith, 'The lmaginary Inclusion of the Assimilable "Good Homosexual": The
British New Right's Representations of Sexualityand Race', Diacritics,vol.24,no.2l3,
1994, pp 58 70
35 tbid.
36 M.J. Watts, 'Mapping Meaning, Denoting Difference, lmagining ldentity: Dialectical
lmages and Postmodern Geographies', Geografiska Annaler, vol. 73, no. 1, 1991 ,

pp. 7-16. The quote is from page 14.

37 S. Hall, 'Old and New ldentities'.
38 J.W Johnson, Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man, New York: A. Knopf, 1927, p.72.
39 J.C. McKelly, 'The Double Truth, Ruth: "Do the Right Thing" and the Culture of
Ambiguity', African American Review, vol. 32, no. 2, Summer 1998, pp. 218 22B.The
reference is from page 12.
40 H.L. Gates, The Signifying Monkey. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988, p.48.
41 lbid., p. 25.
42 As cited in J. Radtke, 'Do The Right Thing in Black and White: Spike Lee's Bi-Cultural
Method', The Mrdwest Quarterly, vol. 41 , no. 2, 2000, pp.208-228.
43 J.C. McKelly, 'The Double Truth, Ruth:...'.
44 tbid.
45 J. Radtke, 'Do The Right Thing in Black and White.. .'.
46 lbid. The full quote is as follows: 'He is a pair ot eyes on feet who we can see through
out into the communrty, not a hero or anti-hero who we can see inside and line up
behind or against. His motives, intention, desires are not revealed'.
47 L. Hutcheon, p. 18, quoted in J.C. McKelly, p I In L Hutcheon,'Beginning to
Theorize the Postmodern' , Textual Practice, na.25, 1987, pp, 10 31 .

48 M. Bakhtin as cited in J.C. McKelly. M. Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevski's Poetics,

C. Emerson (trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984, p. 17.
49 J. C. McKelly,'The DoubleTruth, Ruth:...'.
50 lbid., p. 32.
51 lbid , p,12.
52 For a more detailed discussion of the relationships between ethnic minorities and
dominant societies, as such relationships are articulated in urban space, refer to my
book N. AlSayyad (ed.), Hybrid Urbanism: On the ldentify Discourse and the Built
Environment. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2001 .

210 . CINEN/ATIC URBANISM