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Friday, January 28, 2011

Do The Right Thing and "How Bigger Was Born"

There are many similarities between Do The Right Thing and "How Bigger Was Born." Buggin' Out was like Bigger in "How Bigger Was Born". He was ready to start a fight with the white man and ready to use violence to his advantage. He was mostly all talk which is what Bigger was most of the time. He could say that he was going to do something and then not follow through, or get scared when the time came to do what he promised. Buggin' Out also got mad about little things, like Sal not having famous black people up on his Wall Of Fame. Bigger got mad at people who weren't doing anything to directly harm or effect him. There's a difference in "How Bigger Was Born" and Do The Right Thing and that's the different emotions or themes in each. "How Bigger Was Born" was more about the different people's personalities that went into the character Bigger Thomas and how they each were different yet somehow the same. Do The Right Thing was all about race relations and how one little thing can trigger so much hate and uproar that people can be seriously hurt. In "How Bigger Was Born" the different Biggers are angry at someone and they feel held back mostly by white people. In Do The Right Thing Buggin' Out gets along with Sal until he sees Sal's Wall Of Fame which only has pictures of famous Italian-Americans on the wall (because Sal is an Italian-American). Buggin' Out automatically wants to fight Sal to get some black people up on the wall. Sal's sons want to fight Buggin' Out so they can go back to the way things were. Bigger wants to fight every white person he sees because he feels like they are the chains that are keeping him from living his life the way he wants to. The 1st Bigger wants to fight whoever he can so he can seem bigger and tougher than the rest of the people in the town.

1 comment:

  1. Erin,

    You made many interesting points in your blog! I was really intrigued by the connection you made between Bigger and Buggin' Out. I completely agree with you that Bigger and Buggin' Out are similar in it that most of the time, they are just talk. I had never thought to make this connection before, and I think it was effective. I believe a connection can also be made towards Mr. Dalton and Sal regarding their actions towards the black race. As we know, Mr. Dalton was a white man that donated large sums of money to blacks, in addition to giving houses to them. On the downside, Mr. Dalton only gave and built houses for them in the Black Belt, which provided a very limited amount of space. Similarly, Sal employed and serve black people, although he refused to hang pictures of black people on the wall. I definitely agree with the points you made in your blog!

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