Film poster for Do the Right Thing: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

A poster from the 1989 Spike Lee film, “Do the Right Thing” featuring color images of Danny Aiello, Spike Lee, and a young unidentified girl as seen from above. The title appears as the girl's chalk drawing in yellow text with a bright blue background as a street. To the right of the title is the text [Bed-Stuy] and at the bottom right is a childlike drawing of a figure shooting a gun and a police car. Below the title is the text “A Spike Lee Joint.” At the top of the poster is a tag line printed in yellow type: [It’s the hottest day of the summer./You can do nothing,/You can do something,/or you can…]

Materials, dates and provenance

• Date: 1989
• Distributed by: Universal Pictures, founded 1912
• Designed by: Art Sims, American, born 1954
• Subject of: Spike Lee, American, born 1957
• Subject of: Danny Aiello, born 1933
• Type: posters
• Medium: ink on paper
• Dimensions: H x W: 41 x 27 in. (104.1 x 68.6 cm)
• Place depicted: Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, United States, North and Central America
• Topic: African American
• Topic: Actors
• Topic: Communities
• Topic: Design
• Topic: Film
• Topic: Graphic design
• Topic: Race relations
• Object number: 2012.152.862
• Credit Line: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Dow B. Ellis
• Data Source: National Museum of African American History and Culture

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of African American History and Culture through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed. The underlying object's rights statement is: © 1989 Universal City Studios Permission required for use. Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.