Did They Do the Right Thing?

All right, all right, so maybe it’s not as important as perestroika or global warming, but we live here and we take the Academy Awards seriously. Well, sort of seriously. Seriously enough to be a little worked up about what our President might call this Spike Lee thing.

Now, when director-writer Lee’s brilliant exploration of American race relations, “Do the Right Thing,” was passed over by the jury at Cannes in favor of the equally brilliant exploration of yuppie sexuality, “sex, lies and videotape,” we weren’t surprised. After all, if you ask a Frenchman to choose between a story of techno-seduction and one about a race riot at a pizza parlor, you don’t have to be Roland Barthes to know which way he’s going to jump.

On the other hand, the cultural imperatives operating in the deliberations of our own Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are a trifle murkier. Surely, the academy cannot have been influenced by the fact that Lee’s deal with Universal Studios virtually forced him to make his film as a nonunion production. Nor could any of the academy members have been turned off by his sometimes rather abrasive personality. Heck, if tact were the price of admission to Hollywood, Morton’s would be empty every night. Similarly, no one could have been offended by the assertive social attitudes expressed in Lee’s movie. If that were the standard, nobody would ever sit through another Wagner opera or read a poem by Ezra Pound.

No, it’s got to be something else. Race? Well, Danny Aiello was nominated as best supporting actor for his role in “Do the Right Thing.” Of course, he was the white guy. Then there’s the fact that “Glory,” one of the finest films ever made about the American Civil War, also was snubbed by the academy.

As Cardinal Newman said of his conversion: Cumulative probability leading to subjective certainty.