Bet You Didn’t Know: Secrets Behind the Making of “Jungle Fever”
Italian/Black Beef
I’m not from the East coast so I had no idea that there was tension between blacks and Italians until I saw Do The Right Thing. Clearly, it’s a theme Spike doesn’t shy away from. Probably because it was something he experienced first hand growing up in Brooklyn. When he was a boy, Spike was not allowed to join his neighborhood Cub Scout Troop, which was all white, because he was not “Roman Catholic.” With all the violence between the Italian and black community Spike said it had to be something. He speculated that it might have something to do with the fact that Sicily and Africa aren’t too far from each other. We know that Moors, black Africans, have been in Italy for centuries and you know the people mixed and mingled. Could some of the tension be a result of some type of self hatred? Who knows…
