A scene from Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” (1989) as an example of annotating a work of art as a starting point for interpretation

To demonstrate what happens when one feels the need to annotate a work that one is studying, I turned to an exemplary favorite today: a scene from Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing" (1989) in which Mookie (Spike Lee) is wearing a Brooklyn Dodgers Jackie Robinson jersey, Buggin' Out (Giancarlo Esposito) is wearing Air Jordans, Cee (Martin Lawrence) is wearing a Los Angeles Lakers Earvin "Magic" Johnson jersey, and Clifton (John Savage) is wearing a Boston Celtics Larry Bird jersey. My twenty-something students know Michael Jordan and his shoes, but such history here as the rivalry between Magic and Bird needs annotation for them to begin to interpret the scene's implications. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 12 April 2023)