First of all, I want to make it expressly clear that Chi-Raq is a fantastic film. It has an all star cast, a snappy and lyrical script, and brings a century old story up to speed in the modern day.

I hadn’t known before that Chi-Raq is a name for the poorer parts of Chicago and neither had I realized how many murders happen in that area ( I forget the exact number but I believe its the highest in all of Illinois.)

Chi-Raq is a retelling of Lysistrata, a greek comedy. In the movie, the girlfriends and lovers of two rival gangs, the Spartans and Trojans, give up sex in order to force their gangsters to give up gun violence. The phrase “No peace, No Pussy” is the most popular in the entire movie – direct and too the point.

I think that the movie, overall, did an excellent job describing the gun violence that plagues America today. But the fatal flaw of the movie ended up being that they tried to do more than what Lysistrata aimed to do. They had a sex strike against violence, but also brought in the issues of poverty, police brutality, police corruption, Black Lives Matter, and drive by killings of children.

The police brutality is brought up in only one line of the movie. The main child victim is killed by a gang drive by, but the children mentioned, such as Emmet Till, are all victims of police brutality.

Poverty and low government investment is pinpointed as a main cause of the gun violence and the issue is solved by building a new hospital and other public buildings. Yet I believe the issue of gun violence is a plethora of factors, not just poverty.

These are all extremely important issues in America, so I feel Chi-Raq should have done them justice. A mention or two in a line of a poem isn’t enough. I don’t believe that the movie should have tried to do so much, so quickly.

Chi-Raq, though it might have been a bit too ambitious, is a definite must see for all those interested in any part of the world. The themes are universal and brought up in poignant ways and the acting is superb. If I have the chance, I would definitely try to see this again!

Chi-raq was an interesting and fun film to watch, if you understand critical theories on race (and the fabric of African American and black history in America) and gender (and the matrix in which women exist and are seen as). If not, you run the risk of interpreting jokes and superficially described issues and solutions as fact for the black community. As a woman of color, a woman with black ancestry, and a woman who grew up around violence that plagued these specific communities I thought it was a different way of viewing the problems. It took a contemporary approach to the long drawn out issues that people of color have been fighting, in multi-dimensional ways, to alleviate.

The role that woman played in the film, was to say the least, offensive for me. I enjoyed watching the film, if I voided my mind of the other social contexts and their implications for the “No Peace, No Pussy” movement. Due to the fact that Spike Lee is a man, and perhaps can be blinded by his privilege as a man, there were several poignant points that lead to the simplification woman and their potential role in the alleviation of crime.

According to the film, all women (particularly women of color) can do to alleviate crime and bring peace to a community is to stop having sex. It also placed a lot of the blame on the community and it’s problems on conception and sex. Black bodies are allowed sex and all its pleasure without being tied to poverty and policies that have placed blacks and other minority groups in the very ecology that cause crimes. Women, particularly black women, have been historically at the forefront of giant civil rights issues. Much of the valid and valuable work that black women do has nothing (and should have nothing) to do with them abstaining from sex.

Sex, or the lack thereof, has nothing to do with the problems that plague many black communities, particularly the one portrayed in Chi-raq – policies, inequities, racism, lack of opportunity, and other structural issues are the problem. Not women. Women deserve sex just as much as the men (or women) they sleep with. Women are more than sexual objects and can offer communities more than just sex and wombs to hold children in. Women are complex beings that suffer complex issues within the ecology of underprivileged neighborhoods. They are not excluded from the violence that is experienced in these neighborhoods, nor is the only burden they hold their lost children.

The over simplification of women, disability, death, and complex social, political, and economic issues was simply distasteful – a film that can only be enjoyed by forgetting about social contexts and the fabric they are embedded in. The film must be viewed in a vacuum to be enjoyable, otherwise, it lacks the dimensionality to properly portray a people and the issues that have been ignored for centuries.

Chi-raq was the story of two gangs, their rivalry, and how they settled the score to unite Chicago. While the movie was a tad unrealistic, the story line made it easy for the audience to understand the issues in Chicago. One thing I found very interesting about the movie was the way the people spoke. Unlike your average movie, they actors spoke in a rhythmic like way with rhymes at the end. I thought this was a very interesting thing to do because it changed the whole way you saw the movie. Lines would stick with the audience more than just your average dialect. This helped to get the audience thinking more about the words and what was going on. I found this extremely interesting and enjoyed this part of the movie.
Although I understand that this movie was meant to bring up issues and not necessarily solve them, I have a problem with how the women were portrayed. I appreciate that the women decided that they needed to take action to save the community that they are living in. but the fact that they do this by denying their boyfriends sex frustrated me. It appears that we have nothing to offer but our bodies, which should not be the case. In addition, the movie brought up a lot of different points that I think needed to be addressed, such as what is happening in Chicago at this moment. In the end, the women prevail and end up solving the violence. I think that the movie was a good approach to bring up a lot of issues that are relevant right now, but did not exactly solve anything.

Chi-raq achieved satirical bliss by oversimplifying the cause of homicides in Chicago. The film sets the mood by informing it’s audience on the homicides that devastate the south side of Chicago. The gang violence is the culprit, but the movie fails to elaborate on the hopelessness, lack of jobs and education in the communities ,and most importantly what causes these young men to take up that line of work. The city’s homicide death toll is greater than that of Afghanistan during the war.

The most bizarre part of the film is when the protagonist learns about how Liberian women ended their second Civil War by denying their men sex. The protagonist decides if that worked in Liberia then it should be able to work in Chicago. She is able to rally up the girlfriends and wives of all the gang members to join her in the pursuit to bring peace to the south side by banning sex in order to end the gang wars. Later on the women discuss how John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry and decide that they will raid their local armory. The whole plot seemed far fetched. I was really annoyed by how almost each line rhymed. I found it bizarre that John Cusack played the role of a pastor of a church in the south side of Chicago.

Surprisingly the film failed to explain what everyday Americans can do to help end this trauma. The film failed to push for national gun reform. I really wish that the movie spent more time on the real issues at heart. This film does not even open the dialogue to have difficult discussions on systemic racism. There really should have been a good take away message that movie goers can take and spread to their respective communities.

The articles flooded my social media timelines. They spoke of an artist’s defamation of a story that had much more to offer, but was negated due to his over-dramatization, oversimplification and sexism. All of these things I expected when I walked into the film, which I believe has led me to the more unpopular stance – Chi-Raq went well!

Like most individuals, after the film, I knew that newer social standards and ideas had been violated at a maximum. He had belittled women, issues within Black communities, and potential solutions. Yet for some reason I kept thinking that I had enjoyed myself.

As a woman of color, I did not take every little thing to be an exact replica of those living in underprivileged communities – that would be ignorant. There were many subtle and overt jokes. There were lots of colors. It was great art. I took it as that, art. Art that needed to be seen. What resonated most with me was that I could not tell someone the last time a film that placed great emphasis on Blacks, specifically African Americans, had been this widespread, and even playing in Cornell Cinema. I was happy to see people whose faces looked like mine on the big screen. I was happy to see oddly too simple stories told. I was happy to see Black women in “strong” roles. I had fallen for the trap.

The trap of enjoyment. The trap of relief. The trap of empathy. With this in mind, I’ve concluded that between the experiences needed to empathize, the legitimate criticism, and the unfortunate realization that many white people, whom have never interacted with people of color, will probably buy into these stereotypes, that this movie was NOT for everyone. So as happy as I am that it made it to the big screen, I understand that it’s not helping the big things…[Purposely Vague Statement].

CHIRAQ was such an amazing film, and I’m so glad that I was able to start my Rose Scholars events this semester with such a great movie. Not only were the actors who had parts in the movie actors that I know, love, and appreciate, but Spike Lee is also one of my favorite directors, and the message that the plot delivered was fantastic. And it only made it that much better that all of these actors were singing half of their lines (side note: musicals are a great pastime of mine).

Although I live in the suburbs of Atlanta, and not quite the heart of the city, as a black woman myself, I related to this movie on a very deep level. Crime, police brutality, and social justice are very hot topics currently in the United States, and at times, I’ve felt hopeless about the plight of black people in regards to the way that we’re both portrayed and treated. So, the fact that this film took an old play and related it to the struggles of black individuals, thus addressing those very problems and setting women of color as the protagonists of the movie, really resonated with me.

 
Furthermore, seeing these women using their sexuality as a good thing, as a weapon of their own, to fight their fight against innercity crime and unnecessary death, really hit home. I’m personally tired of seeing women’s sexuality, particularly that of black women, being viewed as this horrible thing that should never be discussed or expressed, and it was refreshing to see another spin put on it in this film. Overall, I love that topics that are very near and dear to my heart were seen in this interesting adaptation of a play from thousands of years ago.

I typically don’t watch movies like Chi-Raq that are musicals but the description had me intrigued. At first I was curious how an old Greek play, Lysistrata, would relevant in a setting that is Chicago’s South Side, notorious for its gang violence, gun worship and misogyny. To my surprise, I was very entertained by the movie but I probably could do without the constant rhyming for the sake of comprehension. It muddled the dialogue and made it hard to understand certain scenes, especially when conjoined with the local slang. However, I did appreciate it as a smart artistic style.

According to critics, Spike Lee pulled off a somewhat respectable portrayal of black culture and values but may have overreached; nonetheless he addressed important problems that needs to be talked about. The actors were passionate and acted their hearts out. Their sadness, rage and turmoil (particularly Demetrius’ at the end) was palpable, a testament to fantastic performances. Certain scenes were extremely emotive, particularly Father Corridan during Patti’s funeral, who delivered a rousing eulogy turned diatribe against the NRA, gun and thug culture, and the pervasive fear against retaliation. The plan to deprive the men, particularly those in gangs, of sex until the “self-inflicted genocide” is ended for the sake of protecting their children and their own lives worked out well, in the movie anyways. It was amusing to see the men changing from arrogance to desperation masked by false bravado. I applaud the never-ending persistence and dedication of the women to their cause of bringing peace to their neighborhood.

Obviously practicing diplomacy around celibacy would be impractical in the real world, but the movie was nonetheless captivating in portraying the senseless violence, the motivation behind such warfare and how a “macho” culture leads to utter bloodlust, endangering the innocent. I think that Spike Lee did well bringing forth important questions, problems and challenges Chi-Raq that need to be addressed in the US because this movie is not completely fictional and  representative of many neighborhoods. Change can be hard, particularly in a culture where violence, citizen militarism and fear is valued and even nurtured. However, it is necessary in order to move towards a safer, better life.