"Chi-raq" The Musical
Since earlier this year, popular black film maker Spike Lee's name has been buzzing around Chicago. He had announced that he would be making a film entitled Chiraq. He originally received a negative response because the city works hard to get rid of the war infested name that derives from the death tolls being higher than those of people who were in the armed forces fighting in Iraq. Once director Lee confirmed that he does not plan to exploit the city, but to create a work of art along side it and create job opportunities at the same time, it seemed more genuine. Now as we fast forward to Tuesday, October 6th, Spike Lee released the official trailer for the movie. The majority of Chicago... Was not pleased.
From first glance it's a star studded cast featuring Samuel Jackson, Jennifer Hudson, Wesley Snipes, Angela Basset, Nick Cannon and more. It's a comedy/ musical about the city of Chicago being in their current state but then, a woman gets the epiphany of how to stop the war in Chicago. She believes that the antidote to cure the notorious slaughter rate is to bring all the women together and go on a sex strike... Majority of the 2015 Chicago celebrities from the music scene have came to the public to basically blast Lee and call the movie whack.
While that is an opinion and valid, we can shed light on the fact that the movie is originally based on a Greek comedy "Lysistrata" written by Aristophanes. The play was set in the time of 411 BCE and tells of the women going on a sex strike to stop the Peloponnesian War. He plans on using the remake as a satire. A satire is "the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues." (Webster). It's obvious that not many Chicagoans were aware of this. Despite Lee's cinematic history of fictional films, many believed that this feature would be more "real" and a more honest portrayal of the 2015 war zone of Chicago. The trailer has flooded the net along with people giving their reviews on it- some defending the "Do The Right Thing" director and some criticizing and accusing him of exploiting the city. The movie will be officially released in movie theaters December 4th and you will have the chance to see whether or not Spike Lee did the city justice.
