[From article]
But what really seems to have happened here is that Lee has forgotten that the story he’s modernizing is satire in the first place. In his public appearances to discuss the film, he appears to actually believe that sex-strikes like the one in the film will stop violent crime.
On the publicity circuit, Lee suggested to Stephen Colbert that (in reality, mind you) women withholding sex from men “could prevent sexual assault on college campuses.” And in efforts to make the subject of his film seem more plausible, he also “cited Liberian activist Leymah Gbowee, asserting that she’d won a Nobel Peace Prize for using a sex-strike to end violence in Liberia.” In The Atlantic, Ta-Nehisi Coates calls this presumption “manifestly false.” He writes:
It’s true that Gbowee won a Nobel Peace Prize and made incredible contributions to her country. It is also certainly false that sex strikes were the method by which she made those contributions. The sex strikes ‘had little or no practical effect,’ Gbowee has written.
[. . .]
the real tragedy on display is that Lee, like the flock that cheers on his gun control lunacy, is utterly incapable of accurately identifying the real problems plaguing cities like Chicago, much less identifying those guilty of bringing them about. The logic of the film’s “manifesto” is irreparably broken.
Firstly, in the most basic sense, fault always lies with the criminals who use guns to murder, steal, and rape -- not with the NRA, and not with the politicians who work to protect the Second Amendment rights of Americans. The proprietors of legal gun shows in Indiana are likewise not responsible for the actions of the criminals who use guns on the streets in Chicago. That this simple truth even requires explanation is an absolute travesty, and indicates a stubborn sickness among those unwilling to recognize it.
[. . .]
on March 22nd, before Spike Lee got busy filming Chi-Raq, a would-be mass murderer named Everardo Custudio “began firing into the crowd” of people on a Chicago street one evening. An Uber driver, having just dropped off his previous fare, witnessed the incident and “fired six shots at Custodio” with his concealed handgun, legally owned and carried, striking the attacker in the “shin, thigh, and lower back.” Unlike so many similar stories, this one has a happy ending -- no one but the would-be murderer was injured that night, thanks to a concealed weapon in the hands of a brave, law-abiding citizen.
[. . .]
What is happening in Southwest Chicago reflects a cultural problem, and it is neither due to a lack of gun laws, nor the presence of guns. Rather, it is the result of a moral and social decay in America that is particularly acute in some urban areas like Southwest Chicago.
Until people can recognize that one simple fact and begin honestly discussing the reasons for that moral and social decay in inner cities, you can make a thousand films blaming the NRA and Second Amendment advocates and pass a thousand gun laws, and it won’t improve the horrible circumstances like those that we lament in Chicago.
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/12/in_spike_lees_new_film_chiraq_the_jokes_on_him.html
December 11, 2015
In Spike Lee's new film Chi-Raq, the joke's on him
By William Sullivan
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