MOVIE REVIEW: Chi-Raq (2015)
(CW: sexual content/sexual assault, gang violence, racially motivated policing)
In South Korea, women have had enough of being treated the way they have since antiquity: as little more than unpaid domestic servants, breeding vessels, sex slaves or punching bags for their male counterparts. The more extreme feminists of the nation gathered online in 2015 and came up with the “Four Nos”, leading to the “4B” movement: bisexu = no sex with men, bichulsan = no giving birth, biyeonae = no dating men, and bihon = no marrying men.
In the wake of the 2024 US presidential election results that brought Donald Trump — a candidate whose followers plan to outlaw abortion nationwide in an act of schadenfreude — back to the White House, many American women have looked to the 4B movement as a template to fight back. “If we can’t decide independently if, when, or how we have our children,” many of these women say, “we simply won’t deal with men sexually.” Some women on the dating scene have even gone so far as declare potential male dating partners with vasectomies as ideal partners. It’s a war on the bodies of women who are AFAB (assigned female at birth), by people who don’t know them or their circumstances: they just need new bodies to fill the demographic holes holes left behind by the dead — and only women can solve the problem.
While the report above would be the origin of the Republic of Gilead in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaiden’s Tale, another author told a story of women using their bodies to change their circumstances: the ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes wrote the story of Lysistrata, a tale of women resisting the wars that ravaged their homeland. It continues to inspire people to end conflict without violence, and was interpreted for the modern era during the Chicago gang turf wars in the early 21st Century by Spike Lee. The title uses the pejorative term for the city’s war-zone atmosphere: Chi-Raq (a portmanteau of Chicago and Iraq).
Samuel L Jackson (The Avengers [2012], School Daze [1988], Black Snake Moan [2006]) plays Dolomedes the narrator as he reports on the violence rocking Chicago’s South Side. Two gangs — the Spartans led by Demetrius Dupree aka “Chi-Raq” (Nick Cannon, “Wildin’ Out” [TV-MTV], Love Don’t Cost a Thing [2003]), and the Trojans led by Cyclops (Wesley Snipes, Blade [1998], Demolition Man [1993], Gallowwalkers [2007]) — shoot and spray bullets in endless turf wars. Chi-Raq still found time for a woman in his life, named Lysistrata (Teyonah Parris, The Marvels [2023], “WandaVision” [TV-Disney+]). She’s a beautiful, intelligent and tough woman, who stays with Chi-Raq through attacks on his person and home. One day, Lysistrata witnesses a drive-by shooting between the rival gangs, only to find a child died in the crossfire and the child’s mother Irene (Grammy award-winner Jennifer Hudson, Respect [2021], Dreamgirls [2015], Cats [2019]) scrubbing the child’s blood off the asphalt the next day. When she confronts Chi-Raq about it, he is blasé and jaded at the death the gang war has caused. Frustrated, she goes behind his back to speak to the other Spartan women. They too are tired of the violence for the sake of respect. Eventually, the women of the Trojan camp (who are also tired of the war) join in a plot to stop the war: they would deny every man in Chicago sexual pleasure until the gang war ends.
With encouragement from the nonviolent activist Miss Helen Worthy (Angela Bassett, Strange Days [1993], Critters 4 [1992], Black Panther [2018]) and local priest Father Mike Corridan (John Cusack, Gross Pointe Blank [1997], War, Inc. [2012]), these modern gangster molls realize that denying sex isn’t enough: they have to stop the men getting weapons. In an insanely brave act, Lysistrata and the ladies seduce their way into a military armory and take it over. When the military shows up to take it back, they are reticent to fight unarmed women who have no hostages. The stalemate stops the weapons from flowing out onto Chicago streets (more on this later), and the gang war slows but does not stop. The gangs want blood, but they want sex even more—though their homophobia stops them from finding companionship with each other; they’re killers, the gangs reasoned with themselves, not homosexuals.
The story comes to a head when news of the Chicago South Side sex revolt reaches the city’s Mayor McCloud (D.B. Sweeney, Fire in the Sky [1993], Brother Bear [2003]), only to go nationwide and reach the First Lady of the United States. The President needed the problem solved, because it was becoming a national embarrassment AND inspiring women around the world to shake up the status quo in a similar manner. The solution was incredibly stupid, even for “A Spike Lee Joint”: Lysistrata and Chi-Raq would have sex in the local high-school gym in front of the entire neighborhood as witnesses, and the first one to climax would accept the other’s demands. Thankfully, that doesn’t happen as Cyclops agrees to end the gang war before they get started. Chi-Raq does not want to end the war, but it takes a very big emotional effort from all people present to turn him away from a life of wanton gang violence. Dolomedes ends his report on a hip-hop version of “America the Beautiful” and inner-city murals to show that life got better now that the gangs are at peace.
I took my parents to see Chi-Raq, and I had an extensive interview with them afterward. They were unfamiliar with the source material, and they thought it as one of the worst movies they had ever seen thanks to the over-sexualization, lack of self-respect by the main characters, and senseless violence. I did not agree: the serious nature of a contemporary crime issue affecting Black people in this country on a massive scale in a single city riveted me to the screen. Though I did not sympathize with the ideals of street life conflated with Black culture, I did empathize with the characters’ desire for peace and safety.
The Lysistrata connection made it doubly effective thanks to my prior experience with the play. I once watched a performance of Lysistrata in high school that had no affect on me: it was like the words hit a brick wall before they ever entered my ears. I could not place myself in the position of these women simply because they were women. But women kept talking about Lysistrata, from high school to college, to occasional mentions in the news when actors would stage a more modern performance, or even as obtuse threats. My curiosity finally got the best of me with this film, leading me to an online digest of the source material that got me up to speed.
The director’s imperative to put weird sex stuff in his movies is a holdover from earlier years (looking at you, She Hate Me), but it may have been the turnoff for a lot of people. One in media res scene involving Chi-Raq came off less like sex and more like sexual assault. Putting your main characters in a voyeuristic sex show for the sake of ending gang warfare is wrong, especially since both characters had to be coerced into doing it. Then again, the classical Greek play had outrageous sexual themes and imagery — men walking around with massive erections (their “heavy burdens”) because they had gone without sex for so long — so perhaps this joint did not fall that far from the tree.
CHOICE CUTS:
- There are intelligent people that insist on pronouncing the title of this movie as “chee-rack” or “shih-rock”, when its component parts let you know how to pronounce it: use your brain to get this right.
- CAMEO: Blink and you’ll miss cameos by humorist Dave Chapelle and MTV veejay La La Anthony.
- Gotta give another shoutout to hair and wardrobe, as Teyonah Parris’ afro was always on-point no matter the camera angle.
- Father Corridan was the only White man in the ‘hood, but you’d never think he was out of place with the way he moved among the people.
- PRICELESS QUOTE: “No peace, no piece” is the tagline for this film. I guess you’ve gotta reach the audience somehow.
