Spike Lee Responds To 'Chi-Raq' Critics Who Haven't Actually Seen The Movie

By Carman Tse in Arts & Entertainment on Nov 10, 2015 4:00PM

No stranger to controversy for his entire career, director Spike Lee has responded to the critics who feel his new film, Chi-Raq, trivializes the violence on Chicago's South Side.

"Some people are getting it twisted, and thinking this is a comedy," said Lee in a video posted by his production company 40 Acres And A Mule Filmworks on Monday. "Chi-Raq is not a comedy. Chi-Raq is a satire." This statement comes 15 years after the release of Lee's Bamboozled, which opens with the protagonist defining the term "satire" to the audience.

"In no way, shape or form are we making light of the lives that have been murdered in this senseless violence," he adds. "People, don't get it twisted. This film is about serious business."

Chi-Raq's trailer was released last week, and many have already taken objection to the film's colorful, pop-art approach to such a heavy subject matter. "You owe Chicago an apology," Chicago rapper Rhymefest told the Chicago Sun-Times on Wednesday. "And you owe Chicago your presence to repair the damage" and suggested the director come to the city and meet with community leaders.

Over in the pages of the Chicago Tribune, Chicago physician Amy Ho objects to the "predictably controversial" filmmaker's manner in which he "managed to trivialize the suffering of the men, women and children of Chicago's West and South sides." Ho also focuses on the premise of the film, based on the Ancient Greek comedy "Lysistrata," where women withhold sex from men in order to end a conflict. "This very notion entrenches the assumption that women have no power other than their vaginas," she writes.

Of course, almost nobody has seen the complete version of Chi-Raq yet, basing this on a two-and-a-half minute trailer. Rhymefest himself admits this, but says he read a copy of the script. "I saw the trailer," he said to the Sun-Times. "It looks just like the script I read, and it verified everything I thought." Following Lee's statement in the response, the rest of the video contains additional clips not in the original trailer that show a more serious side of the film.

Films such as Chi-Raq have always been subject to the criticism that their tone would trivialize serious subject matter (see: Ernst Lubitsch's To Be Or Not To Be). One doesn't even have to look further than Spike Lee's own filmography to find such examples. "Do The Right Thing was serious as hell," he told Chicago Magazine last month. "But Do The Right Thing was also funny as a motherfucker."

"It is possible to address a very serious subject matter and still have humor," he told the magazine. "So people need to relax. They need to stop thinking I’m gonna make light of the loss of life. Please. Calm down."

Chi-Raq is in theaters on Dec. 4.