Spike Lee's Chi-raq

wow d-40 even being disingenuous as repost policeman, a new low

the color-coded spartans/trojans stuff sounds very baz luhrmann and obviously is not how it Is but movies can and will do many things. a lot of the critical articles i've read (by people who've seen it and not) seem to think that there's some other, realistic, respectful movie someone could make that really would "wake people up" and cause Change. maybe there is. someone should make it. but in my experience sober, polished tragedy reduces to entertainment just as easily as insane satire--easier, actually, because i think a lot of people feel like subjecting themselves to dramatic tragedy is a kind of moral act, and nothing is more entertaining than performing moral acts. like i thought this line in the lil bibby piece (which contains a lot of praise!) was wrong--

It's supposed to make you want to cry. A lot of the stuff that they were doing was funny. Even the whole rhyme scheme, that shit was just stupid. If you see some shit on Chicago, people need to want to cry at the end, not laugh, because it really is sad.

--because i watch moved liberals weep at handsomely mounted injustice almost every weekend, and imo i might as well be projecting porn. (gonna nag the office to get this-- we got dear white people, which the moved liberals did not like, so there's a chance.) no idea if this movie's good or not but i think aggressive, passionate satire is a better way to keep people awake at night than respectful realism--and at the very least not a reason in itself to condemn a movie. (i know there are other reasons it's being condemned--is it about 2015 chicago at all, is its title ghoulish marketing for spike's aristophanes stunt--but idk how i'd address those without seeing it.)

wow d-40 even being disingenuous as repost policeman, a new low

― mattresslessness, Saturday, 12 December 2015 04:17 (1 hour ago) Permalink

this is a great archetypal mattresslessness post in its pseud condescension

apologies for not realizing he hadn't linked to the review but to a second review, it was very "disingenuous" (tf??) of me to make that error

--because i watch moved liberals weep at handsomely mounted injustice almost every weekend, and imo i might as well be projecting porn. (gonna nag the office to get this-- we got dear white people, which the moved liberals did not like, so there's a chance.) no idea if this movie's good or not but i think aggressive, passionate satire is a better way to keep people awake at night than respectful realism--and at the very least not a reason in itself to condemn a movie. (i know there are other reasons it's being condemned--is it about 2015 chicago at all, is its title ghoulish marketing for spike's aristophanes stunt--but idk how i'd address those without seeing it.)

― denies the existence of dark matter (difficult listening hour), Friday, December 11, 2015 10:32 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

is bibby a 'liberal'?

i didn't read him as talking about himself there. he says right before it that he thinks the movie should have been more of a documentary and that it won't do something the interviewer paraphrases as "wake people up". does he mean he too remains asleep?

I'm not saying I agree with everything Bibby says, but I think it's fair to say when a movie is supposed to "wake people up" that it should at least have a comprehension of the dynamics—not necessarily the same as the specifics—of that situation. (I'm going to sidebar for now the fact that I think everyone's been pretty "woke" to chicago's violence problem for the last three years)

i don't disagree w/ the general premise of your post—obviously there's no form, satire or realism, which is inherently more 'respectful' of the situation, and in some cases giving it some distance from the reality is an artistic & maybe political positive. (Although I articulated that POV on twitter & Malcom London RT'd to say more or less, as a recall, that it really just freezes a caricature in the nation's mind)

but can we at least agree there are ways in which this might not ring true—not in the accuracy of specific signs depicted, but in its ability to grapple w/ the reality—that could be perceived not only as disrespectful, but ultimately sabotaging of the art, especially since the art is specifically suggesting it will have some rubber-meets-the-road effect?

he's talking about the emotions he thinks the movie ought to induce in the audience and i'm just skeptical of the notion that tearful audiences of realistic movies about social outrages are communing any closer with victims than confused or bewildered or uncomfortably amused ones.

sry that was xp.

like, i get that the Takes are flying fast & furious and there are lots of ppl who are like "why isn't this a reverent docu-drama with strings to indicate sadness" but the criticism im reading from bibby seems to be reaching beyond that:

Chicago is not purple and orange. We don't gangbang like that. It's just like, every street—it's different blocks. And we don't meet up in different spots like that, and have meetings and shit like that. We don't have old guys in gangs. It's really just kids, smoking weed and drinking and lean, and somebody killed their cousin or their friend and they wake up everyday wanting to get their revenge. I guess that's the only way they know.

he wants to make it more fantastical. more artfully abstracted from the reality. but what if he does it in a way that erases the truth ppl experience there, or warps it for a national audience? i think that can be a legitimate grievance. it feels like ppl on the one hand want to argue "its not insensitive because this is about a real situation" and on the other hand that its art so that it might have harmful consequences can be waved away under creative license (XXP)

dude, you have to see this movie and report back. it's the only way out of this mess we are in in this country. and people keep picking on you here. we need a long-ass review with some pert info.

but can we at least agree there are ways in which this might not ring true—not in the accuracy of specific signs depicted, but in its ability to grapple w/ the reality—that could be perceived not only as disrespectful, but ultimately sabotaging of the art

sure-- the movie could have nothing to say, could be fatuous, narcissistic, not revelatory of anything. lots of movies are like that. but "a sex strike wouldn't really work", "it should be more realistic", "it should make you cry" are not arguments about that. in fact he talks plenty about the details and feelings it does get right-- enough to make me want to see it more even if i come away as disappointed as him.

the old guys thing is a sharp criticism, fair.

this is a pretty good thread

--because i watch moved liberals weep at handsomely mounted injustice almost every weekend, and imo i might as well be projecting porn. (gonna nag the office to get this--

dlh what do you do

i work at a single-screen movie theater that also does a lot of live stuff; i run the projector and cook the food and do the buying and fill in gaps on shows' tech crews. (i am also an editor at a large music streaming service.) it's oscarbait season and i have seen a lot of true stories lately.

posting on the way home from teching the nutcracker, speaking of the season.

(my mean remarks about liberals are because many of our regulars are senior citizens from the town up the road, puna; a local synonym for "hippie" is "punatic". actually these people are lovely i just get bitchy about their politics sometimes because they look disapproving when i read them the popping oil ingredients.)

Spike Lee at his most brechtian since maybe School Daze doesn't warrant criticisms about truth and accuracy. Whatever the merits of the movie, the point of making it stylized and unreal and dissonant is to give the politics of the movie some space to breath. The unreality is the prod that sets the audience thinking instead of simply being engaged with a story.

Deej, do you think Spike Lee is any less respectful of the experiences of Chicagoans than Mozzy is to the experiences of Sacramentans? Do Mozzy's tapes reflect Sacramentans' experiences? Or do his tapes "erase the truth ppl experience there, or warp it for a national audience"? E.g. when you contrast Mozzy's numerous explicit references to committing murder with the actual murder rate of Sacramento, which nearly matches the not especially "gut-wrenching" or "shocking" but very realistic rate of the rest of California, you might think either that Mozzy committed all 27 murders (out of 480,000 people) in Sacramento last year or that, possibly a shoe store slap fight here or there notwithstanding, Mozzy is just another Gene Simmons selling a rock n roll fantasy; and that's fine with me, but there's no internal consistency in your criticism of one artist and your plaudits for another, though I look forward to your tortuous explanations as to why I'm so wrong.

You're also still pushing this narrative that Chicago violence has entered the national consciousness post-drill, which I think is very self-serving considering your role in promoting the music. I don't know what rhetorical effort you've put into convincing everyone this is true except to say that there are people out there in the world who have talked about Chicago violence since drill came into being, which duh. People talked about it before drill, too.

man, dlh, your job sounds sweet

-

bmc: does this movie actually literally repeat the 'wake up' ending from 'school daze'? or was i misinformed?

the color-coded spartans/trojans stuff sounds very baz luhrmann and obviously is not how it Is but movies can and will do many things. a lot of the critical articles i've read (by people who've seen it and not) seem to think that there's some other, realistic, respectful movie someone could make that really would "wake people up" and cause Change. maybe there is. someone should make it. but in my experience sober, polished tragedy reduces to entertainment just as easily as insane satire--easier, actually, because i think a lot of people feel like subjecting themselves to dramatic tragedy is a kind of moral act, and nothing is more entertaining than performing moral acts. like i thought this line in the lil bibby piece (which contains a lot of praise!) was wrong--

It's supposed to make you want to cry. A lot of the stuff that they were doing was funny. Even the whole rhyme scheme, that shit was just stupid. If you see some shit on Chicago, people need to want to cry at the end, not laugh, because it really is sad.

--because i watch moved liberals weep at handsomely mounted injustice almost every weekend, and imo i might as well be projecting porn. (gonna nag the office to get this-- we got dear white people, which the moved liberals did not like, so there's a chance.) no idea if this movie's good or not but i think aggressive, passionate satire is a better way to keep people awake at night than respectful realism--and at the very least not a reason in itself to condemn a movie. (i know there are other reasons it's being condemned--is it about 2015 chicago at all, is its title ghoulish marketing for spike's aristophanes stunt--but idk how i'd address those without seeing it.)
― denies the existence of dark matter (difficult listening hour), Friday, December 11, 2015 10:32 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

just wanted to cheer this post. a lot of the criticisms of the film simply seem to be upset that lee’s treatment of the violence in chicago doesn’t fulfill their ideas of "realism"—that it isn’t sober enough. it’s quite possible that the film is a disaster, but naturally lee has every right—and probably a duty, given his body of work—to treat the subject in as outlandish and stylized a fashion as he would like.

this isn’t playing here and i don’t know if it’ll open in this town. but i hope to see this.

I haven't seen the movie yet (has there been a friend lately in which so many people post this disclaimer?), but dlh's comments remind me of the reaction to JFK from libs who thought Stone "muddied the waters" (I think it was beloved Richard Cohen; I'm not looking it up) and tut-tutted him for not being courageous enough to make An Honest Film about What Really Happened. The honest straightforward take w/out any of the movie's awesome lurid, ridiculous, "how's your mousse" moments wouldn't have done anything except reassure those convinced the Warren Commission was fiction. At least Stone's approach questions almost every piety of the left and right -- almost every piety, for DO NOT FORGET YOUR DYING KING.

i was tempted to see it this weekend but tbh i like chris hemsworth and i love patrick o'brian looking shit so i'm probably gonna see the whaler pic instead

I read that Ron Howard's take on the guy's fictionalized take on the true events that inspired Melville's "Moby Dick" does not do the reality justice, and that the rampant use of CGI does not pay proper respect to the real violence of mother nature and vindictive whales.

man that reminds me i'm in this kinda book club thing and we're reading ecology papers for fun (which reminds me i was looking up papers on assemblage theory and came across a paper by a sometime ilxor, only it was on like renaissance english lit instead of like hubbell's unified neutral theory so it was pretty funny) and there was this one awesome paper involving predation, i can't find it for free anywhere but this facebook post has the abstract - https://www.facebook.com/OrcaProjectSriLanka/posts/971991626199133 - if you've got a login for access to academic papers i highly recommend it, fun stuff, but man talk about violence.

good post bam

i wanna see that whale movie too but not nearly as much as i'd want to see yet another moby-dick, for reasons not unconnected to this discussion

is lynne ramsay still doing moby-dick in space?

idk but would camp out

ahab u've switched off ur targeting computer

what's wrong

I have you now.

ahab does at one point, while excoriating the sun for not showing him where moby-dick is despite "even now beholding him", complain that the sun is also keeping quiet about "the objects on the unknown, thither side of thee"

http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/winking-sun-493788.jpg

http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_large/0/3664/197388-3105-114828-1-adventure-comics.jpg

engaging w/ this in two pieces but i at least appreciate the straightforward argument even if u can't help but be a condescending shithead about it

Spike Lee at his most brechtian since maybe School Daze doesn't warrant criticisms about truth and accuracy. Whatever the merits of the movie, the point of making it stylized and unreal and dissonant is to give the politics of the movie some space to breath. The unreality is the prod that sets the audience thinking instead of simply being engaged with a story.

I understand this point & made it myself, as i referenced upthread. I thought my last two posts addressed this specifically. https://twitter.com/MalcolmLondon/status/661646774319374336

Deej, do you think Spike Lee is any less respectful of the experiences of Chicagoans than Mozzy is to the experiences of Sacramentans? Do Mozzy's tapes reflect Sacramentans' experiences? Or do his tapes "erase the truth ppl experience there, or warp it for a national audience"? E.g. when you contrast Mozzy's numerous explicit references to committing murder with the actual murder rate of Sacramento, which nearly matches the not especially "gut-wrenching" or "shocking" but very realistic rate of the rest of California, you might think either that Mozzy committed all 27 murders (out of 480,000 people) in Sacramento last year or that, possibly a shoe store slap fight here or there notwithstanding, Mozzy is just another Gene Simmons selling a rock n roll fantasy; and that's fine with me, but there's no internal consistency in your criticism of one artist and your plaudits for another, though I look forward to your tortuous explanations as to why I'm so wrong.

First off, fuck you & your 'torturous explanations' im certainly not the only person who has this perspective on spike's film who's enjoyed a chief keef song.

I'm not saying there's no way Spike could make a good movie about chicago called chiraq, just because he's an outsider! Nor do I think that's what the people critical of this film are saying. I'm just suggesting that concerns about his ability to accurately portray the central dynamics of the problem **are fair things to be concerned about** and shouldnt be dismissed out of hand as a bunch of ppl who don't realize that art is artifice, man. I may watch the movie and end up disagreeing w/ the people critical of it. (In fact I wasn't going to post again til I'd seen it, but then you posted...)

And of course these questions are relevant to ask of rappers as well! There's no contradiction here, & these concerns are present in my writing about rap music as well (And to be completely transparent, I'm coming from a tradition of arguments about these things, these arent ideas ive formed in a vacuum). Mozzy, like the drill scene artists, is in conversation with his community about the truth of his art. (FYI, and I bring this up not because I'm saying it makes Mozzy more "authentic" and therefore good, but because the concerns about the murder rate should be put into context—https://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/sacramentos-bad-rap/content?oid=16642245—see "Today's Gangs of Sacramento". His experience of gang life may be sold as "authenticity" & translated into a cliche the further you get from Sacramento, but that doesn't mean that the gangs or the violence are fictive—even if we'll never know the true nature of that relationship.) The whole reason the drill scene & keef became a thing was bc of local support of the teenagers in these communities. And lots of people in these communities think mozzy & keef are not representing their communities well, this is a pretty common and well disseminated POV. Even as their art moves me greatly I can absolutely see how consequences intended & unintended from their rise are in some ways negative...

The whole obsession w/ "realness" in street rap is in part a moral argument, and it's also a set of inter-community negotiations: that if you're going to be supported by ppl in this community you can only speak on that which you have experienced firsthand. these codes exist to avert exploitation, to ensure that those doing labor receive payment for their experiences and not someone else's. This is one ideology underlying a large portion of gangster rap. And then there's lot of gangster rap which doesnt fit that mold. & ive enjoyed music on both sides of the line. But I think criticisms from these communities of Spike, Keef, and Mozzy are legitimate!

You're also still pushing this narrative that Chicago violence has entered the national consciousness post-drill, which I think is very self-serving considering your role in promoting the music. I don't know what rhetorical effort you've put into convincing everyone this is true except to say that there are people out there in the world who have talked about Chicago violence since drill came into being, which duh. People talked about it before drill, too.

Self serving or not its true. i watched this happen firsthand. The interrupters doc that came out in 2011 made a little noise locally. But went from one article in TheRoot about Chicago Violence in early 2012 to an "epidemic" by summer. There were documentaries from Noisey, the UK, Worldstar, all these media entities swooped in to suddenly cover the violence in chicago. People didn't think of chicago like that before then, or they thought of it the way they thought of any other city with "some rough parts." I mean by summer nightline was doing special episodes on it which always included footage of the rappers themselves:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag7JseqFqoA

anyway v interested to see how chance addresses this on SNL tonite lol

cold open with rahm

*stares blankly at the camera* "Rahm...is good."

lol

the Christian Science Monitor was reporting on Chicago gang violence, and citing public housing costs, in August of 2010

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2010/0830/Behind-Chicago-s-high-crime-summer-persistent-street-gang-violence

my date-limited news search on this subject produced a scant 639 other articles on the topic for the date range 1/1/09 through 12/21/10

fyi

*public housing cuts (as one among several points leading to the increase)

CNN reporting on Chicago gang violence and referring to it as "epidemic" in May of 2009

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/05/08/chicago.children.slain/index.html?iref=24hours

"Gangs Turn Chicago Streets Into a Battlefield," ABC Nightly News (national); anchor refers to the "epidemic of deadly violence taking the lives of children in Chicago" in the first line of the broadcast

http://abcnews.go.com/US/gangs-turn-chicagos-streets-battleground/story?id=8785218

(meant to add airdate: 10/8/2009)

This is an insane line of critique. Of *course* ppl reported on violence in Chicago before 2012. Lol @ citing the Christian Science monitor lmao

But they also reported on philly, on New Orleans, on Detroit

Chicago becoming a national story as a *singular* space of talking points about it is a racent development; fox news' whole thing on Chicago being a stand-In for black on black crime is recent. Before 2012, it was all about Chicago corruption and obama's socialist radical friends and leftist preachers. You can choose not to believe me, but again I witnessed this firsthand and I'm really not making it up!

I never said this was the first time ever, just that in 2015 there is no one unaware that Chicago violence exists. It is common knowledge. Patting spike on the back for bringing attention to Chicago violence is critical laziness period

It's wild how I have to field criticisms from you dudes about "making these arguments about yourself" when you're clearly unafraid of making them about me and my career, but hey

oh I see. what you wrote was this:

The interrupters doc that came out in 2011 made a little noise locally. But went from one article in TheRoot about Chicago Violence in early 2012 to an "epidemic" by summer.

so I pointed out that national news was specifically using the word "epidemic" three years before your start date. doing it a lot. the national media was aware of, and reporting on, the epidemic of violence in Chicago long before 2011. there was much more than "a little noise locally." you wrote:

People didn't think of chicago like that before then, or they thought of it the way they thought of any other city with "some rough parts."

I demonstrated that this is a false claim. where did I refer to you personally or your career bro? you're being wrong and it's just being shown to you, that's all.

i mean, deej's larger point -- that the claim 'whatever this movie does, it still tells people about a thing they don't know about' is not a good one -- is still valid, if anything even more valid

Before 2012, it was all about Chicago corruption and obama's socialist radical friends and leftist preachers. You can choose not to believe me, but again I witnessed this firsthand and I'm really not making it up!

you are, in fact, making this up, as date-limited searches of news will tell you within something like .03 seconds if you're actually interested!

xp it's true! deej is for sure known to make some good points, but "nobody was talking about Chicago gang violence before 2011" isn't one of them