Spike Lee's Chi-raq

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

Excuse me for not being as precise as I should have, but there was a demonstrable uptick in conversation about Chicago as a center for violence after the music popped up. I'm sorry if I in some way minimized the extent to which it had been covered previously--but I certainly never denied that it had been covered, I LIVE HERE, and I'm aware that it has been covered at a certain level for years, obviously. But it became a National Story that was referenced by politicians, in the president's state of the Union, on high profile shows like night line, in 2012 in a way it hadn't the previous year. This is true! And yes, in 2011 the coverage was not nearly as omnipresent. Pulling up an 09 article about a violence epidemic isn't disproving shit

But yes as Thomp points out this was a sidebar to the main point that doesn't really undercut the main thrust of what I'm saying at all

There's a long history of articles pointing to urban blight and violence and saying hey it's an epidemic, btw....you'll find some in 1909 never mind 2009... I maintain, though, that among the many peaks and valleys in the country paying particular attention to chicago's south side, 2012 was a year in which it reached a major saturation point.

Deej, do you know what the Christian Science Monitor is? Are you aware of its reputation? I ask because I don't understand your implication that it's not a noteworthy publication.

So your point is that, based on some anecdotal evidence and your gut feeling, national attention toward Chicago violence reached a saturation point long after its horrific peak, which was before you were even born? I know someone who did social work and mediation with Chicago gang members in the 70s and when I mentioned your thesis to him last week he chuckled, then made some indignant show of utterly complete dismissal. I wonder how his anecdotes stack up against yours.

And why is tracking and defining this narrative even important except to tie Chicago violence and this movie to your hobbyhorse slash meal ticket? How common is this claim that the movie Chi-raq, an arthouse movie in limited release, is informing the general public about Chicago, so much so that it must be repudiated?

I don't think this subject holds up well against all the folk wisdom and myth-making. When Lil Bibby tried to make a little corrective to what he felt were Spike Lee and the public's misconceptions, he made some of his own. Atlanta's murder rate, for example, is higher than Chicago's, and belittling the violence and terrorism of gang activity there makes him look less like a credible observer and more like an entertainer promoting his similarly-titled work

You have significant reading comprehension issues

Like half your post is refuted by my last post. Try again

Accusations of careerism in a fucking message board argument...like my whole asshole you goofy dumbass

*lick....lol like

I'm afraid your reasoning is too nuanced for me

See mattresslessness his post is a more accurate example of "disingenuousness" since ur looking

Sorry bro I don't think you've earned any more explanations! You're not arguing with what I said but w what you think I said and I have no interest in holding your hand for this

Good thing my dad doesn't work in Chicago city government! You'd be saying I was in rahm's pocket too

deej it's a really bad look, when a guy repeatedly proves you wrong, to just tell that guy to lick your asshole. it's the sort of thing that gets you banned, and then you whine and pick an all-caps display name, etc.

I had a longer thing but your thesis about when national news media began reporting on the increase in Chicago gang violence is just wrong, it's been proven wrong whether you moved to Chicago after college or not.

Deej: Lol @ citing the Christian Science monitor lmao

Bam: Deej, do you know what the Christian Science Monitor is? Are you aware of its reputation? I ask because I don't understand your implication that it's not a noteworthy publication.

Deej: You have significant reading comprehension issues

Me: what exactly is there about "LOL... LMAO" that evades Bam's comprehension? If you express yourself like a 12-year-old, or Lagoon, then you've got to expect people struggling to comprehend you.

Maybe by "last post" you meant that Sears Tower of text? I haven't read all of that yet. Skimmed it a bit. Trying to pace myself. Yesterday was chore day and go see a movie day and visit my girlfriend day. Let me catch up and then I'll toss your salad.

Chicago violence has been endemic/epidemic for years, obviously, as it is with just about any major city, with peaks and valleys of fretting on a national and local level. But I agree that it's only been in the past couple of years that Chicago has earned a more alarmist/sensationalized murder city sort of rep.

or Lagoon

thread now emitting shrapnel

He didn't prove me "wrong" you idiot! He's not even in the same argument

If I express myself like a twelve year old it's bc when I "write a Sears tower of text" I'm taking it on good faith that the person I'm talking to is going to engage with it instead of...well I can't tell if bam is trolling because he's actually stupid or if it's a more disingenuous kind of trolling, but fuck you if you expect me to explain to you how bibby is talking about the Atlanta *music industry* when he talks about how violence isn't as present there, or how using the Christian Science monitor as a barometer of the degree to which Chicago violence became a national story makes no sense. I answered genuinely and straightforwardly what I was talking about but clearly this is more about some perverse kind of point scoring in a game of captain save a revered east coast filmmaker

Josh in Chicago otm

Fwiw the whole point of saying that it reached a saturation point a couple of years ago was to say that it doesn't actually do anything just to bring awareness. Like in part I'm talking about the inefficacy of I.e. Rappers (and filmmakers) "raising the alarm" to create some kind of sustained change. If it didn't happen in 2012 it's not going to happen with a movie that (confusingly) bamcquern is now minimizing as an art house concern

It's Willis Tower guys.

http://cdn.ebaumsworld.com/thumbs/video/2227974/83008008.jpg

deej you're being either disingenuous or really thick - I used the CSM link, I would have thought obviously to anybody whose reading comprehension was up to speed, to point out that even publications as square and non-cutting edge as the Christian Science Monitor were writing about the rise in Chicago gang violence -- specifically about the rise, specifically about the same trends you are talking about and the same causes you and I and everybody else is aware of: not generally about violence, not any of the mischaracterization of the articles you're doing without checking the sources -- long before your posited point-of-origin-in-the-national-consciousness.

on the actual point, no, I don't imagine this film "raises awareness" really, specifically because people have been aware of this for years, even the squarest most mainstream publications knew no later than 2009, and were reporting on it. if it were hugely successful, there might be some "people with large amounts of money become aware and try to help," that's always the possibility with big mainstream exposure, but a version of Lysistrata in verse is not gonna be that movie no matter what.

but feel free to just sail the Pequod right back into the seas of ad hom, who can blame you, your actual point didn't hold up so it's what you've got left

C-. Spike's heart is in the right place, but I'll never watch this again and can't bring myself to direct anyone to it. Somehow this might translate better to theatre in a way, though that's impossible for a billion reasons.

In what universe is "squareness" of a publication a measure of the depth of media penetration in a story about urban blight? Academic sociology journals must be super out of touch

And the ad homs didn't enter this conversation until ppl started bringing my career into it u disingenuous sanctimonious motherfucker

Does Josh's post affirming what I said mean nothing to you? Do you only accept information that affirms your constant bias that I'm probably wrong about everything ?

Like I feel like I'm trying to chip away at a huge block of ice around your head to get you to understand my point it's very bizarre. Your argument has gone in circles so many times you're trying to argue the point I was making: people already knew about this problem so defending spike's film on "raising awareness" grounds is a flawed argument

have you seen it yet?

The thing about the 'raising awareness' argument is that afaict, Spike Lee never really expressed an interest in doing that?
So saying "This movie is bad at raising awareness of this problem!" at this point, seems to serve as a lazy stand-in for "This movie is exploitative!" -- perhaps because the latter would require a substantial engagement with it as a work of art, while the former thesis can be 'proved' by 1001 facts about things that are not Spike Lee's Chi-Raq

also: lol at accusing Spike Lee of 'getting it wrong' by making his movie be about two big old rival gangs (what is this, West Side Story???) instead of a bunch of decentralized nodes of corner violence... only to promptly turn around and shit on everyone outside of Chicago as 'outsiders' who can't possibly understand that this city has a unique and historically unprecedented culture of violence, & why it would not be susceptible to a thousand-year-old riff on male psychology (SPOILER ALERT: part of the 'meaning' of a work like Lysistrata is that macho cultures like this go extinct)

The thing about the 'raising awareness' argument is that afaict, Spike Lee never really expressed an interest in doing that?
So saying "This movie is bad at raising awareness of this problem!" at this point, seems to serve as a lazy stand-in for "This movie is exploitative!" -- perhaps because the latter would require a substantial engagement with it as a work of art, while the former thesis can be 'proved' by 1001 facts about things that are not Spike Lee's Chi-Raq

― bernard snowy, Monday, December 14, 2015 8:20 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i dont know if you didn't follow this argument or what (lol) but—(although I'm pretty sure he did explicitly say this movie was about raising awareness?)—I was responding to someone in this thread who claimed that criticism of the film was unwarranted bc it was raising alarm bells