Chicago artist Chance The Rapper took to Twitter this afternoon to subtweet Spike Lee, criticizing the motivations of the Brooklyn director’s satirical new dramedy “Chi-raq.” The film, which goes into limited release today, examines gang violence in Chicago’s South Side through the lens of that classic Aristophanes joint, “Lysistrata.”
Let me be the one from Chicago to personally tell you we not supporting this film out here
— Chance The Rapper (@chancetherapper) December 4, 2015
That shit get ZERO love out here. Shit is goofy and it's a bunch of ppl from NOT around here telling u to support that shit 🙅🏾🙅🏾🙅🏾
— Chance The Rapper (@chancetherapper) December 4, 2015
The people that made that shit didn't do so to "Save Lives". It's exploitive and problematic
— Chance The Rapper (@chancetherapper) December 4, 2015
Also the idea that women abstaining from sex would stop murders is offensive and a slap in the face to any mother that lost a child here
— Chance The Rapper (@chancetherapper) December 4, 2015
You don't do any work with the children of Chicago, You don't live here, you've never watched someone die here. Don't tell me to be calm
— Chance The Rapper (@chancetherapper) December 4, 2015
In the Aristophanes play, the eponymous Lysistrata convinces other Greek women to withhold sex to successfully end the Peloponnesian War.
“It’s a satire,” Lee just told a crowd during a streaming interview with AOL. “The whole sex strike thing is a metaphor for how there’s a power within yourself to change the world.”
“Parts of Chicago are the murder capitol of the world,” Spike continued, seemingly fed up with negative press, during the q-and-a portion of the interview. “That’s not Spike Lee making shit up.”
