Don’t laugh…but Bamboozled is my favorite movie of all time. I think the movie was such an astute satire that spoke to exactly where media and entertainment would end up. If you look at the stories Spike told in that movie in 1999, you’ll see a prophecy for the plight of Black representation in the media. For that movie alone, Spike Lee is one of my heroes. I’m always willing to give him the benefit of the doubt to see his visions through. Yes, Red Hook Summer and Oldboy have caused my confidence to waiver, but I still think Spike can make great movies that can change the world.
That’s why I was really excited to see that Spike Lee was taking on the domestic genocide in Chicago. The man gave us the definitive portrayal of the domestic terrorist act that was Hurricane Katrina, so naturally the story of violence in Chicago would be just as important. Yes, I heard the detractors. I listened to the outrage. I dismissed them. Trust Spike.
Then, the trailer came out. Still, Spike has a bigger plan. He can do satire. I’d even convinced myself that some of the scenes in the trailer wouldn’t even be in the movie. He’s trolling us. Spike isn’t making a movie that exploits Chicago and makes the violence a subject of comedy. Nick Cannon? Okay, that’s odd. But Dave Chappelle is in the movie. He won’t do anything wrong. He can’t. This will be the hill I die on, dammit. So, I’m still on board after the first trailer.
Then the first single from the movie came out. And I started getting scared. The first single to the Chi-Raq movie is basically the respectability politics national anthem. I really think that this song should play Ben Carson out to speak at the Republican National Convention. The song, “WGDB,” is basically the Facebook posts of everyone you’ve blocked over the last year.
You see it was by someone the same color as myself. We’re the only race that shoots and kills themselves.
We gotta do better. What’s the use of saying Black Lives Matter if we’re gonna kill ourselves?
We gotta do better What’s the use of saying I can’t breathe if we’re choking ourselves?
The song is so over-the-top that it feels tongue-in-cheek. Like this is making fun of respectability politics somehow. A man can hope, right? There’s part of me that hopes this is some sort of “you only paid attention because I said something offensive” moralizing grandstand gesture to promote his movie and this isn’t a reflection of Spike going all “what about Black-on-Black crime” on us. Because if you’re still asking about “Black-On-Black crime” in the two thousand and fifteenth year of our Lord, you’re either dismissive of rational opinions and facts available to you by the millions at the other end of a quick Google search or you are willfully ignoring the truth. I just can’t imagine the man who gave us Malcolm X could be like that.
Then this interview on Windy City Live comes out and it’s Code Red over here on “We Still Love You, Spike” Island. The whole interview seems like some sort of heel promo a villainous wrestler would deliver to get the crowd to boo him. He says that Chicago has an inferiority complex about New York, asks why Chicagoans never made a movie about Chicago violence (because he’s never heard of The Interrupters or, literally, the hundreds of other movies online documenting Chicago violence), and compares people who ask why he made the movie to “crackers” who were mad northerners came to the South to fight segregation or something.
But this is the part that really stood out: “We tried to do this film six years ago, but at that time we couldn’t get financing for it. And, like a year ago, I said, let’s do it again and let’s make it take place in Chicago. Chi-Raq.” This is troubling to me. It’s clear that Spike wanted to make a modern adaptation of Lysistrata, a classic Greek comedy by Aristophanes (which was also documented in the independent film available on Netflix called A Miami Tale starring Trina which, goodness, you have to see to believe) but he couldn’t get it green-lit. So he instead capitalized on the violence in Chicago to get his movie made. I don’t know, guys. That sounds exploitative and disingenuous.
That’s also exactly how the trailer looks and is being received. There’s nothing in the trailer or buildup to the movie to indicate that Spike is trying to do anything but get his Lysistrata story made regardless of what city it took place in. There’s no indication that Chicago even fits into the narrative in any tangible way besides “Violent City A.” In essence, real people who have died in Chicago are just catalysts to get a movie that doesn’t appear to be doing them any justice out to the masses. This is the desecration of human lives.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Spike Lee could be pulling a real-life version of Bamboozled, creating a work that’s ostensibly a minstrel show but in actuality it’s trolling audiences into a frenzy and creating a masterwork that changes the national discussion about Chicago’s violence. This could be his curtain call. His grand scam that changes the world.
Or maybe Spike Lee has lost his f***ing mind.