Jasper Rees

No peace, no pussy

For all its contrived silliness, Spike Lee’s latest is a far more potent intervention in the gun debate than the fuzzy-revenge dramas of Quentin Tarantino

issue 03 December 2016

The bizarro concept of a ‘President-elect Trump’ came to pass despite the wishes, clearly stated on the stump, of the entertainment-industrial complex. They all came out for Hillary — Queen Bey, the Boss, Jay-Z, J-Lo, SJP, Kimye, Madge, Meryl, Gaga, Lena D, old uncle Team Clooney and all. How the alt-right cackled when this star-spangled nobility got in-yer-faced by a basket of deplorables from the West Virginia coalfield. In the circumstances, now is maybe not a propitious moment for Spike Lee (who felt the Bern) to unleash a finger-wagging homily about America and guns.

Chi-Raq, you wouldn’t be alone in not knowing, takes its title from the alternate name lately given to Chicago in the state of ‘Killinois’. Over the same timeframe, the city’s sidewalks were strewn with nearly as many American corpses as Iraq was during the US occupation. And so it continues.

The lion’s share of the murders are black-on-black, gang-on-gang.

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