Review of Chi-Raq (2015) by Behuman — 10 Dec 2015

Spike Lee has sold out black women to save black "manhood," taking his old school definition of "sex" from the porn industry, which is ironic, since the film is about becoming conscious of your own "slave conditioning." Apparently the women in this film did not get that memo regarding sexuality. Also shamefully hetero normative. Lesbian, gay and trans gender people of color simply do not exist (other than one embarrassingly homophobic caricature). I expected a polemic examining the gender norms that enable male violence. Instead, this film went out of its way to reinforce a strict gender binary in which females are dressed as porn stars and move like.

Strippers and are the objects of lust. Women’s true power to end male violence is in waking up to their own "sex slave conditioning" and stop finding psychopathic pimps and murderers sexy—in life or on film. Chi-raq is one step forward, two steps back in analyzing and addressing the true cause of male gang violence--toxic hyper masculinity and the sexual scripts that enable it, which this film not only enthusiastically reinforces, but celebrates, making this "Joint" an epic fail.