Government
Beyond 'Chiraq': Real-Life Strikes Against Violence Led by Women Around the Globe
As Spike Lee’s satirical, Lysistrata-inspired film Chiraq opens, it’s important to recognize the real work women are doing to address violence.
Spike Lee’s Chiraq, which hits theaters Friday, is a farcical story about black women in Chicago banding together to put an embargo on sex until men in the local gangs stop inflicting violence on the community. The story and settings in the movie are fictional, based on the ancient Greek play Lysistrata, but the problem of gun violence in Chicago is very real. Though it’s satire, Chiraq asks its audience to indulge the idea that women withholding their bodies from men could be the ultimate solution to urban bloodshed.
In response to The Washington Post’s Soraya Nadia McDonald’s question about the “very common feminist critique … that it’s unfair to sort of put this weight on women,” Spike Lee said: