Gun Violence in America Through the Lens of Film
How film can be used as a medium to start a debate on important political topics.
July, 2015: Amazon Studios announces that it will be releasing its first Original Movie as a production company after having acquired the rights for Chi-Raq, Spike Lee’s latest heartfelt film. Amazon Studios had previously proved to be involved in the distribution and production of TV content of high quality, starring stellar casts and great writers that would secure them visibility at the most important events in the celebration of Television production. Thus, as regards movies it is not surprising that Amazon’s choice laid on Chi-Raq: a story deeply rooted in America’s history and current social issues, acting as a sort of an inquiry and putting together award-winning director and actors in a satirical and controversial drama.
Chi-Raq, transposes the story of Lysistrata in today’s Chicago where a group of women living in the Southside, in order to oppose to the violence that has become part of their everyday life, decide to start a sex strike hoping to convince their husbands and partners to stop the gang violence that is affecting the lives of everybody.
Spike Lee sets the film in Chicago even though in different interviews he stated that the main theme, i.e. gun violence, concerns America as a whole. The African-American director has often publicly opposed — also through his works — violence and segregation of minorities in major cities and in the job market. It is though interesting to see how for this specific work Spike Lee combined together the Greek mythology and real events and characters related to the everyday lives of the people living in the area. As a matter of fact, he has adapted Aristophanes’ work to the American popular culture by making people talk in rhymes as if they were singing a rap or hip/hop song, as well as using slang and curse language.
The movie, even before its release, was hugely attacked by the media and some communities in the Southside for different reasons. First, the title Chi-Raq (referring to the fact that in Chicago Southside there are more deaths than in Iraq) was regarded as offensive and was criticized by both the political representatives of the city of Chicago and by the people from the community itself, claiming that there is only one Chicago. Moreover, the choice of using satire was interpreted by many as a way to trivialize a serious problem affecting the whole country. The movie was also criticized because the voice depicting the uncomfortable situation of Chicago Southside was given by Spike Lee, who is not from Chicago. In reality, though, many actors inside the film are actually from Chicago. Jennifer Hudson lost her mother, brother and nephew to gun violence in 2008, but she felt the need to use her own story to try to help so that these tragedies do not happen again.
The aim of this project was to enact a mediation process between the community and the rest of the country in order to start a social change that would lead to the interruption of gang violence. Therefore, the film was carefully thought to build images and meanings that could speak to its audience and raise awareness on the issues that need to be — politically — solved.
Fiction vs. Reality
John Cusack joined the cast of Chi-Raq which already included Nick Cannon, Samuel L. Jackson and Jennifer Hudson. John Cusack was born and raised in Chicago and he felt the urgency to be part of this film and tell the story of his city in order to get people to react to the violence issue. It is interesting to see that John Cusack is the only white person playing a central role in the film, and even more interestingly his character is a white priest serving a black community in the Southside of Chicago. The reason underlying the casting choice is very simply related to the fact that the character Cusack plays, Father Mike Corridan, is based on real-life Roman Catholic priest Michael Pfleger who runs the perish of St. Sabina church.
Reverend Pfleger became also an advisor for Spike Lee during the pre-production of the movie and the whole congregation was involved in the shooting of the film: most of the extras were people from the Southside whose lives were somehow affected by gang violence.
Even though John Cusack’s character appears only a few times throughout the movie, he becomes a key to read the whole story in the scene shot at St. Sabina’s church during Patti’s funeral, a 7-year old killed on her way home from school by a gang. This scene is the one that lasts the longest in the whole movie, accounting for a total of 12 minutes. It was shot in the real church where the actual Reverend Michael Pfleger praises. From this sequence we can understand that the priest is a very charismatic person: he seems to be successful in reuniting the whole community. As a matter of fact, even if the community itself is broken and suffers, they can find in his words some kind of consolation and solace.
The Scene
The scene inside St. Sabina church opens with a joyful gospel sequence. A picture in the apsis, depicts Christ as a black person. We see five dancers dressed in white accompanied by musicians standing behind.The camera moves quickly, combining different pan shots, while the editing alternates the smiling faces of the dancers with the close ups of grieving faces in the crowd. At the end of the sequence the space in front of the altar is populated by the dancers, and the music does not convey the idea that a funeral is about to be celebrated.
The discourse of the priest is the only part in the film which is not written in rhymes. Father Mike starts his sermon by talking about guns. He uses a metaphor to talk about a “life that ends life”. Through this metaphor, he makes statements about the issues underlying the easy access to guns and firearms by the citizens of Illinois. In fact, despite the very strict gun laws, Chicago gangs manage to buy arms in Indiana bypassing the law using fake IDs.
Afterwards he begins a political discourse about the causes that lead to the current unbearable situation. He accuses lending institutions for not loaning money to poor people, forcing them to be easily dragged into the underground economy of suburban Chicago. He clearly states the difference between the two souls of Chicago: “Kenilworth, Wilmette, Highland Park. This gun wouldn’t be caught dead there”.
When a soft piano music starts to play in the background, the discourse shifts to Patti. Father Mike takes the microphone and gets closer to the congregation, as to better let them feel his support. The rhetoric he uses focuses on the repetition of the same sentences: specifically, he repeats “Patti is gone because”. He makes a list of political and economic reasons: he talks about unemployment and the low per capita income of the people in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood. When talking about the educational level he makes a very strong statement: “we go from third-rate schools to first-class high-tech prisons”. All the reasons he identifies point the finger at the government institutions that haven’t managed to create jobs in the poorest suburban areas.
Furthermore, he makes a reference to the Jim Crow laws, comparing them to today’s mass incarceration. The Jim Crow laws were those discriminatory norms in effect until 1965 mandating racial segregation in public facilities, based on the legal doctrine of “separate but equal” according to which racial segregation did not violate the 14th Amendment of the Constitution that guaranteed equal protection under the law to all citizens.
He then compares the present with past tragic events starting from the 1963 Birmingham (Alabama) church bombing, where four young girls were killed. The church had a predominant black congregation also serving as a meeting place for civil rights leaders. In the ’60s the city was one of the most segregated in America.
In the same year, Medgar Evers was shot in front of his house. He was an activist part of the RCNL (Regional Council of Negro Leadership). He sued Mississippi University for refusing his application to the Faculty of Law and his case, together with others, was used by the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) to win the 1954 judgement, when the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the racial segregation law in public schools. Finally, he references Malcom X and Martin Luther King’s assassinations respectively in 1965 and 1968.
Going from the darkest period for America’s segregation, he compares Patti to all these crucial figures and activists that left a mark in America’s history. He stresses the fact that Patti was only a child and was killed for no reason. He accuses the absurdity of the silence from people who have witnessed the cruel scene and refuse to report to the police.
“What makes someone a target is the community that surrenders to fear… and becomes silent”. — a quote from Chi-Raq.
The sermon ends with a powerful incitation to love and hope. He shouts several times “Patti lives” and, almost as a rock star, invites people to get up and join him in an invocation of peace.
Reverend Michael Pfleger
Michael Louis Pfleger was born in Chicago in 1949. Since 1981, he has been pastor of the mostly African-American parish of Saint Sabina, a Catholic church in Chicago’s Auburn Gresham neighborhood. He has adopted two children against the wishes of the archdiocese and in 1997 he became the foster parent of a 16-year-old boy who was killed by gunfire one year later.
Pfleger’s social activism and controversial actions has brought him media coverage throughout Chicago and the whole country and, in 2009, documentary director Bob Hercules made the film Radical Disciple: The Story of Father Pfleger, exploring his life and engagement in trying to solve the social issues affecting the country.
Under Pfleger’s leadership, the community of Saint Sabina has engaged in a large number of activist initiatives. In the 1990s, they campaigned for the shutdown of some businesses based in Auburn Gresham manufacturing drug equipment, and for the removal of tobacco and alcohol billboards from their neighborhood. After billboard owners denied their cooperation, Pfleger together with other people from his congregation ruined and damaged the signs. They were charged with destruction of private property, but were then acquitted.
Moreover, in 2000, the Reverend encouraged the members of his parish to buy time from prostitutes in order to take these women out of the streets through counseling and job training. In occasion of the presidential elections of 2008, after giving a controversial speech in which he spoke against and mocked Hillary Clinton, the archbishop of Chicago asked Pfleger to take a disciplinary leave of absence from St. Sabina.
On top of past actions that defined Father Pfleger as a very interesting but radical figure, he has constantly tried to find solutions through his daily activities at St. Sabina.
Apart from being a counsellor for Spike Lee during the film, Father Pfleger was criticized for supporting the film and its title. As a matter of fact, he put Chi-Raq’s flag at St. Sabina parish. During the controversy regarding the title of the film, Pfleger publicly defended the movie as it represents a provocation addressed to the government who seemed more concerned by the fact that the title would discourage tourists to come to Chicago. He stated: “I don’t give a damn about some tourist being afraid to come here, if some child here is afraid to LIVE here”.
Father Michael Pfleger, both in the representation on screen and in real life, acts as a mediator in the community. He devoted his life to non-violence and has a strong sense of social justice becoming a radical Catholic, who wishes the church took more action in this direction. Specifically, he tries to mediate between three parties: the community as the victims of gang violence, the political forces in Chicago and the rest of America.
He can do it because of a legitimation process that has enabled him to have a voice to speak about the issue. First of all, the legitimation comes from the community itself: he has served St- Sabina’s congregation for 40 years and he has always demonstrated to be one of them. Not only he is seen as a moral figure but also as a reference point and leader. He works with the community to change it internally: he wants to be an example, a leader in order for the community to be agents for change. If it is true that referring to Chi-Raq is not an appropriate representation for those who want to feel part of one Chicago, then it is also true that the Southside has been neglected and abandoned and the exclusion is felt inside the community.
Pfleger’s legitimation is also recognized by political institutions. He has known the former President Barack Obama for many years, while he was a student in Chicago during his youth. The educational programs Pfleger started with St. Sabina’s congregation can be effective but the government is the one that creates the economic and social conditions that can enable a change.
Finally, his legitimation from the outside and the rest of America is helped by the media attention evolved around his figure. Apart from the documentary about his life and his reference in Spike Lee’s movie, Father Pfleger is often invited on television and interviewed to talk about gun violence and social justice. These tools help raise awareness about the issue even though the Reverend has often been criticized about caring more about media attention than bringing a concrete change in the community.
Despite the critics, his action is effective when talking to the communities and bringing people together, eliciting a bottom-up reaction and supporting people that want to escape violence by eradicating fear and by showing that a non-violent solution is possible. Across the spectrum he is asking for accountability.
On the contrary, the film did not succeed as a cultural mediator because the scope of the project was not clear: to whom was the movie addressed to?
On one side it seems to be willing to engage people from the Southside communities: the use of references to specific events or people from their direct experience and the language can sound difficult to foreigners. On the other side, as the director himself has stated, it wants to address America as a whole. Two issues are connected to this aim: the distribution strategy and the message of the movie itself. First, although the aim was to raise awareness on violence, Chi-Raq had a limited distribution in theaters in the U.S., accounting for a total domestic gross of only $2.6 million.
Moreover, the message coming from the movie is that the solution must come from the inside: it’s the community that has the power to come up with an answer. However, as Father Pfleger made it clear, institutions should invest in the improvement of the economic and social context in order to offer an alternative future to people. This contradictory message brings under the spotlight the competences that Spike Lee lacked as an entrepreneur in the production of the film. In fact, he didn’t have the legitimation to carry out a project like this. He was legitimized by the cinema industry and personalities and by the community evolving around Father Pfleger, but the critics raised by many were the proof that some of the artistic choices he made were not carefully considered. In this sense, he did not act as a cultural mediator, but instead he felt forced by the necessity to tell a dramatic story in America’s reality that he didn’t evaluated the consequences and the reception from the movie itself.
While leveraging the project on the symbolic dimension, he did not take into account the value of the political and social consequences: the anger and the protests following the release of the trailer first and the movie afterwards are the signs that a proper mediation did not take place.
In fact, the narratives related to suburban Chicago are very powerful and need certain conditions in order to produce a cultural change: the sense of belonging and the trust from the community is essential to start a transformative process.
Despite all the controversies and the flaws of the movie, it did succeed in emphasizing the sense of urgency to fight gun violence and the necessity to save those lives that suffer from segregation and exclusion.
