Welcome to Outrage Watch, HitFix's semi-regular rundown of entertainment-related kerfuffles. Not anxious enough already? Get your fix of righteous indignation below, and stay posted for outrage updates throughout the week.
The films of Spike Lee tend to provoke strong reactions, and the situation is no different with his latest effort, the provocatively-titled gun-violence satire “Chi-Raq.”
So who's outraged this time? Though the film has accrued a long list of critics in advance of its release, the highest-profile yet is Chicago-bred MC Chance the Rapper, who in a vicious Twitter rant Friday charged the fantastical, destined-to-be-polarizing film for being an “exploitive” and “problematic” look at his native city's epidemic of gun violence:
Let me be the one from Chicago to personally tell you we not supporting this film out here
– Chance The Rapper (@chancetherapper) December 4, 2015
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That shit get ZERO love out here. Shit is goofy and it's a bunch of ppl from NOT around here telling u to support that shit ????????????????????????
– Chance The Rapper (@chancetherapper) December 4, 2015
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The people that made that shit didn't do so to “Save Lives”. It's exploitive and problematic
– Chance The Rapper (@chancetherapper) December 4, 2015
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Also the idea that women abstaining from sex would stop murders is offensive and a slap in the face to any mother that lost a child here
– Chance The Rapper (@chancetherapper) December 4, 2015
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You don't do any work with the children of Chicago, You don't live here, you've never watched someone die here. Don't tell me to be calm
– Chance The Rapper (@chancetherapper) December 4, 2015
Based on Aristophanes' “Lysistrata,” “Chi-Raq” centers on a group of women in a violence-plagued Chicago neighborhood who withhold sex from their husbands and boyfriends in an effort to persuade them to put down their guns. Starring Nick Cannon, Teyonah Parris, Samuel L. Jackson, John Cusack and Jennifer Hudson, the film hits limited theaters this weekend.
(h/t Vulture)