Spike Lee’s latest film has an interesting premise: what if women withheld sex in order to stop the violence in their communities? It’s not a new concept—in recent times, women in Liberia, the Philippines, and Kenya have held similar sex strikes.
Chi-Raq is a modern-day adaptation of the ancient Greek play “Lysistrata” by Aristophanes. A spate of gun violence inspires a group of women in Southside Chicago to go on a sex strike to take a stand in Spike Lee’s “Chi-Raq.” Is Spike Lee trying to tell us something?
Starring Teyonah Parris, Samuel L. Jackson, Angela Bassett, Wesley Snipes, Jennifer Hudson, Lala Anthony, and more, Chi-Raq is social commentary with a twist. The film opens in theaters on December 4.