Davis: ‘Chiraq’ Shows Violence Minorities Experience, ‘Just Like the Men of Color in Iraq’

RUSH TRANSCRIPT:

COSTELLO: “So, welcome, first of all."

DAVIS: “Hi, Carol.”

COSTELLO: “When I first heard what this movie was about and it's a satire and I was insulted."

DAVIS: “Why?”

COSTELLO: “It's women withholding sex and why go there? A little 9-year-old was shot in an alley by gang members for retaliation of maybe something his father did and to put a movie out like this?"

DAVIS: “This is art. This is one 69 things, at its best, art is to provoke. I think it's really interesting that spike in his tradition of making movies about topical things in historical theater context, right? Some of them like the movie about black campuses was done in a musical tradition. I think it's very interesting to put it in a Greek tragedy idea. Because this is a tragedy we're looking at. Playwrights throughout the ages, Shakespeare, you put current events into structures that make people think in a different way and come and see it. And I think this is a tragedy that we're looking at. And I think that Chicago and Iraq have some real similarities in some of the young men. You have hopeless, jobless, young men who are isolated with easy access to guns. So, what they did to that young boy is what we're seeing happening there, but the difference is, this is America. We shouldn't have a population of young men so hopeless for so long and so sequestered. Just like the men of color in Iraq. I think it's very provocative."