Also blames the NRA and John Wayne for gun violence.
Via TheWrap:
The latest, greatest Spike Lee joint is, in fact, based on an old, obscure (but beloved) film.
“Da Sweet Blood of Jesus” finds Lee reaching both into the future and the past, as he used a highly publicized (and semi-criticized) Kickstarter campaign to finance a semi-remake of Bill Gunn’s 1973 blaxploitation film “Ganja & Hess.” Starring two little-known actors (Broadway star Stephen Tyrone Williams and Zaraah Abrahams) and splitting its time between Martha’s Vineyard and New York City, the movie is about a lonely, rich African-American scholar who becomes addicted to blood when he is stabbed with a sword used by the ancient, bloodthirsty Ashanti people.
It is a departure for the director, half art film and half social commentary. Lee says that the movie acts in part as a metaphor for addictions of all kinds, which he posits are at an all-time high in America, but was clear about which he thought was the country’s greatest addiction: violence.
“This country was founded on violence,” Lee told TheWrap. “Africans were brought here, to this land, and then the genocide of Native Americans, that’s the foundation upon which this country was built. It’s simple, not taught in schools. We’re taught some other stuff, and particularly, how we’re taught is through the media. And as African Americans, we were taught how barbaric Africa was, with the Tarzan movies and whatnot, and the savages of the Native Americans in the many, many John Ford, John Wayne films.”
Lee also thinks it’s only getting worse.
“And the NRA is responsible for it,” he said. “These video games are not helping either.”