‘City So Real’ isn’t a tapestry, it’s a mess
If “City So Real” wanted to document the complicated, 14-candidate race to replace Rahm Emanuel as mayor of Chicago in 2019, perhaps it might have clarified each contender’s policies and experience. But no.
If “City So Real” wanted to chronicle the racial tension in Chicago that, like so many other cities, bubbled over in new ways during the Trump era, perhaps it might have provided extensive historical context about how the city has struggled with racist policies, segregation and much more for longer than anyone reading this has been alive. But no.
If “City So Real” simply wanted to put a human face on the different characters of its many neighborhoods, perhaps it could have offered contextual, demographic information about the neighborhoods themselves, or chosen a spectrum of people from a selected number of neighborhoods and fleshed out their story and how it represents the city and specifically their place in it. But no.
I certainly understand that at any time, and especially a time like this, no one wants to take issue with a 5-part documentary series from an acclaimed filmmaker, especially one who has brought so much onscreen truth to Chicago in “Hoop Dreams,” “The Interrupters” and “Life Itself.” But Steve James badly misjudges the impact of the geographical and narrative hopscotch he plays in his latest project (which is now streaming on Hulu), resulting in a feeling of sloppiness instead of clarity. It’s not hard to imagine viewers watching the first and second episodes and thinking they missed two previous segments -- the series is that lacking in direction and necessary background.
James includes extensive discussion of Laquan McDonald’s murder by Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke and brief mention of Emanuel closing low-income schools, but there is hardly a clear portrait delivered about Emanuel’s failures and his decision not to run for re-election. Similarly, there is little sense about what the many, many people running for mayor bring to the table and why they even want such a difficult position. Sure, we know that Bill Daley comes from a family of Chicago mayors, but James declines to profile the mayoral candidates while also spending a high percentage of the entire series on the race itself. There are many scenes showcasing Chicago’s ridiculous policy involving the ability for candidates to protest the signatures of their competition’s supporters in hopes of getting them kicked off the ballot. That may bring people into a bureaucratic world they don’t know well, but if you’re going to take that close of a look at what it takes to become mayor in Chicago, maybe it would help to have any idea why, for example, Amara Enyia receives the support of Chance the Rapper and Kanye West or why Garry McCarthy thinks he can win despite his failings as superintendent of the CPD or the extensive political experience and controversies of Cook County Board president Toni Preckwinkle, who was strong enough to make the runoff but then was blown out by current Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot.
So that’s the mayoral stuff, which really botches its halfhearted attempt to connect this race to the needs of a changing city. (Why did Lightfoot earn the Chicago Sun-Times’ endorsement? And like 500 other questions about James’ shallow coverage of certain candidates but not others.) Meanwhile, “City So Real” hops from neighborhood to neighborhood, from Beverly to Lawndale to the Gold Coast to Jefferson Park, providing snapshots but no clear, close sense of how certain areas differ from ones nearby. And that’s coming from a Chicagoan who knows some of those answers. For non-Chicagoans, the coverage will be incredibly vague and random to the point of this series often feeling like it hasn’t been edited at all.
Arguably the best scene arrives late in this overlong, frustrating series when a bunch of racist white people supporting Garry McCarthy watch him appear with other candidates on “Chicago Tonight,” with one guy snorting that Enyia supports rapping and probably would smoke a blunt on her way home. Later in the program, though, McCarthy says if he could support any candidate other than himself it would be Enyia, prompting the viewers (which I think may have been family members of his, but James just doesn’t make things like this clear) to remark how smart she is. Hideout owner Tim Tuten also emerges as one of the best, strongest voices both against the massive Lincoln Yards project and against Ferris Bueller as a cinematic icon for the city when in fact he’s just, Tuten says, a snotty, manipulative, suburban rich kid who trashes the city and doesn’t care.
Mostly, though, “City So Real” is hardly a thorough or sharp look at racism in Chicago, with still more questions and confusion emerging in the final episode, after Lightfoot has taken office and deals with protests stemming from the police murder of George Floyd, the COVID-19 crisis and more. There just isn’t the proper footage of Lightfoot’s policies or the city’s strengths and challenges, and that doesn’t change just because we randomly talk to a barber here or a pharmacy owner there.
“City So Real” spends time with a number of people throughout Chicago. But that alone isn’t storytelling, and this disappointing effort more resembles the holes in a quilt than the fabric itself.
C
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