Show + Tell with Paul Flynn
Spike Lee revisits She’s Gotta Have It and this tale of black female sexuality is far from past it
MADE IN 1986 on a shoestring budget of $30,000, She’s Gotta Have It introduced the world to the formidable Spike Lee. The supremely talented movie auteur took a stark sideways look at modern sexuality through the eyes of street-smart anti-heroine Nola Darling. Through Prince, Michael Jackson and the first thrilling over-grounding of hip-hop, the ’80s had become attuned to hearing the potent magic of American told through black voices. With Lee, we could see it no less thrillingly through black eyes.
Now, 31 years later, he has remade the drama for Netflix. The new Nola is relative unknown Dewanda Wise, arriving with the requisite bluff appeal she demands. Unlike Issa Rae’s Insecure, Nola is totally at ease with her sex life, as the struggling artist juggles the three lovers gleefully rotating through the swing doors of her delightful Fort Greene brownstone: egotistical Greer, kooky Mars (the role Lee originally took for himself ) and self-centred Jamie. Yes, Nola knows exactly what she’s doing, refusing to bow to their demands to change her. But how does she square that against a society still fetishising and tokenising black sexuality?
The rhythms of the new She’s Gotta Have It are pockmarked with familiar Lee tropes: swift to-camera soundbites, a bouncy relish in the humour as well as the physicality of sex, fleet-footed jumpcut edits. The soundtrack, from Force MDS through Jill Scott right up to Solange, is typically judicious. Little moments of potent dialogue about what black women want with their bodies (‘just to own them’) appear effortlessly.
The styling is a touch old-fashioned and if there is a heavy-handed point to be made about the gentrification of Fort Greene, that ship sailed a good 15 years ago. But the point here isn’t about the characters’ dress sense or where they live. It’s about what they say. In this regard, by the end of the second episode, She’s Gotta Have It has found its full swagger. Begins on Thursday on Netflix