Review: Spike Lee's She's Gotta Have It
Vigilante film maker, Malcolm X of Hollywood, The Kanye of Cinema. Spike Lee has gained himself a solid and respected status in the film industry as an Auteur over the years by representing recurring themes of issues relating to race, politics, crime and violence; themes that to this day are still relevant. Even when he is not directly talking about these hard hitting issues he sheds light onto the life experiences of African Americans though out all his films.
Lee has been making films since the 80’s, one of his first films being ‘She’s gotta have it’ (1986). The narrative follows Nola Darling, a young African American women who is indecisive on which of the 3 men she is dating to settle down with. Being one of his first films it is undeniable, compared to his later films, which had a few technical hiccups, and interesting directorial choices made by Lee. The film wasn’t received quite as well as he may have intended at the time of its initial release mainly because he was not established as an director during the early stages of his career. So it didn’t surprise me that a Netflix series of the show was in production.
The first episode aired on the 23rd of November and I had so many questions.
As a black artist, Lee uses his platform to cinematically tell the story of his changing home, a change that he has been living his whole life, from being brought up in forte green to moving away and seeing the change. The columbus effect … The prominent message it seems Lee is trying to convey in this series is the issues of Gentrification. Although it implies initially that a main theme of the show would be life as a black female, (which is still a key theme), it seems gentrification is the main focus.
So my initial reaction after watching season 1 was, ‘Nola darling is so annoying…’ am i alone in thinking this? before i indulge into all the references to gentrification i feel the need to point out all the character flaws in Nola Darlings character. She is a strong independent black woman who relies on a married man for financial support, a egomaniac for self assurance and a sweet talking joker for affection. She even relies on her friends for exposure and on sex to keep her happy when in actual fact Nola Darling is insatiable. A redeeming quality she possesses is her nativity, it is harder to hate on her seemingly selfish actions when you tune into her naive mind set which is repeatedly enforced in her bad decision making.
The only issue i had with this being a modern day adaptation i that i couldn’t take it out of its original context. It still seemed like it was set in the 80’s for me. I think this is due to the fact that she is so reliant on these men around her which is a dated mind set in my opinion.
Okay lets talk about the G word! GENTRIFICATION, yes it is happening and it is happening fast. Gentrification is a world wide issue that makes this more relatable to an international audience. Spike Lee’s whole career he has been centred around raising awareness about the negative repercussions of gentrification and how the speed of it happening is affecting people.
In the series, the new people who move in are almost portrayed as the ‘baddies’ and Nola and her friends being the soon to be displaced minorities. Although it is not so black and white it clearly spells out gentrification with a giant G.
Educational at the very least, ‘She’s got have it’ is definitely a good watch. It left me feeling nostalgic of a good Spike Lee joint and woke to the gentrification that has been going on in New York, almost like an insight into the potential future of London.... scary!
