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By the end of the first episode of Spike Lee’s “She’s Gotta Have It” reboot, streaming now on a laptop near you, it’s clear the 21st century version is doing a complete 180. Nola Darling — the one who’s gotta have it — is assaulted by a man who had been harassing her on the street. So she hits back with anonymous, guerilla-style protest art: posters angrily declaring, “My Name Isn’t Baby Gurl.”
It’s almost as if Nola Darling 2.0 is taking her revenge out on Spike himself, for what he put the original character through back in ‘86, when she was raped by one of her three lovers — apparent punishment for daring to be a libertine.
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When “She’s Gotta Have It” made its cinematic debut, I remember sitting in a Manhattan movie theater, completely gobsmacked. It was in black and white. It was funny and (seemingly) feminist. It was young, black, college-educated New York, bohos and buppies, all of us who came of age in Ronald Reagan’s America. (It even featured some of my friends.) In many ways, Nora Darling’s life was my life. (Minus the pansexual, polyamorous part.)
I was young, somewhat gifted, and black, a dancer trying to make it in New York City, a bunhead hauling around a giant dance bag, running from ballet class to rehearsals, always in a hurry, always this side of broke, Prince blasting on my Walkman. (Look it up.) Occasionally stepping over dead bodies, because living through the crack era was no joke.
“She’s Gotta Have It” captured all that. It got the giddy fun of juggling dates, because New York was a place where you could always find a date. After the date was over, loneliness often creeped in. Most of us were a bit too self-absorbed to really connect. Spike captured that, too. It was art that was for us, by us, and it felt special.
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Re-watching “She’s Gotta Have It” a few years later, it felt less special, a lot less feminist. That rape scene, for starters. (He’s said he regrets it.) Over the years, I grew to be a lot less enchanted with Spike, and in particular, with what I saw as his woman problem, how it seemed as though he couldn’t decide between worshiping or punishing his female characters. They were either siren or saint, and nothing in between.
Given all that, I wasn’t so sure about a millennial “She’s Gotta Have It.” I figured I’d give it one episode. I ended up binging the whole thing within 24 hours.
This Nola Darling, as portrayed by DeWanda Wise, is complicated, fully human, not just a male fantasy of a sexually liberated woman. She screws up. She can’t commit, even when she wants to. She’s a good friend, a devoted daughter, a passionate teacher and artist. She’s woke. And pissed because the rent in Brooklyn is too damn high. And, Trump. And Prince being gone too soon. And, the patriarchy.
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I’m no longer a bunhead; I retired from dance years ago and now live in Washington, D.C. At middle age, I’m no longer Nola’s peer. (Though it was awesome seeing Tracy Camilla Johns, the original Nola, pop in for a cameo, looking great.) Still, “She’s Gotta Have It,” Take 2, infused with a certain sadness about the changes time brings, spoke to me as a black woman living in this tumultuous era. Like Issa Rae at the Emmys, “She’s Gotta Have it” is rooting for everybody black.
Share this articleShareOh, sure, I can quibble. Yes, it is uneven and preachy. Those talk-to-the-camera monologues read more like a graduate student’s thesis rather than the words flowing out of the mouth of a living, breathing woman in 2017.
But the story carried me through. (Not to mention the vibrancy and charm of Wise’s acting.) The film is visually beautiful.
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Spike often does some of his best work when he’s directing someone else’s screenplay — “Crooklyn,” “25th Hour,” “Inside Man”– and his reboot benefits from the addition of some high-powered writing talent. The best episodes of this series are the ones where Spike cedes control of the keyboard and lets the rest of his team shine.
Case in point: The third episode, #LBD (Little Black Dress), penned by the award-winning playwright Lynn Nottage. After the violent street harassment incident, Nola goes shopping with her BFF, Clorinda. When she pulls out multiple credit cards to pay for an overpriced ‘ho dress, and tells Clorinda, “I need this dress,” I got it. My husband didn’t. (Neither did Nola’s suitors.) Sometimes you just want to wear a scandalous dress, not so much to generate a reaction from the outside world, but just for the thrill of enjoying one’s own female body. Nola stepping out in her #LBD after her assault was an act of rebellion. I think it takes a woman writer to get the nuance of that.
It’s as if Lee’s been listening and learning. For this production, he shored himself up with a battalion of women, including his wife, Tonya Lewis Lee, who served as executive producer, and his sister, Joie Lee, who’s a credited writer on the series and who also plays Nola’s mom. Nola’s assault and her subsequent guerrilla art campaign feels like Spike’s mea culpa.
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Although Teresa liked the new version of “She’s Gotta Have It,” Helena Andrews-Dyer was disappointed. Read her take.
Teresa Wiltz, a writer who lives in Washington, D.C., is a former Washington Post staff writer. Follow her at @teresawiltz.
An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that in the episode entitled #LBD (Little Black Dress), Nola went shopping with Opal.
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