In 1986, Spike Lee's "She's Gotta Have It" hit American theaters by storm, boldly depicting every raunchy detail of main character Nola Darling's (Tracy Camilla Johns) sexually liberated lifestyle. Filmed in black and white, this Spike Lee Joint pays homage to classical on-screen theater, while also incorporating documentary-like cinematography. The resulting masterpiece is more than just a film: it's contemporary artwork in moving picture form.
"She's Gotta Have It" is about one woman, Nola, and her three lovers - Mars Blackmon (Spike Lee), Greer Childs (John Canada Terrell) and Jamie Overstreet (Tommy Redmond Hicks) - who all know about each other's relationships with Nola. These clowns have absolutely nothing in common.
Mars represents the stereotypical lower-class "blackmon" of mid-1980s Brooklyn. He hasn't worked in two years and doesn't plan on ever getting a job even though he often boasts about owning $50 Jordan sneakers and expensive jewelry. Mars, perceiving himself as inferior to his competitors, guilefully abstains from criticizing Nola. Furthermore, he exhibits a lovable sense of humor, a keen eye for fashion and a propensity for spewing strong, albeit misled, strands of prideful, independent and self-assured language. He claims to love Nola, yet has no respect for her. He admits to the audience: "We knew she was a freak. We love freaks ... We just don't want them for a wife."
Greer is a sexist, decadent narcissist from Manhattan who views himself as superior to those whom he describes as "ignorant, low-class, ghetto negroes." Greer never quite grasps the notion that Nola could possibly love another man.
He's portrayed as the most spiteful of her three suitors: "If [only] she had listened to me," he whines from the driver's seat of his sports car. "I was the best thing that ever happened to Nola ... It was I who made her a better person, I molded her, [like] clay..." Throughout the film Greer attempts to objectify Nola and make her his trophy wife, but she proves to be immune to such impositions.
And then there's Jamie, who Mars calls "soft." Jamie is, in a sense, the perfect man. He believes in soul mates; he's a hopeless romantic; he's financially stable; he genuinely cares for Nola; he remembers birthdays; he embraces commitment. I could go on and on, but you get the point. As we all know, it's men like Jamie who often get stuck watching love unfold from life's lonely sidelines. Such is the plight of the quintessential nice guy.
A dominant theme in "She's Gotta Have It" is the inevitable deterioration of Jamie's desirable persona in the face of Nola's unrelenting need to claim her own femininity. Mars never changes, and Greer refuses to change. And as for Nola? Well, you can watch the movie and decide for yourself.
Jamie, on the other hand, changes drastically in response to Nola's refusal to accept him as her one true love. He transforms from a perfect man to what the film's internal dialogue labels "a dog." He becomes a far worse partner than either Mars or Greer. Ultimately, he serves as the final addition to what Greer describes as Nola's "three-headed monster" - the embodiment of all the negative aspects of masculinity.
In exploring female sexuality, "She's Gotta Have It" presents a paradox. It functions as both a condemnation of and a justification for society's negative perception of female sexual freedom. In other words does Nola emerge victorious in her successful preservation of "it" - her liberated state as an independent woman? Or does she problematically accentuate the prevalence of misogynistic stereotypes by eliminating the few Jamies that are left in the world? Despite introducing this biting concept, the film's central narrative remains unbiased, leaving the final judgment of Nola to us.
Nash Simpson is a senior majoring in English. He can be reached at Nash.Simpson@tufts.edu.
