Rewriting the queer potential of She’s Gotta Have It

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper argues that the 2017–2019 comedy-drama Netflix series She’s Gotta Have It attempts to rewrite the past represented within the 1986 feature-length film of the same name through its portrayal of Black women’s sexuality. While lauded, the film was met with criticism of Spike Lee’s portrayal of women in the film as ultimately misogynist and homophobic, evidenced by Lee’s decision to show protagonist Nola Darling being punitively raped by one of her sexual partners as well as by the flat and stereotypical construction of the Black lesbian character, Opal Gilstrap. In contrast, the 2017 series introduces us to Nola Darling as a pansexual and polyamorous Black visual artist in a rapidly gentrifying Fort Greene, Brooklyn. This paper identifies sexual politics and self-representational strategies as two sites of nostalgic re-construction in which elements of the past are both reproduced and revised. For instance, Nola’s self-identification as pansexual and her sustained relationship with a reimagined and more robustly characterized Opal illustrate that Nola’s sexual desires are not bound by heteronormativity. At the same time, the series echoes the film in that the primary sexual and romantic conflicts revolve around the ways Nola’s Black femininity is juxtaposed with the Black cis masculinity of her three primary suitors. The use of self-representational strategies, primarily Lee’s signature 4th wall breaking, provides a sense of continuity through its nostalgic callback to Lee’s earlier works, while also allowing Nola to articulate the ‘new’ identities of polyamory and pansexuality which depart from the language used in the ‘86 portrayal. Relatedly, Nola’s work as a visual artist allows the show to prioritize Nola’s perceptions of her lovers and herself. Overall, this paper mobilizes Black feminist, lesbian, and queer analyses in service of identifying and complicating Lee’s efforts to recuperate misogynist and heteronormative gendered portrayals in a contemporary medium.