Does Netflix's 'She's Gotta Have It' Live Up to Its Promise?
David Lee
Insecureâs Nuanced Take on Singleness Part of the revolution of modern female characters involves dismantling this idea of âlikability.â Sheâs Gotta Have It succeeds there; at times Darling is definitely not likable. But the show makes it seem as though any criticisms of Darling are due to the fact that she embraces her sexuality and has multiple partnersâand I donât really buy it. Some of the discontinuity in Darlingâs storyline feels like a failure to successfully imagine the inner motivations  ideas  and emotions of a modern young woman. Part of the flaw here is that  Lee âs relying too heavily on the framework  he  created for the character three decades ago. Green: Yes  Gillian! Darling calls the men in her life out for thinking they know the âreal herâ when theyâre only dating their own contrived visions of her. The irony is  Darling ends up coming off like a middle-aged manâs off-pitch interpretation of a millennial black feminist. The way she lists her rules of engagementâonly sex in her âloving bed â seeing each man no more than twice a week and never two in one day  etc.âgives an impression that sheâs playing for sport instead of living in the liberation she tells others about.
She breaks the fourth wall in many uncomfortable monologues throughout the season  which Iâd hoped would be a vehicle to get inside her head; but like most of the women in the show  Darling never becomes fully three-dimensional. Itâs not surprising then  that in a show mainly about juggling three men  the only dialogue that has depth and advances the storyline comes from Darlingâs interactions with the other women in the show: her three girlfriends  a woman that sheâs also seeing (Opal)  and her therapist. David  Lee  / Netflix Mock: I remember the first time I saw the original movie and how it blew my mind. I didnât see it when it first came out in 1986. I saw it in â89 or 1990  after I saw Do the Right Thing  which made me want to find anything else  Lee  had done  besides the Jordan commercials and the Anita Baker video. But  yeah  I think we forget how revolutionary Darlingâs character wasânot as a black character  but just as a character  period. At that age  I had no ideas about the sexual agency of women  or what polyamory was; these terms werenât part of the mainstream lexicon. Remember  misogyny was on the come up during that era of hip hop (â86 to â91) . Many of the guys I grew up with were heavily influenced by rappers like Too Short  Big Daddy Kane  LL Cool J  N.W.A.  and 2 Live Crew  which is to say we were getting a pretty unhealthy education about male-female relationships. I loved how  Lee  flipped that entire dynamic on its head with Sheâs Gotta Have It  and we needed to see that. But to your point  Gillian  Iâm not sure the TV series did much to advance contemporary ideas about the relationships explored in the â86 movie. I think thatâs why  Lee  felt the need to flesh out the narrative with this whole gentrification thread.
White: Definitely. Part of the problem is that what made Darling such an innovative character in the 1980s isnât what makes her so compelling now. And I fully agree with you  Adrienne: The moments where we see Darling undergoing the most growth and becoming most self-aware are all related to women. In addition to Opal  and her therapist  Iâd add her boss  Raqueletta Moss to the mix. Serwer: To go off your points about Insecure  Gillian and Adrienne  one of Spikeâs issues here is that the artists  he  helped influence are actually better at this now than  he  is. Which is whatâs supposed to happen! Even if itâs not something Spike would like to hear. White: I think thatâs exactly right. Serwer: I found myself most roped in when the show was lingering on Darling and her issues in the art world (the satire of which is funny and brutal)  and less so when it was focusing on the love triangle (rectangle?) the original film was centered on. Of her suitors  I found Mars Blackmon the most likable and relatable  in part because he feels like the underdog in a situation that involves a wealthy Wall Street type and a French-speaking model. Also  Anthony Ramos is really good at inhabiting the character. White: I was scared about how the character of Mars (originally played by  Lee ) would translate  but in the end he was one of the highlights of the show and unquestionably the male suitor who was best folded into the present day. Ramos did such a fantastic job of keeping Marsâs spirit of absurdity and geekiness while making him feel fresh and original. As for the other suitors  I found Greer and Jamie difficult to stomachâand not just because theyâre supposed to be obnoxious. Both characters seem to be relics of the 1980s in dress  in attitude  and in their assumptions about their place in society  and Darlingâs.
In a world where talking  hanging out  and hooking up are all far more common in your early 20s (especially in big cities)  the idea that Greer and Jamie would spend so much of their time inquiring about the other men Darling is dating feels a little unbelievable. Also the types of men that Jamie and Greer are meant to portrayâgeneralized archetypes of a desirable guyâdonât even work for the present moment. Jamieâs stuffy  wealthy  older  finance-dad vibe  and certainly Greerâs light-skinned  light-eyed  cultured  model vibe went out of style in the â90s  and they shouldâve been left there. Serwer: Greer and Jamie are really insufferable  and more than Mars  theyâre stereotypes: The first suitor is a project kid-gone-Wall Street who still has ties to the drug game (slash a cheating husband in a midlife crisis). The second is a tragic mulatto who literally has a line about how he doesnât want to choose between one identity or the other. That stuff was played out when I was a teenager. I wonder  Gillian  if the characters simply werenât rescuable from the time and place they were created (and maybe Mars was  in part because if anything  black geeks are more visible in pop culture now than they used to be). Also light-skinned men are definitely not out of style  shout out to my Blewish brother Drake (or is he canceled? Iâm old and canât keep track). Mock: As Adrienne said  it was the scenes shared between the women that were most rich. I honestly could have taken a Sheâs Gotta Have It sans the male characters from the original altogetherâmaybe keep Mars Blackmon  but only because heâs so iconic. It is weird  though  that for a movie/TV show that is supposed to be essentially about a woman  the character itâs most remembered for is a guy  Mars Blackmon. Heâs the only character who has benefited from the marketing of the movie over the past few decades. We didnât even know where Tracy Camilla Johns (the original Nola Darling) disappeared to  until she made that cameo in the new version. David  Lee  / Netflix Of course  thereâs the theory that none of these characters are to be taken as literal people  but rather as the multiple shades of Brooklyn. The male characters could be seen as metaphors for the parts of Brooklyn that aspire toward Manhattan-like wealth and prestige (Jamie)  the parts that are straight blacktops and hip hop (Mars)  and the parts that are that whole metro-self-fellatio-sexual part of NYC that really began blossoming in the â80s (Greer).
White: For sure  but Iâd argue those arenât even representative of Brooklyn in this moment. Brooklyn is not the Brooklyn of the â80s or â90s (so  Lee  keeps reminding us). Mock: On another note  Iâm thankful that they got rid of the rape scene from the movie. I think the transition to dealing with sexual harassment and assault in the streets was the showâs strongest material  especially as it bled into Darlingâs art work  which helped solve some of her financial problems. The personal became political then became personal again. Serwer: I think part of the reason why that subplot is so strong is that itâs based on a work called Stop Telling Women to Smile by the artist Tatyana Fazlalizadeh  who was also a consultant on the show. Fazlalizadeh put up a series of posters around Brooklyn with similar antiâstreet harassment messages she drew from women she interviewed about their experiences. Green: Spikeâs long talked about regretting that rape scene (and as recently as November). I agree  Brentin  that the show did a really good job of making sexual trauma an undercurrent without visually exploiting female charactersâfrom the street-art campaign to Darlingâs art student replacing Lilâ Kim with herself on the Hard Core album cover for a school assignment. With the âfree black female formâ as its thematic throughline  the show subtly deals with sex and trauma  complicating the idea of autonomy and who has access to it.
White: I think that the use of Raqueletta Moss  and her story of abuse as a child and how she overcame it  was a clever way to explicitly deal with the subject without  as Adrienne suggested  having to resort to exploitative rape scenes. Also  Mossâs decision to take Darling on as a mentee  despite having witnessed her immaturity at work  was one of my favorite developments. That relationship  between those two black women  felt organic and important. Serwer: I liked the Moss character in part because I can remember teachers pulling me aside and giving me that kind of blunt real-talk lecture about how bad life can get  in order to keep you from dealing with things they had to deal with or saw other people deal with. The characterâs past isnât what youâd call original  but again itâs rescued by a strong performance by the actress  DeâAdre Aziza. David  Lee  / Netflix White: Before we wrap this  we need to talk about that wild butt-implant narrative involving one of Darlingâs closest friends  Shemekka. This storyline was alternately framed as a comedy and a serious commentary on the way society values women. But ultimately I thought it presented some pretty major problems for the plot and the showâs portrayal of women. Mock: Iâm not quite sure what they were going for with that thread. It felt like something that got cut from Chi-Raq.
Insecureâs Nuanced Take on Singleness Part of the revolution of modern female characters involves dismantling this idea of âlikability.â Sheâs Gotta Have It succeeds there; at times Darling is definitely not likable. But the show makes it seem as though any criticisms of Darling are due to the fact that she embraces her sexuality and has multiple partnersâand I donât really buy it. Some of the discontinuity in Darlingâs storyline feels like a failure to successfully imagine the inner motivations  ideas  and emotions of a modern young woman. Part of the flaw here is that   [TGT]  âs relying too heavily on the framework   [TGT]   created for the character three decades ago. Green: Yes  Gillian! Darling calls the men in her life out for thinking they know the âreal herâ when theyâre only dating their own contrived visions of her. The irony is  Darling ends up coming off like a middle-aged manâs off-pitch interpretation of a millennial black feminist. The way she lists her rules of engagementâonly sex in her âloving bed â seeing each man no more than twice a week and never two in one day  etc.âgives an impression that sheâs playing for sport instead of living in the liberation she tells others about.
She breaks the fourth wall in many uncomfortable monologues throughout the season  which Iâd hoped would be a vehicle to get inside her head; but like most of the women in the show  Darling never becomes fully three-dimensional. Itâs not surprising then  that in a show mainly about juggling three men  the only dialogue that has depth and advances the storyline comes from Darlingâs interactions with the other women in the show: her three girlfriends  a woman that sheâs also seeing (Opal)  and her therapist. David  Lee  / Netflix Mock: I remember the first time I saw the original movie and how it blew my mind. I didnât see it when it first came out in 1986. I saw it in â89 or 1990  after I saw Do the Right Thing  which made me want to find anything else  Lee  had done  besides the Jordan commercials and the Anita Baker video. But  yeah  I think we forget how revolutionary Darlingâs character wasânot as a black character  but just as a character  period. At that age  I had no ideas about the sexual agency of women  or what polyamory was; these terms werenât part of the mainstream lexicon. Remember  misogyny was on the come up during that era of hip hop (â86 to â91) . Many of the guys I grew up with were heavily influenced by rappers like Too Short  Big Daddy Kane  LL Cool J  N.W.A.  and 2 Live Crew  which is to say we were getting a pretty unhealthy education about male-female relationships. I loved how  Lee  flipped that entire dynamic on its head with Sheâs Gotta Have It  and we needed to see that. But to your point  Gillian  Iâm not sure the TV series did much to advance contemporary ideas about the relationships explored in the â86 movie. I think thatâs why  Lee  felt the need to flesh out the narrative with this whole gentrification thread.
White: Definitely. Part of the problem is that what made Darling such an innovative character in the 1980s isnât what makes her so compelling now. And I fully agree with you  Adrienne: The moments where we see Darling undergoing the most growth and becoming most self-aware are all related to women. In addition to Opal  and her therapist  Iâd add her boss  Raqueletta Moss to the mix. Serwer: To go off your points about Insecure  Gillian and Adrienne  one of Spikeâs issues here is that the artists  he  helped influence are actually better at this now than  he  is. Which is whatâs supposed to happen! Even if itâs not something Spike would like to hear. White: I think thatâs exactly right. Serwer: I found myself most roped in when the show was lingering on Darling and her issues in the art world (the satire of which is funny and brutal)  and less so when it was focusing on the love triangle (rectangle?) the original film was centered on. Of her suitors  I found Mars Blackmon the most likable and relatable  in part because he feels like the underdog in a situation that involves a wealthy Wall Street type and a French-speaking model. Also  Anthony Ramos is really good at inhabiting the character. White: I was scared about how the character of Mars (originally played by  Lee ) would translate  but in the end he was one of the highlights of the show and unquestionably the male suitor who was best folded into the present day. Ramos did such a fantastic job of keeping Marsâs spirit of absurdity and geekiness while making him feel fresh and original. As for the other suitors  I found Greer and Jamie difficult to stomachâand not just because theyâre supposed to be obnoxious. Both characters seem to be relics of the 1980s in dress  in attitude  and in their assumptions about their place in society  and Darlingâs.
In a world where talking  hanging out  and hooking up are all far more common in your early 20s (especially in big cities)  the idea that Greer and Jamie would spend so much of their time inquiring about the other men Darling is dating feels a little unbelievable. Also the types of men that Jamie and Greer are meant to portrayâgeneralized archetypes of a desirable guyâdonât even work for the present moment. Jamieâs stuffy  wealthy  older  finance-dad vibe  and certainly Greerâs light-skinned  light-eyed  cultured  model vibe went out of style in the â90s  and they shouldâve been left there. Serwer: Greer and Jamie are really insufferable  and more than Mars  theyâre stereotypes: The first suitor is a project kid-gone-Wall Street who still has ties to the drug game (slash a cheating husband in a midlife crisis). The second is a tragic mulatto who literally has a line about how he doesnât want to choose between one identity or the other. That stuff was played out when I was a teenager. I wonder  Gillian  if the characters simply werenât rescuable from the time and place they were created (and maybe Mars was  in part because if anything  black geeks are more visible in pop culture now than they used to be). Also light-skinned men are definitely not out of style  shout out to my Blewish brother Drake (or is he canceled? Iâm old and canât keep track). Mock: As Adrienne said  it was the scenes shared between the women that were most rich. I honestly could have taken a Sheâs Gotta Have It sans the male characters from the original altogetherâmaybe keep Mars Blackmon  but only because heâs so iconic. It is weird  though  that for a movie/TV show that is supposed to be essentially about a woman  the character itâs most remembered for is a guy  Mars Blackmon. Heâs the only character who has benefited from the marketing of the movie over the past few decades. We didnât even know where Tracy Camilla Johns (the original Nola Darling) disappeared to  until she made that cameo in the new version. David  Lee  / Netflix Of course  thereâs the theory that none of these characters are to be taken as literal people  but rather as the multiple shades of Brooklyn. The male characters could be seen as metaphors for the parts of Brooklyn that aspire toward Manhattan-like wealth and prestige (Jamie)  the parts that are straight blacktops and hip hop (Mars)  and the parts that are that whole metro-self-fellatio-sexual part of NYC that really began blossoming in the â80s (Greer).
White: For sure  but Iâd argue those arenât even representative of Brooklyn in this moment. Brooklyn is not the Brooklyn of the â80s or â90s (so  Lee  keeps reminding us). Mock: On another note  Iâm thankful that they got rid of the rape scene from the movie. I think the transition to dealing with sexual harassment and assault in the streets was the showâs strongest material  especially as it bled into Darlingâs art work  which helped solve some of her financial problems. The personal became political then became personal again. Serwer: I think part of the reason why that subplot is so strong is that itâs based on a work called Stop Telling Women to Smile by the artist Tatyana Fazlalizadeh  who was also a consultant on the show. Fazlalizadeh put up a series of posters around Brooklyn with similar antiâstreet harassment messages she drew from women she interviewed about their experiences. Green: Spikeâs long talked about regretting that rape scene (and as recently as November). I agree  Brentin  that the show did a really good job of making sexual trauma an undercurrent without visually exploiting female charactersâfrom the street-art campaign to Darlingâs art student replacing Lilâ Kim with herself on the Hard Core album cover for a school assignment. With the âfree black female formâ as its thematic throughline  the show subtly deals with sex and trauma  complicating the idea of autonomy and who has access to it.
White: I think that the use of Raqueletta Moss  and her story of abuse as a child and how she overcame it  was a clever way to explicitly deal with the subject without  as Adrienne suggested  having to resort to exploitative rape scenes. Also  Mossâs decision to take Darling on as a mentee  despite having witnessed her immaturity at work  was one of my favorite developments. That relationship  between those two black women  felt organic and important. Serwer: I liked the Moss character in part because I can remember teachers pulling me aside and giving me that kind of blunt real-talk lecture about how bad life can get  in order to keep you from dealing with things they had to deal with or saw other people deal with. The characterâs past isnât what youâd call original  but again itâs rescued by a strong performance by the actress  DeâAdre Aziza. David  Lee  / Netflix White: Before we wrap this  we need to talk about that wild butt-implant narrative involving one of Darlingâs closest friends  Shemekka. This storyline was alternately framed as a comedy and a serious commentary on the way society values women. But ultimately I thought it presented some pretty major problems for the plot and the showâs portrayal of women. Mock: Iâm not quite sure what they were going for with that thread. It felt like something that got cut from Chi-Raq.