Don’t Let “She’s Gotta Have It” Fool You, Most Millennials Just Want Their Cake & To Eat It Too

By:  H.T., Website:  Rogue Black Nerd

Spike Lee’s updated series of She’s Gotta Have It is currently being treated as the next big thing that speaks to this generation of young women who feel as though they too can find their sexual liberation by having multiple lovers along with getting what she needs from different men and women physically and mentally.  This series works under the idea that this way of living is fun and free and is the bees knees.  But I think it’s time someone said what needs to be said about the logic and mindset behind this series:  this is a fantasy in so many ways yet no one sees its dangers.

See, Nola Darling is like a lot of women:  ambitious, beautiful, creative, & progressive.  But she’s by no means original in terms of writing.  This kind of female character that lives the bohemian lifestyle and juggles lovers by this point is more than just a trope, it’s a right of passage for so many women in this day and age.  Nola juggles between Mars, who’s a fucking idiot who she clearly only puts up with to speak to her clear immaturity, Jamie who’s FUCKING MARRIED and Greer, who I won’t call gay as that’s too cheap of a shot, but I will say he’s basically every annoying artsy guy that women love to get knocked up by then wonder why he’s a shit father.  Yes, there’s an episode where she attempts to date a woman and it falls through, but nevertheless this series tries so hard to speak to the woke segment of the millennial generation that really wants to believe that this way of life will last them forever or even should.  Yes, we get it, you don’t want to be any man’s property and you want to control the relationship.  But clearly you’ve picked partners with questionable senses of integrity as these are all men willing to not commit just to you, but also SHARE you with other men.

No one sees the issue with normalizing a character like Nola Darling because as a generation we let sexuality become more about fluidity and freedom than about responsibility and accountability.  When this generation realized that they could now live out their wildest fantasies online and in the real world because not only could mom and dad do nothing about it but now mom and dad were wrong in the modern age of this train of thought.  When this younger generation grew up far more privileged than even their older siblings, this is what we got:  a generation with no real sense of what lies ahead of their years of mindless self indulgence.

I speak of course about the loss of their youthful naiveté.  Soon, the little children that grew up below them will take their place as the center of youth and they will need to reevaluate their lives.  But of course, shows like She’s Gotta Have It don’t ever explore these issues.  Really, if any show should have explored this, it was Insecure yet rather than show Issa dealing with the fact that you just look immature being damn near 30 and still pining after a shitty ex while the good ex gets away, we watched more of the b.s. logic of “I’m going to be sexually free!”  Both men and women who chose this path more often than not are searching for a dream and rather than simply choosing the hypergamous route and picking someone who will benefit you in the long run, we get this; the image of the black woman seeking her freedom in the flesh rather than seeking someone to build a family with, something the black community badly needs.

When we create characters like Issa or Nola, the one thing we never see explored is “what if this way of life is forced to end?”  An unexpected pregnancy, an incurable STD, hell, what if you just get older and now you have to compete for your lovers attention with far younger women with less scruples?  What then?  In short, if this is the route we’re taking the image of millennial black women, then I never want to hear another single complaint about black men MARRYING outside the black community EVER AGAIN.  You were fine when we were ok with you sharing your bed with 4 different men, but when that man who made you rethink things got tired of waiting for you decided to wife up Becky with the good hair, you felt some type of way.  If this is where things are going, then prepare for a mass exodus of good black men.  You will mock me and say “BYE!” but even if it’s not in the next 5 years, in time you will notice that the men you kept in your good graces will lack what you will need eventually.  Time comes for everyone and not even Nola is beyond its reach.