Hidden Flick: A Spike in the Win Column

She’s Gotta Have It was significant for several reasons. Lee presented the black experience on film in a casual, direct, and humorous way without pandering to explanations or stereotypes of what that black experience means to non-blacks. Lee made the lead character act in an alleged amoral fashion while men chased her. Lee presented himself as a cartoonish character willing to bend an encounter to get a laugh or any type of a reaction—a template he would use for grand effect throughout his career.

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Lee also created a parallel universe version of New York that wasn’t seen through the eyes of Woody Allen who seemed to have a stranglehold on New York in the 1970s and ’80s. Indeed, Lee broke the door down between what was black cinema—a place filled with pushers, murderers, sluts, and butlers—and what it could be—a forum for the black point of view. He didn’t usher in a new era of color for numerous directors in a multi-racial America, or even change the way that a long-prejudiced nation looked at its people, but in his own way, Spike Lee made it easier for others to see his own black experiential stories for what they really were—tales of daily wisdom and weary confusion from individuals who have stories, but aren’t provided the platform to voice their concerns.

Lee gave black cinema that shot, and continues to make vital work to this day; albeit, encountering the same issues any filmmaker endures—historical dramas don’t always pan out well with a wide audience, and sometimes one needs to fire an agent. These two latter attributes plagued his latest production, Miracle at St. Anna, but one gets the feeling that neither will keep the man down for long. Nothing seems to, and that may be Lee’s greatest legacy—always trying to find victory in the face of daunting failure.

And so I look upon the image of Spike Lee at our President-elect’s victory speech in Chicago, and I witness a man who helped get America to look beyond our differences, and see that, underneath our tumultuous barriers, we all share the same concerns. Yes, Lee can be an exploitative, self-serving individual in his many off-screen escapades ranging from the Nike commercials which he directed post-She’s Gotta Have It to his occasional tirades against The Man in the press. However, Lee is also a cinematic trailblazer, and someone who helped tell important alternative versions of history without denying that 400 years of oppression wasn’t simply going to vanish overnight.

So hats off to Spike Lee and the recent release in January on DVD of his debut feature-length film after a long delay. Originally slated as a Criterion release, that angle was abandoned for legal issues, and She’s Gotta Have It was finally delivered earlier this year on Twentieth-Century Fox Home Entertainment. The film is a witty and profound statement about the black experience in America, and what it means to struggle in the face of adversity and cultural turmoil in the always dynamic, occasionally frustrating, and timeless terrible beauty of Brooklyn.

She’s Gotta Have It—perhaps, just as importantly—gave a fairly strong voice to the African-American female, and spoke of her modern concerns, place in society and individual goals in a defiantly white man’s country. In the end, Lee provided the platform for these voices to be heard, and he continues to change the face of cinema by also looking at how an individual, one person in a society, can make a difference. We ALL won on Tuesday, November 4, and although I might be a white man living in America, I also feel like I share the dream of finding a way for all individuals to be heard when all around them is telling them to shut up. Simple word, listen—let’s hope we do.

Randy Ray

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2 Responses

  1. a spike lee joint that, you’re right, many have forgotten about.

    We had to watch this in my college’s senior poli-sci curriculum. Thanks for the mention Randy. I’m gonna rent this and re-watch it.

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