Thus, the Jezebel and the Buck - the young, strong black man with animalistic sexuality - were created. The image of the Jezebel painted black women as sexually uncontrollable deviants with the dangerous power to undermine the patriarchal notions on which Eurocentric culture was founded. Her self-sufficient idea of sexuality meant that she only needed men for sex instead of love and familial obligations. She was seen as not only a destroyer of herself but of black men and manhood by removing their power as patriarch. The Jezebel archetype was most prevalent from the 1930s to the 1960s before, in the 1970s/80s, re-appropriation of the Jezebel began to take hold. At least, re-appropriation was attempted.
In Spike Lee's 1986 film, "She's Gotta Have It", the young filmmaker, 29 years old at the time, attempted to take back the jezebel archetype and flip it on its head. His character, Nola, is on the surface a modernized jezebel. She's a successful, young black woman living on her own in New York City. She lives in a big studio apartment that she maintains with a career as a graphic artist. Nola is incredibly open about her sexuality, not interested in relying on men for anything and instead using them for her sexual pleasure. Throughout the movie she is sexually involved with three men, not romantically. Fully in control of her sexuality, Nola is the jezebel set in more modern times. .
What Lee does with the movie's outlying characters is what presents a deeper message in the story. In Lee's later films, his message is always one not only critical of the white supremacy power structure but also of the black community itself. He touches on classism, racism between light and dark skin and urges the community to " wake up and do the right thing" (Hamlet, 4). The 80s and 90s were a period of general conservatism for the black male community. With a small increase in the black middle class, hope in the promise of equality faded.
