Spike Lee’s breakthrough film, “She’s Gotta Have It,” was released in 1986 and was set in Fort Greene, then a pre-gentrified neighborhood of Brooklyn.
Last Thursday, Mr. Lee returned to the neighborhood for the premiere of Season 2 of the Netflix series based on the film. A lot has changed in that time.
DeWanda Wise plays Nola Darling, a sexually fluid, sex-positive woman in modern-day Brooklyn. In these days of renewed culture war, that’s enough to make her a lightning rod.
“What is startling about Nola is her ownership. And you see a chronic fighting for that ownership of her body,” said Ms. Wise, who was wearing a Versace alphabet-print mini-wrap dress over matching leggings. “She’s controversial, but I like work that sticks with you. If she annoys you, it’s for a reason.”
The screening was at Alamo Drafthouse Brooklyn, part of the mixed-use complex known as City Point. After, guests repaired to the Gotham Market at the Ashland, a curated food court. Both are shiny developments of the kind slammed in the show’s criticism of gentrification, but if anybody noticed, the open bar and trays of triple-pork sliders dulled their outrage.
Cast members including Anthony Ramos, Chyna Layne and Margot Bingham mixed with rising artists like Uncuttart, who obscures his face with a bandanna. Leslie Grace, a young singer with one million Instagram followers, chatted with her actor buddy Corey Hawkins.
Fat Joe played classic hip-hop tracks including “Lean Back,” “It’s All About the Benjamins” and his collaboration with Big Punisher, “Twinz,” repeating the lyric: “Spike Lee couldn’t paint a better picture.”
Mr. Lee, who wore a Yankees cap and olive green military jacket and a movie T-shirt (from “She’s Gotta Have It,” naturally), danced with his wife, Tonya Lewis Lee, an executive producer on the series.
“Nola Darling was ahead of her time in 1986, but we just try to be innovative,” he said.
How were audiences responding to the updated version? “If they like it, they like it,” he said. “If they don’t like it, they let you know, too.”
A Hamptons Kickoff
The social season in the Hamptons got underway last Saturday at the Bridgehampton Tennis and Surf Club. A coterie of elected officials from New York City and New York State attended a fund-raiser for Long Island’s LGBT Network.
Many of them sounded ready to sink the recently announced presidential candidacy of Mayor Bill de Blasio.
Asked if she planned to endorse him, Letitia James, the New York attorney general, replied (with a big grin), “no comment, no comment, no comment.” Ritchie Torres, a New York City councilman who is running for congress, said cryptically, “the mayor’s presidential prospects are as great as mine.”
Also mingling were David Kilmnick, the LGBT Network chief executive; Corey Johnson, the speaker of the New York City Council; and Vanessa Gibson, a councilwoman from the Bronx.
Jean Shafiroff, the social dragonfly, attended with her publicist, Matt Rich, and her friend Rebecca Seawright, a New York State assemblywoman. Someone (cough, Mr. Rich) offered to donate $500 to the LGBT Network if Ms. Shafiroff could hula hoop for one minute, and in front of the cameras, she obliged.
As the sun began to set, Ms. James, who became attorney general in January, was on a patio overlooking the ocean. “This is Memorial weekend and I am in the Hamptons, on the beach with great friends and family, drinking a mimosa and having a good time. It’s taking off a little bit of the stress, and I needed this.”
And who was her posse for this beach weekend?
“I’ve got a girl posse, I’ve got a gay posse, I’ve got a black posse,” she said. “All in my body.”
