From Brother to the Night to Loving Black Man

An Essay

Darius Lovehall and Nina Mosely quickly jump into a steamy relationship after exchanging poems, music, photographs, and sex. The movie, Love Jones takes place in the urban city of Chicago in the early 90s. A common theme throughout the movie is lust over love. And from the movie, it seems like it's the Black men rather the Black women who prefer lust over love and vice versa. The miscommunication about this often led to loveless lives. But, even though bell hooks would argue that during this time these Black people were submerged in a consumer culture that greatly encouraged dishonesty, she would also argue that love prevails in Darius and Nina’s relationship as in the last scene of the movie, Darius Lovehall illustrates the Black love practice of honesty as he finally admits in the pouring rain to Nina that after a year of absolutely no contact, he is in love with her.

In the beginning of the film, Darius Lovehall proudly calls himself “brother to the night”, he does not fall in love, but he wants everything to do with sex. He is reducing his capability to love to simply what his sexual organs can do. When he meets Nina Mosely for the first time, we see him allured by her beauty and elegance. He vigorously chases after her, asks for a date and proceeds to spend ample time with her. From the audience’s point, it looks like the beginnings of a loving relationship. But, after Nina tells him that she has some unfinished business in New York with her ex boyfriend, Darius finds himself hurt. To protect his feelings, he lies to Nina claiming he does not care what she does. The audience see Darius actions toward Nina not lining up with his words. This only leads to more confusion in their relationship. In All About Love: New Visions by bell hooks, hooks says “The heart of justice is truth telling, seeing ourselves and the world the way it is rather than the way we want it to be” (p 33). Darius and Nina’s relationships’ downfall was the lack of honest communication. Darius lied and danced around the truth when it came to Nina for months. He only does this to satisfy the pimp identity of “Brother to the night” And when Nina was finally done with his lying, she was gone. And that is when the audience see Darius growing and coming into self realizations about his actions. hooks talks about in her book how men lie early from childhood as a way to spare people’s feelings, mask their own, avoid responsibility and confrontation, and to obtain power over people. She also discusses how consumer culture encourages men telling lies through movies, advertisement, and other forms of media. Men are constantly seeing other men advance and glorified for their manipulation of women, children, and other men! This “characteristic” is consumed as an exertion of manhood, but it is dangerously spreading lovelessness all over the world. In the very last scene after Nina finishes her poem to Darius at Sanctuary and goes outside to catch a cab home when she thinks Darius is not at the club. But, Darius finds her and stops her. In the pouring rain, he confesses his past mistakes and tells Nina for the first time that he is in love with her. hooks also says in a motion toward true love, “To be loving we willingly hear each other’s truth, and most important, we affirm the value of truth telling” (47).  Despite their past verbally abusive encounters, when Nina hears “I love you” for the first time, we see her embrace Darius mutually, not punishing him for any mistake he made in the past.

Darius and Nina are not a perfect couple, but that last conversation in the rain illustrated the Black love practice of honesty that no matter what happened in the past, love can progressively heal anything. And to truly love “we must learn to mix various  ingredients-- care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust, as well as honest and open communication” (p 5). Because of the consumer culture we live in, Black people are often entering relationships knowing nothing about true love, but they are subconsciously driven away or toward love by what they have seen and how they’ve experienced love at home. Lovelessness because of lack of open and honest communication are our reality, but this film is important, because we see a redemptive, Black love at the end.

Works Cited

Hooks, Bell. All about Love: New Visions. New York: William Morrow, 2000. Print.