The Perceived Complexities of Nova Borderlon (Queen Sugar)

Nova Borderlon (my favorite Queen Sugar character) is one of the deepest, most down to earth characters that I've ever seen portrayed in any television show, yet one of the reasons that some people see her as complex is because of her seeming inability to pin down a gender or race to be involved in a romantic relationship with. From my perception, Nova understands that we all come from the human race, and race and gender identities are a part of social constructs to keep us all in our places as a part of a society.

The beautiful Rutina Wesley
as Nova Borderlon of
Queen Sugar.

She has the ability to deconstruct those identities for what they are, and not allow society to tell her who she should have romantic feelings for. This is quite admirable to me, for many people hold onto these identities with the belief that these cultural ideals are just how these things are supposed to be.

These identities most certainly were put in place for a reason, and the gender roles helped to define our societal roles in order for us to socialize in the most efficient and communal way as citizens of a society, during a time when these roles were necessary. But is it still necessary to attach gender roles to any sex, or is this an antiquated ideology?

Once you know and understand the historical/social reason for gender roles, your choice to not conform and to be an individual is your decision, and making that decision comes with the consequences of the views and judgement's of that society, and your ability to handle those views and judgement's. Nova Bordelon seems to be able to accept that consequence, with no apologies.

To get a more focused understanding about societal gender roles, here are a couple definitions of these roles.

     Gender - The roles that people perform in there households 
     and communities and the values and attitudes that people have 
     regarding men and women.

     Gender Construct - The set of cultural assumptions about 
     gender roles and values and the relations between the genders 
     that people learn as members of their societies (Bonvillain, N., 2010, Pg. 240)."

Another perceived complexity, or some may call it confusion, is the fact that Nova is Pro Black, yet continuously deals romantically with White men. Some people have the misunderstanding that you can't be Pro Black and have romantic feelings for other races. One thing has nothing to do with the other, or shouldn't.

As a Pro Black woman myself, I have no Ill feelings towards any other race, and don't feel any type of betrayal when members of the Black race find other races attractive. We are all members of the human race, and our external features only identify the regions of the world that our ancesters' settled in, and adapted to. Now, I'm not saying that there aren't some people who have identity issues, who date outside of their race because of self hate, but Nova Bordelon is not that. And Pro Black doesn't mean that you can't love someone of another race, and that includes the White race.

Here are a few brief explanations to define the term  "Race" as the social construct that it is.

     Race - A cultural category that groups people according to so-called 
     racial distinctions.

     Race is a social, not a biological, category. There are no absolute 
     biological differences among people that would allow for an objective 
     categorization of human beings into discrete non-overlapping groups.

     So called racial distinctions focus on a particular set of external 
     physical traits (skin color, hair color and texture, facial features, etc.) 
     that are then used to identify different "races."

     The classification, labeling, and valuing of these differences as races 
     are entirely arbitrary (Pg.287).

I see Nova Bordelon as a courageous, free thinking trailblazer who practices free will, and not the confused soul that many see her as. She is a non-conformist who lives life on her own terms with no apologies. Does she have issues? Most certainly, but we all have them and if we're lucky, in time we will learn from them, grow from them, and find our balance as an end result. I can't wait to see how Nova's character takes her through her extraordinary life's journey, and what we can learn from her as a result of it.

See you all on the other side of the next episode of Queen Sugar! 😊

~Lisa A. Forrest~

Content updated on 7/4/17

References

Bonvillain, N., (2010). Gender. Cultural Anthropology. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Pic of Rutina Wesley/Nova Bordelon from Pinterest/pbs.twimg.com