Django APIClient.post sends data in list which has issues when you use pop

So I already have a working api endpoint for creating my model.

If I use Postman by sending it this data in the body. Everything works fine

{
    "field1": "test",
    "field2":"test",
    "field3":"test"
}

But if I try to create a test for it by doing this:

new_data = {
        "field1": "test",
        "field2":"test",
        "field3":"test"
     }
resp = self.client.post(reverse('item_rest-list'), data=new_data)

And in my create function in view I pop some fields like so:

def create(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
     field1 = request.data.pop('field1', None)

field1 becomes a list because request.data value is like this:

{
    "field1": [u"test"],
    "field2":[u"test"],
    "field3":[u"test"]
}

If I do a .get rather than .pop i get it as a string but I need to remove it from the parameters because of some business logic.

field1 = request.data.get('field1')

Is there a way to make test not convert it to test?

so to summarize. request.data value if coming from Postman is this:

{
    "field1": "test",
    "field2":"test",
    "field3":"test"
}

but if coming from self.client.post, its like this

{
    "field1": [u"test"],
    "field2":[u"test"],
    "field3":[u"test"]
}