I managed to see Good Hair on Friday. The wife and I were actually looking for Michael Moore’s latest, but apparently it’s no longer playing on any screens near us. But there was Good Hair, a documentary starring none other than Chris Rock, who in my estimation has always been a little more socially minded than most comics of his generation (if you haven’t seen it, you should track down CB4, a vicious harpooning of “gansta rap” that’s actually more relevant today than when it was made).
Good Hair is about the constant drive among African Americans and the media to straighten black hair, and why straight hair is referred to as “good” hair among blacks. It’s something I’ve always been curious about too, and Chris happened upon the subject (as we’re shown in the movie) when his 3 year old daughter asked him why she didn’t have good hair, being born with naturally nappy hair. It’s amazing to think that we just accept Black people with super-straight, long, flowing hair as natural when we watch music video divas and such and we forget that they weren’t born with hair like that.
Chris takes us into some sort of hair styling competition, a trade show for black hair products (a multi-billion dollar industry) and the inner workings of the industry (with a lot of the companies run happily by African Americans). He also goes to India where Indians shave their heads for religious ceremonies not knowing that their hair is worth millions and is turned into weaves sold in the U.S. (there’s one scene where an Indian man is lugging a suitcase full of $15,000 of hair around L.A., selling to salons). And there’s a hilarious scene where Chris is in a barber shop and asks the men there if not being able to touch a black woman’s hair (because black women straighten or wear weaves that are not to be touched) drives black men to white women. One dude gets up and shouts “Yes!” and makes this big speech while other men are trying to shush him up and a bunch of women start getting mad. The camera cuts to Chris and he starts laughing.
A lot of this film rides on Chris Rock’s capable shoulders. He’s a very easy going guy, not too aggressive, and he’s not out to make fun of people or make them feel bad. He’s just showing us this side of the African American experience and asking why we have to subject black girls (some as young as 3) to the painful process of straightening (a.k.a. relaxing) hair. There’s one scene where Chris gets a chemist to do some experiments with the chemical used in “relaxing” black hair. The chemist dips aluminum Pepsi cans (I’m sure Pepsi was happy with this) into vats of these chemicals, and they’re completely eaten through! Heck, one can actually turns transparent before crumbling (reminding me of the “transparent aluminum” from Star Trek IV, but I digress). They show the effects of the chemical if it’s left on the scalp for too long (too long being a minute or 2) and there are these thick scabs burned into peoples’ skin. And they put this on children to straighten their hair! Chris talks about why straight hair is glorified in society while kinky or nappy hair is seen as “not put together” and “neat” enough.
It’s odd to me, after seeing decades of African Americans screaming about certain things oppressing them like “black-face” or gansta’ rap portraying young black men as killers and the like, to see African Americans on the whole at total peace with seeing their own natural hair they were born with be politicized and perceived as “dirty” and running out and undergoing painful processes to achieve more “European” or “Asian” looking hair. And this is practically across the board. I never in this documentary see anyone express regret about that, nor did I see anyone try to come up with a solution, like maybe coming up with a new hairstyle involving natural African American hair. If anything, most of what’s talked about by the people Chris interviews is one subject: money. How much certain styles and weaves cost, how much the industry makes, how much company X makes, how much certain countries make off of America’s hunger for weaves, etc. In many ways, I think it’s good that Chris Rock made this film because I don’t think there had been any serious dialogue about this subject before this film came out.
Anyhow, this is an interesting documentary. Catch it when it comes out on DVD.
3/5
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-Deceptisean
Firestarter.
