Good Hair

This breezy documentary explored the black female hair industry, which turns out to be crazily huge, because so many black women want hair very different from what grows out of their head. Of course, white women are often dissatisfied with their hair too, but not, it seems, to this extent.

It's an interesting look at the world of black womens' hair. I never really thought much about it, but apparently when you see a black girl with straight hair you are looking at an elaborate, expensive process and possibly some Indian girl's hair sewn on.

It's also interesting to see a "hair show" where hair stylists have these crazy elaborate, very entertaining demos of their skills. That looks like fun.

Rock is amusing and entertaining as he tells us how it is forbidden to touch a black girl's hair and goes to the barbershop to learn how men feel about it all.

And that's all good as far as it goes. But I felt the documentary fell short of really exploring the topic. It beings with Rock talking about how his young daughter asks why she doesn't have "good hair." This means, basically, non-black hair. While the documentary explores the lengths women go to in order to get this non-black hair, there is virtually no discussion of those black women who stick with the hair they've got. There's only one girl with an afro in the movie, and she's there so her friends can talk about how awful they think her hair is.

I like natural black-girl hair. I think it can look really cool. But the movie never talks about that. The movie doesn't discuss the 60s, when young black men and women were making a political decision to not process their hair. The movie shows the world of black hair care as being a bit insane, but it doesn't really show an alternative.

I suspect Rock was flummoxed by his daughter's question in part because he agrees with her. He can say he wants her to be happy the way she is, but his wife has her hair heavily processed, and that is probably what he likes. So he can't really just tell his daughter, your hair is awesome.

I can tell her that, though. Maybe it's because I'm white and grew up among white people with white hair and find afros interesting because they seem unusual to me, but for whatever reason, I really like that afro look (sometimes; hair always varies from person to person).

(Apparently there is a similar movie called "My Nappy Roots" that presumably would get into more of this. The director sued this movie saying Rock had ripped off her ideas. There are more examples of black women with natural hair in the minute-and-a-half trailer for that movie than in all of "Good Hair.")

While this is not the greatest movie ever or even the last word about (mainly) black women's hair, it's well worth seeing, and strikes a nice balance between being entertaining and informative. Chris Rock is basically learning as he goes, and he sort of functions as a surrogate for us viewers. It's definitely an Obama-era movie: whenever it starts to get critical, it backs off a little and is careful not to offend any group. His style of questioning can be a bit cheeky but he's always engaging. The film keeps focus on the creative/fashion side, rightly so, I think. If you're up for something different, interesting but certainly not heavy, I recommend it.

I was expecting a crass and superficial documentary. I didn't get that. But I also didn't get a documentary that had much substance.

Inspired by a question his daughter posed to him one day, one of the themes of Rock's film is to highlight the absurdities and contradictions associated with the multi-billion dollar beauty industry that concerns itself with making African American women's hairs look more 'natural' and 'relaxed.' This component of the film was conveyed by the excesses portrayed in Rock's salon interviews and the hair-dresser competition (that had less to do with hair and more to do with…everything else). Rock approaches the subject matter seemingly with a degree of 'innocence' not unlike the disposition of his daughter's inquiry. He interjects comical observations into his interviews to highlight the ways in which a visible and highly racialized 'beauty norm' circulates the American cultural landscape to cultivate the desire for African American women to look 'a certain way.' But while this component of the documentary is interesting (and often entertaining), it is severely inadequate and fails to provide his daughter with a thoughtful and satisfactory answer to her question.

First, the "9 billion dollar hair trade industry" is far more exploitative than as portrayed in the film. In fact, the film actually makes invisible a whole network of people involved in the 'hair trade', in particular those involved in processing the hairs to be used as weaves and wigs. The is an illicit component of the 'hair trade' steep in child labour and sweatshop labour that flies in the face of Al Sharpton's "do whatever you feel like as long as you are not hurting anyone..." liberal rhetoric. That it came out of the mouth of a self-proclaimed 'civil rights activist' is all the more ironic.

Second, the documentary fails to ask why 'long relaxed hair' is a beauty norm even in African American culture (as well as other African 'diaspora' communities). Why do so many African American women feel the need to 'de-naturalize' their hair at such extravagant financial expense and associated health risks? This omission in the film has been subject to a significant number of criticisms, and rightly so, considering it is at the heart of the question posed by Rock's daughter (that we are told, was the inspiration for the film). It is not as if Rock had to do the research from the ground up since there is already a lengthy and extensive list of materials addressing this topic in film and in print--contrary to a number of reviewers who have suggested that this topic has not been discussed before.

What is particularly surprising is how ignorant most of the reviewers here seem to be about this topic (compared to most of the 'professional' film critics I read, who seem to be more educated about it). I can understand if they are actually from countries that do not have a sizable population of African descent. But if you are an American (and especially if you are an African-American) and you never gave a thought about this topic until you saw this film? You'd rank 9 on the scale of ignorance, right behind Miss Teen South Carolina and her "some people in our nation don't have maps" spectacle.

Fascinating exploration of the topic, I learned a lot.

Made me think about what I put on my hair when I relax it and reminded me what beauty standards I adhere to and the racial issues around expecting everyone to have the same kind of straight hair.

Touches on the further complication of being expected to be more like another race, in order to be "beautiful". I never even thought about the fact that these women are buying hair from women in India (who don't even know their hair is being sold sometimes) in order to wear it on their heads in order to look "less black". Some people even ironically called it a more "natural" look. I was really sad to see that only 1 woman defending actual "natural" unrelaxed/no weave hair. And even sadder to hear a group of African-American women say they would not take another woman seriously on a job interview if she had 'nappy hair' - that "nappy" hair with a suit is a contradiction!

I'd have liked more historical context (less focus on the contest). Especially as they lamented that the industry was not run by African Americans, I was a little surprised there was no mention of Madam Walker's (first self made female millionaire) relaxers but I guess he was focusing on current day issues, not the history of hair products for African hair.

My only real complaint is that I wish he'd kept the focus on women.

There was too much sexism & judgement from the men. It's very easy for them to judge when they're not req'd to maintain their own hair. They can just go bald or very short. If they were required (for the sake of good looks) to have long hair, I'm sure they would do the same thing. And the assumptions that the men are paying for women's hair maintenance was annoying. The hypocrisy of expecting women to maintain this hair but complain about the price and that it couldn't be wet or touched was a bit annoying. And Ice-T just reminded me why he's a douche, still thinking like a pimp. And the music executive with the goat hair looking goatee points & some serious sexist comments just came off as a huge loser.

"Good Hair" manages to both entertain and educate. As someone who has little interest in the culture of hair care among African Americans, I was intrigued by this film because it was written, narrated and executive produced by Chris Rock, a very intelligent, perceptive, and entertaining comedian. In addition, it examines the cultural aspects of the care and treatment of hair among black women as well as its importance as a mark of beauty. Black women endure the potential of physical injury from the chemicals used to straighten their hair, hours upon hours of treatment in order to achieve the precise look they desire, and costs well into the thousands—yes thousands—of dollars to purchase a weave. I was particularly fascinated by the bi-annual competition among hairdressers that take place at the industry trade shows—a combination of skill, spectacle, and outlandish creativity, these competitions must be seen to be believed.