Movie review - Chris Rock's "Good Hair."
The other night night we watched Chris Rock’s documentary “Good Hair.”
It was really good. It was complex. It raised a lot of issues.
Chris Rock has said that he made the movie because of and for his daughters, because even though they are very young - preschool aged - one or the other of them was concerned about whether she had good hair. There are some brief shots of him with his daughters, who are adorable, and he is completely shmoopy with them, which strikes a chord with me. I am hoping and praying that his relationship with his daughters will mitigate some of the misogyny he has shown in his previous work. I like Chris Rock and I think he is generally funny, but he has had a misogynist streak that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. (e.g. all the wife beating jokes from about 10 years ago.)
The movie gave a sweeping overview of hair care products for black people, from relaxer to weaves, the fact that it’s a multi-billion dollar industry, the fact that very few of the companies that make and distribute the products are black owned but most salons are, and just some of the craziness associated with black peoples’ hair, especially black womens’ hair. Like not getting caught in the rain, not touching it, and spending enormous amounts of money on it. Like the armies of Indian women who sacrifice their hair in an act of Hindu piety, and whose hair is later used to make $500 or $1000 weaves. A lot of the nuts and bolts of Hair Rules I already knew, because Lisa Jones gave me Cross Cultural Hair Education 101 when I was in 11th grade. I didn’t know how much weaves cost, though. It was weird for a man to cart around a rolling suitcase full of packaged hair, and note that it was worth $50,000.
Some of it was shocking. Like relaxer. I’ve known roughly what it was and what it was for since junior high. What I didn’t know? The primary ingredient of Classic Relaxer is Sodium hydroxide, AKA Lye. The same stuff that’s in oven cleaner. A chemist demonstrated what happens if you put it on a piece of chicken, what happens if you soak an aluminum soda can in it. Answer: it’s so caustic that it burns a deep hole in the chicken after an hour or so, and completely dissolves the soda can in about 4 hours. And people put this on their hair. Terrifying.
There is another perm solution chemical - ammonium thioglycolate. This is the chemical in perms that white people get, too. It straightens curly hair but curls straight hair. You can’t mix the Classic relaxer with this stuff, and the ammonium solution is not as toxic and not as harsh. However, it is still a harmful alkaline chemical that can burn the skin. Disposing of it is tricky - if it gets into water, it kills fish.
How crazy is it that we as a culture have decided that African hair is so ugly that it must be eradicated, altered, and transformed by smearing oven cleaner on the heads of women? There’s our white supremacist heritage rearing its ugly head again.
There’s an interesting scene towards the end of the movie where Chris Rock is talking with a group of female college students, one of whom has a natural hairstyle. And one young woman whose hair was processed in some way tells the young woman with the natural hair, “You look cute and all, but I wouldn’t hire you for a job because your hair looks out of control.” Or something to that effect. And you can see the poor girl’s psyche just deflate.
This was a pivotal scene for me because it underscores how much other women are enforcers of social control. This movie was about the hair issue, but similar scenes have played out all over the world, with one woman telling another that something about her is substandard and just doesn’t fit, thereby increasing her own status and making sure that the cultural norms are maintained. Here it was hair, in other contexts it’s weight, or clothing styles, or sexuality, or education, or athletic participation… the list goes on. Pretty much anything that a woman might want to do that breaks the socially prescribed mold - she might get negative feedback on it from the men in her life but the women in her life will do it more often, more directly, and under the guise of friendship, Even if it’s pressuring the woman to do something that is physically harmful, and not just something that kills her spirit. And that’s a hard thing to stand up to. A lot of women don’t learn to stand up to that until they are middle aged or until some irreparable harm has been done.
Overall, this movie made me profoundly sad, but it had a lot of funny bits. I do highly recommend it.
It was really good. It was complex. It raised a lot of issues.
Chris Rock has said that he made the movie because of and for his daughters, because even though they are very young - preschool aged - one or the other of them was concerned about whether she had good hair. There are some brief shots of him with his daughters, who are adorable, and he is completely shmoopy with them, which strikes a chord with me. I am hoping and praying that his relationship with his daughters will mitigate some of the misogyny he has shown in his previous work. I like Chris Rock and I think he is generally funny, but he has had a misogynist streak that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. (e.g. all the wife beating jokes from about 10 years ago.)
The movie gave a sweeping overview of hair care products for black people, from relaxer to weaves, the fact that it’s a multi-billion dollar industry, the fact that very few of the companies that make and distribute the products are black owned but most salons are, and just some of the craziness associated with black peoples’ hair, especially black womens’ hair. Like not getting caught in the rain, not touching it, and spending enormous amounts of money on it. Like the armies of Indian women who sacrifice their hair in an act of Hindu piety, and whose hair is later used to make $500 or $1000 weaves. A lot of the nuts and bolts of Hair Rules I already knew, because Lisa Jones gave me Cross Cultural Hair Education 101 when I was in 11th grade. I didn’t know how much weaves cost, though. It was weird for a man to cart around a rolling suitcase full of packaged hair, and note that it was worth $50,000.
Some of it was shocking. Like relaxer. I’ve known roughly what it was and what it was for since junior high. What I didn’t know? The primary ingredient of Classic Relaxer is Sodium hydroxide, AKA Lye. The same stuff that’s in oven cleaner. A chemist demonstrated what happens if you put it on a piece of chicken, what happens if you soak an aluminum soda can in it. Answer: it’s so caustic that it burns a deep hole in the chicken after an hour or so, and completely dissolves the soda can in about 4 hours. And people put this on their hair. Terrifying.
There is another perm solution chemical - ammonium thioglycolate. This is the chemical in perms that white people get, too. It straightens curly hair but curls straight hair. You can’t mix the Classic relaxer with this stuff, and the ammonium solution is not as toxic and not as harsh. However, it is still a harmful alkaline chemical that can burn the skin. Disposing of it is tricky - if it gets into water, it kills fish.
How crazy is it that we as a culture have decided that African hair is so ugly that it must be eradicated, altered, and transformed by smearing oven cleaner on the heads of women? There’s our white supremacist heritage rearing its ugly head again.
There’s an interesting scene towards the end of the movie where Chris Rock is talking with a group of female college students, one of whom has a natural hairstyle. And one young woman whose hair was processed in some way tells the young woman with the natural hair, “You look cute and all, but I wouldn’t hire you for a job because your hair looks out of control.” Or something to that effect. And you can see the poor girl’s psyche just deflate.
This was a pivotal scene for me because it underscores how much other women are enforcers of social control. This movie was about the hair issue, but similar scenes have played out all over the world, with one woman telling another that something about her is substandard and just doesn’t fit, thereby increasing her own status and making sure that the cultural norms are maintained. Here it was hair, in other contexts it’s weight, or clothing styles, or sexuality, or education, or athletic participation… the list goes on. Pretty much anything that a woman might want to do that breaks the socially prescribed mold - she might get negative feedback on it from the men in her life but the women in her life will do it more often, more directly, and under the guise of friendship, Even if it’s pressuring the woman to do something that is physically harmful, and not just something that kills her spirit. And that’s a hard thing to stand up to. A lot of women don’t learn to stand up to that until they are middle aged or until some irreparable harm has been done.
Overall, this movie made me profoundly sad, but it had a lot of funny bits. I do highly recommend it.