Last night I went to watch Chris Rock's documentary Good Hair. Mr Special joined me. This film has apparently been banned in the US because people stopped going to get relaxers and hair salons were loosing cash.
It was showing at Ritzy in Brixton and afterwards Chris was there for a quick question an answer session. Its been out for a couple of years now but it was the first time I have seen it.
At first, like many, I thought that Chris being a comedian was going to be making fun of black woman but it wasn’t that at all. Sorry for those of you who know but the documentary was made because his daughter came home one day and asked him "Daddy why don’t I have good hair?" So he decided to investigate the whole good hair/bad hair thing. He visited India where the hair is shaved off at the temple to be made into weave on hair. He visited salons where people some people were spending $1,000 on weaves! He visited the Atlanta hair show. he had a session with a scientist which showed you what Sodium Hydroxide (Relaxer) does do your scalp. (The way it burned through that chicken it was scary!) I think it was really an overview but what I did like is he didn’t take sides or alienate anyone.
It did put me off relaxer especially in the Q&A session afterwards when he talked about the scenes he took out. There was one with a coroner where they examined the scalps of black women and found that a black women's scalp who has been using relaxer for years is something crazy like 60% thinner than a white woman's. I cant remember the correct figure but I know that this stuff is eating away at your head and seeping though to your brain!
I felt sad as well when I saw girls as young as three getting this stuff put on their heads. Chris said in the Q&A that to him his daughters are perfect he wouldn’t want to change anything so he also felt sad when he was filming those scenes.
It was informative but I did feel he skimmed the surface on many of the issues especially when talking about exactly how much these hairstyles are costing us as a community. Has anyone else seen it??
Oh yeah, there were a few white people in the audience and in the Q&A a long haired white guy stood up to ask a question. Before he asked it he stupidly pointed to his head and said to everyone "GOOD HAIR!" As you can imagine I was afraid for him! The boos were loud and not good natured! Idiot man.
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