GOOD HAIR

A film by Chris Rock
Directed by: Jeff Stilson
Written by: Chris Rock, Jeff Stilson, Lance Crouther and Chuck Sklar
Release Date: 16 July 2010
Running Time: 95 minutes
Featuring: Chris Rock, Nia Long, Ice-T, Eve, Al Sharpton, Maya Angelou, Salt-N-Peppa, KRS-One, T-Pain

Taking a simple everyday observation and turning it into a few minutes of stand-up is hard to do. Taking a simple everyday observation, black women don’t like their hair for example, and turning it into an hour and a half worth of film is harder still. Luckily enough Chris Rock is incredibly gifted in the realm of turning the mundane into magic.

In GOOD HAIR, he travels across America and beyond to get a better understanding of the complex relationship African American women have with their hair. Apparently, African American women don’t like thick curly hair, and would prefer relaxed, straight, European hair. Rock wants to know where the fascination with straight hair comes from, and why there is such a big market for Afro-Carribeans who are unhappy with their afro.

This is a flat out documentary, but it always helps to have a narrative. Rock visits the Brenner Bros’ hair product convention, home to Hair Show Battle, where a number of hair stylists compete to see who can style hair in the flashiest fashion. Rock interviews four of the more outlandish contestants, following them from preparation right up to the show. You couldn’t write characters like these if you tried. You have the religious one, you have the cerebral one, you have the flashy one and you have Jason; a camp, blonde white dude who considers himself the Rosa Parks of hair dressing.

The show is just a rough pathway to follow though, and there are many diversions along the way in the form of floating head interviews and clips of Rock visiting locations involved in the industry. Theses clips are where Rock really shines, churning out off the cuff one-liners as he pokes workers in hair relaxant factory, prods Hollywood hairdressers and teases Indian men who sell the hair that India’s women shed in religious ceremonies.

The floating heads are all entertaining as the likes of Nia Long and Melyssa Ford attempt to justify the massive amounts of money they spend on sewing an Indian woman’s hair into their heads. Disaster stories from the likes of Salt-N-Peppa and tales of caution from men who have learned never to question a black women about her hair keep the laughs coming.

There are also some contributors who add a sense of gravitas to the piece. Respected poet, Maya Angelou is witty and charming in her delivery of more traditional values on black hair and Al Sharpton questions how some women can let their children go hungry while paying for hair relaxant and weaves. Moral questions are raised but the film avoids getting bogged down with them and maintains a humourous tone almost all of the way through.

The sense of humour is accompanied by a sense of heart. The film begins with Chris explaining how the question of what is or isn’t good hair was originally raised by his young daughter, who came in from playing and asked him why she didn’t have good hair. He knows that hair is going to be a big issue in his daughters’ lives and at every step of his journey he questions how the hair industry will affect them. He also throws in a few shots of home videos which bring home how personal this film is in the cutest possible fashion.

Chris Rock has always been able to find humour in the differences between white and black culture. Good Hair perfectly catches the positive aspects of black America – flamboyance, community, etc. The eruption of a discussion in the barber shop with ten mini-arguments and Chris just losing control of the situation is priceless. This documentary is jam packed with real life characters and every single one of them has an opinion.

Smart and funny and well worth a look.