Movie Review: Chris Rock's "Good Hair" Takes on Serious Black Hair Care Topics

Chris Rock is a comedian, but his film "Good Hair" wasn't nearly as funny as I thought it would be. And as much as I love him for bringing hysterical jokes to the public, Chris Rock also has a habit of making jokes that are based on the truth-and sometimes it's the ugly truth-history, politics, the use of the word "nigga," misogynistic lyrics in hip hop, the difference between black people and "niggers," dating, relationships and now he's decided to concentrate on black women and their hair. And he did an outstanding job in his research with one exception.

Chris Rock talks to celebrities like activist Al Sharpton; poet Dr. Maya Angelou; rappers Ice-T, Salt n' Pepa, KRS One and Eve; pop artist T-Pain; actresses Raven-Symoné, Nia Long, Meagan Good, Laura London and Sarah Jones; video dancer Melyssa Ford; producer Andre Harrell and more noteworthy people about their hair, other people's hair and men's opinions on hair.

There are funny moments like Nia Long talking about how women with a weave have to have sex on top in order to not mess up their hair while Andre Harrell talks about how men should "keep your hands on her titties" when having sex instead of fooling with her hair. Ice-T jokes about how hot perm can be when trying to get the hair straighter. And Sandra "Pepa" Denton laughs about the time when her hair fell out from a bad perm and Cheryl "Salt" James colored her bald spots in with brown coloring utensils.

But with the jokes come some interesting truths. Al Sharpton talks about his first time getting a perm after talking to James Brown about a meeting at the White House with former president Ronald Reagan in order to get Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. honored with a holiday. Ice-T mentions how pimps would tell him in his younger years that "the only way to have the upper hand on a woman...you have to be flyer than her." And Nia Long makes a dark joke about how taking a shower is more intimate than having sex and in order for her to do that, "you're my nigga for real." There were some groans and tongue clicks in the crowd when she used the word "nigga," but chances are, we all knew that she meant this guy must be pretty special, regardless of the term she used.

While some may regard the movie as airing out black women's dirty laundry about their hair self-esteem issues, others will learn from the movie. There were definitely parts of the hair care industry that I had no idea about, and I've had a perm since I was four or five years old and was in a beauty salon every other Saturday throughout my entire childhood and teenage years. Since I've never had any form of weave or wigs on my hair, up until I saw this film, I didn't know how the fake hair attached to the scalp. Even when a few family members would get weave put into their hair, it never interested me to find out how because I was always satisfied with my own head of hair from a few inches in length when I'd get feathered and stacked haircuts, and it's now currently over my shoulders. As I stated in the AC article, "The Controversy of Permed Hair, Are Black Women Selling Out?," I spend $100 total per year on hair products simply because I don't wear weave and went to the salons so much that I see no need to spend all that money when I can do my hair on my own.

It was strange and disappointing to me to find out women who really couldn't afford $1,000 weaves were traveling to different cities or putting hair on layaway. Vijay, a weave seller, trucked around $10,000 to $15,000 worth of hair from India to parts of California and the hair would be sold within a few hours. When Chris Rock tried to sell African hair, Asian hair store owners frowned at the thickness. One black worker went so far as to say, "nobody walks around with nappy hair anymore."

And this is when I felt "Good Hair" fell off. In the October 8-14, 2009 issue of N'Digo newspaper, Chris Rock was asked about why the segments on black women who wore dreadlocks were cut out, and he responded by saying, "...they weren't really interesting....One woman is putting beeswax in her hair and the other is putting nuclear waste in her hair. Which movie do you want to see?!"

My answer: both. There was a long and dull part of the movie about botox and a hair show that concentrated more on entertainment from bands, barely dressed dancers in a bed and how to hang upside down to cut hair, and that didn't do much for the film besides say, "Look. We have hair shows." I really wanted to hear from black women talking about why they decided to wear dreadlocks, natural hairstyles, get rid of the perm and talk about how their natural hair is "good hair" too. I thought natural hair segments were especially important when listening to the embarrassing opinions of a few sistas who, right in front of their friend with an afro, said they wouldn't be able to take a black women with her natural hair seriously during a job interview.

Chris Rock went to a lab and talked to a scientist who talked about the danger of perm. A pop can left in sodium hydroxide (also in perm) disintegrated about three-fourths of the can. The other two pop cans' lettering was removed and the cans turned from silver to white when left in sodium hydroxide for one and two hours. The problem with this analogy is anybody who knows how to correctly perm hair never leaves the perm on for more than 15 minutes. Twenty minutes is stretching it, but in 27 years of which 20 were in beauty salons, I have never met a woman who left a perm on for hours, so that point was weak.

But Chris Rock traveling to Chennai in India was strong. A hair care seller Chris Rock interviewed stated that, "hair is worth more than gold" there. Women would have their heads shaved unknowingly while sitting in dark movie theaters, when they went to sleep and hundreds would "sacrifice" their hair for religious reasons. And while American black women are spending thousands on Indian hair, none of these women are getting any benefits. That's pitiful.

While there is whining going on in the U.S. about how Asians have taken over the black hair care market and Asian manufacturers are only selling to Asian beauty supply owners, that problem didn't seem like much of a problem either. Nobody is making these women buy fake hair; they're doing it voluntarily. Nobody is making these women not purchase black hair care products from black store owners online or visiting the neighborhoods where black hair care manufacturers are. If a woman can spend $1,000 on fake hair, she can pay to travel or pay for shipping with black hair care manufacturers. I had a black hair care store owner in my South Side Chicago neighborhood for about two decades-the store owners changed, but they were all black. I found it more criminal that Indian women weren't earning any money while Indian male hair sellers are making big bucks. Even the women who work in factories where the hair is separated and combed out to kill dead bugs are sitting on the floor, and the chairs where the sewing machines sit don't have proper chair backs. There was a heart-breaking scene with an Indian baby having her hair shaved, and even Chris Rock looked hurt watching that.

Minus the exclusion of natural hair, I thought this was a phenomenal movie. It made me take a step back and respect black women even more who don't buy into the long hair = good hair theory. Chris Rock's message at the end of "Good Hair" was positive and fair.

I'd give this movie 4 out of 5 stars.