Good Hair (2009)

  I don't remember why I added this to my queue.  I think it got nominated for a Golden Globe, maybe.  Doesn't matter.

One of Chris Rock's little girls asked him why she didn't have "good hair" so he decided to explore exactly what that meant and discovered along the way some deeply disturbing things.  Like how 90% of the products intended for an African American consumer base are owned by either Asian or white companies.  Or how the human hair for weaves is gathered from religious ceremonies in India, depriving desperately poor women of a chance at additional income.  Most of them have no idea that the hair they donated in penance or reverence is being collected and sold to expensive salons in Beverly Hills.  Worse still is the message being told to black girls at increasingly young ages:  you're not good enough as you are.  Better sew someone else's hair onto yours.  No one's going to want you if you don't conform to Western or European standards of beauty, no matter if the chemicals involved to turn your curly hair straight will also eat through your skin.

As someone with naturally stick straight hair, I cannot tell you of the amount of envy I had for people with curly hair.  We all want something different than what we have, I think.  And that's okay.  There are hundreds of products out there from shampoos to perms (which will also cause chemical burns) to make you look exactly the way you want to look.  If you want.  I don't think anyone should be pressured to look a certain way.  Your hair is good hair.  Red, brown, blonde, curly, straight, spiked, slicked, teased, or dyed.  Whatever hair you have is good hair.

As a documentary, I thought this meandered a bit more than I would have liked, especially the footage of the annual Bronner Brothers hair show in Atlanta.  There was a lot of comedy to be mined from it but it detracted from the more pertinent issues.