the audience applauded

A Masterpiece!

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

Good Hair is a breezy, light hearted film regarding hair and the female black community presented by Chris Rock.Apparently Rock was inspired to make the film when his daughter asked him about his good hair which means hair that is not natural to black African American community. Its straightened using relaxant which is in fact dangerous chemicals that can cause burns if its left in the hair for too long. Then there are weaves, which is a wig sewn on to the hair.This is a multi billion dollar industry. A lot of the money does not end up in the black community even though some people pay outlandish prices for a good weave.Along the way Rock also talks to celebrities about having good hair including Maya Angelou, Ice T, Nia Long, Al Sharpton, Raven. I never really knew about relaxant until I saw Spike Lee's X when Denzel Washington was using it in the film and the movie never really gets to grip why men straighten their hair. Frankly to show that they have hair like white people.Its something Rock could had asked Reverend Sharpton who famously in the 1980s was caught by the press having his hair relaxed by expensive barbers and Sharpton instead of being embarrassed just told the press, come and see how a real man gets his hair done!The documentary is entertaining and diverting but lacked depth. Rock is genial and engaging.

I didn't quite get what and why this movie was made but it's clear that Chris Rock did it for a reason and after watching it, it was worth it.Just as you thought I knew it all, this movie came along. Being a documentary and a shocking one that is, who better to do it then Chris Rock.Seeing Chris Rock investigate and almost challenged by the trend of African American hair and it's culture and how it came about. Chris Rock fits the role (even for a documentary) perfectly.Believe it or not after watching the movie for fifty minutes into it, you'll find that Good Hair affects more then just the people but also the pop culture, lifestyle and people's finances affected by African American hair and by the end of it, you'll be sitting down almost amazed that such a massive culture exists as featured in this movie.Even thou the movie does clearly present what 'Good Hair' is about, it does feel a bit like a tidbit or accessory to watch but it's good enough to recommend.

Saw this a little over a week ago and it is still kicking around in my consciousness. Chris Rock has made a very strong critique about how black people live. Quite a bit of it is discomforting, dealing with the lengths black folk we'll go to achieve a certain beauty standard. The entire segment on chemical relaxers should make anyone think long and hard as to what that product does to the body and brain cells of young children. Chris Rock the documentarian is not the peer of Chris Rock the comedian and that comes through often in the bluntness and heavy-handedness of his presentation of the subject matter. The negative reviews I've encountered seem to try to deflect potential audiences from the truth that Mr. Rock is getting at. Some white people are going to be uncomfortable with this many will likely be bored. They may likely say that its a black folk issue but the more perceptive ones will realize that western culture beauty bias is at the root of this situation. The whole segment on hair weaving and extension which points at Central Asia and the Far East as gaining a powerful hold over black female hair culture is arresting. Interspersed throughout the film are Q&A's with Rock's Hollywood colleagues. Some blithely give answers that border on profound self-contempt and others get the point of question's secret agenda and attempt to deflect its full intent. Even Rev.Al Sharpton does this. The film comes to a close after the big Bonner Bros. expo. It acknowledges that because of black people's(particularly the female)traditional position in wester culture that that it has been a massive strain unlike their white female counterparts to feel good and beautiful in their own skin and hair. When that occurs so often those negative feelings spread because not only does misery loves company, misery will create company. I think Chris answered his daughter's question but it will be sometime before she's ready to accept it fully.

I enjoyed the movie Good Hair, because I felt it raised all of the issues regarding the African-American community and the thought process behind "good hair". This movie wasn't a preachy movie and introduced many concepts in a very subtle way ( the psyche of good hair, media images of black hair and acceptance/rejection of black hair in its natural state (the scene with high school girls, who tell the one girl with natural hair, she wouldn't be hired for a job and that she didn't look "together" was jarring.I felt the film did a good job of covering who controls the economics behind black hair (hardly any blacks, mainly whites and Asians) and the staggering amount of revenue ($9 billion annually) in the industry, generated by people who own less than a percent of the industry. The film looked at everyday people who get weaves, and pay serious money (the lay-away plan was sad, funny, and ingenious at the same time) and the reason they feel weaves are necessary. Calling relaxers "creamy crack"was funny and alarming at the same time. The health risks, the thought of lye and the discussion of scalp burns was right on target. The message regarding the impact of celebrity in our culture is so deep, that every day women will spend beyond their means to look like a Beyonce or Rhianna, though they don't have either of these women's financial means. The idea that straight "white" looking hair is equated with beauty and self worth was a undercurrent theme in this movie.The male point of view is represented by the rich and famous (Andre Harrell, Paul Mooney) and the barbershop. No matter what a black man's economic status is, they all were catching the same type of hell regarding not being able to touch a woman's weaved head. Rev. Al Sharpton was the exception to this dilemma, but didn't mention the limitations of having relaxed hair. Yet he did point out hair shouldn't sabotage a black woman's economic situation, but often does. Money spent on a weave could be spend on education or a 401K plan instead. Black men also feel the economic pinch the weave provides, because they often have to provide money for weave upkeep and to keep their relationship.The limitations of having a weave (no swimming, no touching the hair, can also be examined in the movie "Something New" which is also an examination of the weave culture in addition to interracial relationships between black women and white men. The question was posed do some black men deal with white women exclusively, because they can go swimming, and have their hair touched, opened up another can of worms. This movie can't explore all of the psyche behind the phrase "good hair" but does a good job of opening up the conversation.One thing the movie does is make the audience look at the children who looked too young to be putting chemicals in their tender scalps,and who seemed to be indoctrinated with the message that their hair needed to be straight in order for them to be considered pretty. That was just sad, because the people sending them those messages were their own mothers,grandmothers, and society at large. As a black woman with relaxed hair, I really have to think about the ideology, society, and the culture that has influenced the choice I've made regarding the hair choice I am making. These women are making a choice, but if they knew of the insidious nature that feeds the beast, would they or I consider a different reality, which is our natural hair?