Good Hair (2009, PG-13)

I caught this documentary a while back and found it very interesting, if a little overstuffed. While it at times feels like it’s telling two separate but interrelated stories, it’s an excellent dive into the complex politics of Black hair.

Chris Rock takes us into the high-stakes world of the annual Bonners Brothers’ hair convention and its tentpole feature, a splashy competition between stylists vying for the top prize. In between showing us the ins and outs of the convention and meeting several of the competition hopefuls, we explore a plethora of topics related to Black hair: salons, relaxers, weaves, braids, hair discrimination and more.

While the stuff on the convention is interesting and entertaining (oh man, the one white dude who was in it to win it,) for me, it feels like a separate documentary to everything else that’s packed in here. The convention scenes are “go inside the niche world of this huge event that’s practically life-and-death to the people who are into it, but most folks probably don’t realize it exists,” which is of course a perfectly-valid documentary premise. But I find everything else so much more engrossing that the conventions scenes take me out of it a bit.

Because Rock breaks down hair from just about every angle you can think of. Much of the focus is understandably on women’s hair, and Rock states in the film that he wanted to make it because he’s a man with two Black daughters, but we look into some men’s perspectives as well, with a brief history on Jheri curls, Al Sharpton’s signature look, and interviews with guys in barber shops. But while the subject of Black hair is fraught, it’s often much more charged for Black women, and so that’s where we spend a lot of our time.

The film is an excellent primer on a variety of hair-related topics. What does relaxer actually do to a person’s hair (or their skin, when it comes in contact with the chemicals,) and how does society’s bias for Eurocentric beauty standards drive people to put girls as young as 2 or 3 through these harsh hair treatments? Where does the hair for extensions come from, what does putting in a weave do to someone’s natural hair, and how much does it cost Black women to achieve the smooth, sleek “good hair” they’re told is necessary? Why does society scorn Black women for their natural hair and then mock them for the immense time, effort, and expense they put into maintaining Eurocentric beauty standards?

It’s a complex issue with a ton of different threads involved, and Rock does a nice job of guiding us through its many facets. He takes us from the neighborhood salon to the convention floor and all the way to India and back, creating a film that I’m sure makes a lot of Black people, especially women, feel very seen and educates a lot of non-Black people on numerous ways Black hair has been politicized, denigrated, commodified, and regulated throughout American history and up through today.

Warnings

Language (including the N-word,) sexual references, and thematic elements.