“Good Hair” Sparks Controversy

We shouldn’t laugh at black women’s hair, we should be proud of it!

He made this film for the black community to laugh at themselves, to take something painful and twist it into humor, because that is what he does. White people may find bits of the movie funny but the majority of white America will be expecting something extremely different and will avoid the film. I hope the film does well but I would be surprised if it did. Humor is a touchy thing and it seems many people are not yet ready to take something personal and laugh at it just yet. Hopefully the people who are most against this film will give it a chance and will come to terms with their anger towards Chris Rock, but odds are they won’t. What I find incredibly funny is that black women are saying that they shouldn’t be ashamed of their hair, but at the same time, we shouldn’t be talking about it. Is this a form of their insecurities coming to fruition? Are they afraid that by Americans laughing at their hair stories, it will devalue them? If so, they could be right. It’s a tough line to draw but since Chris Rocks goal was to answer the question ”Who told my daughter that she had bad hair?”, I doubt it will be. He is doing this out of love.

We shouldn’t have to explain how our hair is different!

I agree. It’d be nice if white people did their own investigations and learned through other means but that simply isn’t going to happen. This film was not made for white people to learn, it is not an instructional video, but it is a chance for white people to see unfiltered blackness talking about the way black people look and where their insecurities lie. Talking about hairstyles is a way of talking about history, identity, culture and beauty and white people will learn far more from hearing Chris Rock talk about hair styles than they would through casual interactions with the black community.

This shouldn’t be politicized.

Quoting from WomanistMusings.com:

“Hair is political because Black female bodies are devalued.  It is said that hair is a woman’s crowning beauty and in a world where Whiteness is held up at epitome of beauty, where does this leave Black women?” The politicizing of black hair is and will always be a matter of life. Black women are constantly devalued especially based on the way they look. Even in pornography, blackness is a deemed a fetish for white folks, called Ebony. In every aspect of life, black women are judged twice, once as a black person and once as a woman. If they do not adhere to the white idea of beauty, they are deemed unattractive women and because white people associate natural black hair with Africa rather than African American, natural black hair seems savage and untamed to white people. This is ignorance on the part of white people, of course.  White people simply don’t know what goes into straightening hair, weaves etc to help adhere to whites ideal of attractiveness. The flat out truth of the mater is, because white people don’t struggle with the same problem, we’re entirely ignorant that the problem even exists.

I’d really like to see this film. I’d really like it if more white people were interested in this film because I believe it is an oppertunity for us to really learn something we would otherwise remain ignorant of.

I dated a black woman a few years black and I learned a great deal about her hair and her issues with hair and beauty and I assure you that knowledge will make my writing better.

This film looks like an honest, open and personal story and that is what makes a film good.